1

REASON
ROMANTICISM
AND

REVOLUTION
V O LU M E O N E

M. N. ROY

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FIRST PUBLISHED : AUGUST 1952

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 PREFACE

THE cultural and moral crisis of modern civilisation is

compelling sensitive and thoughtful men throughout the
world to turn towards its humanist tradition. The movement
for a humanist revival grows stronger every day. It is being
increasingly realised that the baffling problems of our time
call for a sober rationalist approach. The restoration of moral
values in public life is the crying demand. There is no doubt
about the sincerity of the agonised cry for a better and
harmonious life on this earth. Yet, it seems to be a cry in the
wilderness.
The cause of this distressing experience is the negative
consequence of modern scepticism. The critical thought of the
nineteenth century challenged the pretension of the rounded-
up system of classical philosophy which claimed to have
discovered ultimate truth in the light of " right reason." The
rejection of a priori speculative philosophical system set
human spirit free from the bondage of the venerable belief
that the solution of all the problems of life could be deduced
from abstract first principles. But at the same time, it sowed
the seeds of the moral and cultural crisis of our time. The
baby was thrown out with the bath-water. With the rejection
of the metaphysical concept of " right reason ", rationalism
became meaningless; it was replaced by all sorts of mystic
urges, such as intuition, elan vital, entelechy, as the basic
guiding principle of life. If empiricism deposed reason from the
seat of the supreme judge, pragmatism subordinated moral
values to practical considerations.
This book is an attempt to rescue rationalism and ethics
from the devastating consequences of scepticism. In the light of
modern "scientific knowledge, it is discovered that man's
rationality is a biological property. Reason is not a metaphysical
category. Moral values are placed on a firm
foundation when they are referred back to the innate rationality
of man. They need no other sanction than conscience, which is
not the voice of God, but results from rationality. The discovery
of the physical basis of reason and the rationalist secular
sanction of morality frees Humanism from the mystic
connotation traditionally associated with it. The a priori systems
of speculative philosophy belong to the past. But a
comprehensive philosophy is indispensable to guide human life.
A rationalist social philosophy must be deduced from a scientific
interpretation of Humanism. On the basis of a humanist
interpretation of cultural history, this work endeavours to outline
a comprehensive philosophy which links up social and political
practice with a scientific metaphysics of rationality and ethics. TH
DEHRADUN,
August 15th, 1952. M. N. ROY
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
ONE INTRODUCTION ..1
TWO HUMAN NATURE .. 17
THREE THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE ..33
FOUR THE REVOLT OF MAN .. ..59
FIVE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS ..103
SIX THE NATURAL LAW ..132
SEVEN BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY ..161
EIGHT THE NEW SCIENCE ..197
NINE THE ENLIGHTENMENT .. ..224
TEN THE GREAT REVOLUTION—I ..254
ELEVEN THE GREAT REVOLUTION—II ..279

PUBLISHERS NOTE
The Index and Bibliography of the whole book will appear
at the end of the Second Volume.
 1

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
HEGEL said that the history of philosophy was the
history of the world. Having learned from him, Marx
corrected the master and declared that the history of
civilisation was the history of class struggle. A whole
century has passed since these apparently
contradictory doctrines of historiology were
expounded. The contradiction is apparent, because
both Hegel and Marx regarded history as an organic
evolutionary process of becoming unfolded by its
own dynamics. Because the contradiction is apparent,
even now the controversy is not settled, dispassionate
thinkers finding it difficult to choose one or the other
view.
Michelet advanced yet another dynamic doctrine of
historiology, a generation before Marx and
independent of Hegel, which seemed to combine the
two apparently conflicting views. Feeling dissatisfied
with the conventional views of history, the would-be
historian of the French Revolution searched for a new
method of writing history as a science. He hit upon
the idea that philology, the study of the origin of
languages, might yield a clue to the secret of the past
history of peoples. The philological approach to the
problems of historiology led Michelet to the
conclusion that history was mingled with philosophy.
In the introduction to his projected, but never
finished, Universal History, Michelet wrote in 1830:
“With the world began a war, which will end only
with the world: the war of man against nature, of
spirit against matter, of liberty against fatality.
History is nothing other than the record of this
interminable struggle.”
One hundred years before Michelet's effort to make a
new science of history, an obscure teacher of Roman
Law at
 2

2 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Naples, Giambattista Vico, had written a treatise on
the Principles of a New Science dealing with the Nature of
Nations, through which are shown also New Principles of
the Natural Law of Peoples. Michelet discovered a
kindred spirit in Vico—a pioneer who had blazed a
new trail of historical research. The central theme of
Vice's until then little known work is that humanity is
its own creation. Insisting upon the method that the
facts of known history must be referred back to their
primitive origin, in order to be properly appreciated,
Vico established what he called “this incontestable
truth: the social world is certainly the work of man.”
The corollary to this incontestable truth was “that one
can and should find its principles in the modifications
of human intelligence itself”.
Young Michelet writing “on the burning pavements
of Paris”, in the midst of the July Revolution of 1830,
was struck by Vico's anthropological, philological and
sociological approach to the problems of historical
research. He was, as he himself declared, “seized by a
frenzy caught from Vico, an incredible intoxication
with his great historical principles”. Michelet did not
live long enough to write his Universal History to
show how history and philosophy had been
intertwined through the ages. But he had the occasion
to proclaim that “all science is one: language,
literature, history, physics, mathematics and
philosophy; subjects which seem to be the most
remote from one another are in reality connected, or
rather they all form a single system”.
So, the organic view of history is not the result of
Marx putting his master on his feet. As a matter of
fact, Marx and Engels had read Michelet, and Vico's
ideas were also not unknown to them. On the other
hand, the “new science” born at Naples had reached
the German seats of learning through Leibniz, Wolff,
Herder, Lessing, Goethe and other scholars and
philosophers. Not only did Herder
 3

INTRODUCTION 3
know of Vico's work before he wrote his Ideas Towards
the Philosophy of the History of Mankind; Vico's
influence can be detected also in Hegel's philosophy
of history.
Vico, in his turn, had read Francis Bacon's work.
Unkind critics of the time thought that the Scienza
Nuova was a plagiarism of Novum Organum. That was,
of course, malicious; but it is a fact that Vico's work
was cast on the pattern of Bacon's researches. It was
from the latter that Vico admittedly got the idea of
applying to the study of human history the inductive
method which Bacon had recommended for the study
of natural history. Grotius had made a philological
study of history, of theology and philosophy, in order
to discover the universal laws of nations. Having
studied his works, Vico conceived of the possibility of
applying similar methods for discovering the general
laws of history. The dynamics of ideas can be traced
all the way back to the great thinkers of the remotest
antiquity.
Tracing the chain of thought in modern times, one
finds Savigny recognising a similarity between Vico's
doctrine of historical jurisprudence and his own. The
preface to Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of
history published in 1837 mentions Vico as one of the
three, the other two being Herder and Schlegel, who
had treated the subject previously. The first German
translation of Vico's Universal Law, published in 1884,
carried an introduction which pointed out the
similarity of Hegel's ideas with the doctrines of the
Italian historian expounded more than a hundred
years before. Moreover, it is quite possible that Hegel
felt Vico's influence through the intermediary of
Rousseau, who was at Venice when the finalised
version of Scienza Nuova was published there. Judging
from his Essay on the Origin of Languages, one can
assume that Rousseau had picked up from Vico the
idea of the philological approach as the clue to the
problems of the origin of society.
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4 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

“Marx and Engels seem to have taken from Vico,
perhaps in the first place through Michefet, but later
at first hand, the formula that' men make their own
history', from which their Historical Materialism was
developed.........
Historical Materialism, in this sense, went beyond
anything, directly asserted by Vico, but as it seemed
to his Marxist interpreters, in a direction in which he
himself had gone a long way.”1
Labriola was the first to give a systematic shape to the
Marxian materialist conception of history. In his
essays on the subject, he recognises Vico as the
forerunner of Marx. Later on, Paul Lafargue more
explicitly showed that the Marxist view of history
could be traced back to Vico through Lewis Morgan.
Early in his intellectual career, Marx himself had read
Vico. In 1861, he. expressed surprise at Lassalle's not
having read Scienza Nuova, and admired “its
philosophic conception of the spirit of the Roman
Law”. In a footnote to Capital, Vico is actually
mentioned as having said that “the essence of the
distinction between human history and natural
history is that the former is made by man and the
latter is not”. An exhaustive study of the works of
Vico led Sorel to the conclusion that “Vice's
ideogenetic laws anticipated the Marxist doctrine that
ideas are functions of the mode of production”.
Finally, Croce has revealed the Vicoean ancestry of
Marxism: “Marx and Sorel have brought to maturity
Vico's idea of the struggle of classes and the
rejuvenation of society by a return to a primitive state
of mind and new barbarism”.2
There is an unbroken chain of the evolution of ideas
which refuses to conform either with the Hegelian
doctrines of development through conflicts or the
Marxist dogma of
1 Introduction to the Autobiography of Giambattista
Vico; Translated by Max Harold Fisch and Thomas
Goddard Bergin; Cornell University Press, 1944.
2 Benedetto Croce, The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico.
 5

INTRODUCTION 5
economic determinism, although it does corroborate
Hegel's philosophy of history rather than that of
Marx. Vico learned from Bacon and Hobbes, but
expounded his new science of history as a critic of the
doctrine of Natural Law. On the other hand, he can
hardly be called an ideologist of the proletarian
revolution. He was a Catholic. “Humanity is its own
creation; but God alone is great;”—Vico could not get
away from such self-contradictory notions. Yet, he
did anticipate the Marxist interpretation of history,
which is explicitly anti-religious and atheistic.
Materialism is the essence of the Marxist system. But
it did not originate with Marx. It is as old as human
thought. The rationalism of the primitive man
subordinated him to the gods. Philosophy was born
of the earliest revolt against that original fall of man.
Ever since then, it has had a dynamics of its own.
In the last analysis, history is the record of man's
struggle for freedom. Social evolution is a
continuation of the biological evolution taking place
on a higher level, where the struggle for existence, to
be more effective, becomes co-operative and
collective. That is why history is an organic
evolutionary process.
Aristotle was the first to conceive history as a rational
evolutionary process. The organic conception of
history was taken over by the Stoics, who dominated
European thought until it came under the influence of
Christian theology as expounded by St. Augustin.
After a whole millennium of scholasticism, the
rationalist view of human progress was revived by
the men of the Renaissance. That was a demonstration
of rationalism and romanticism being two parallel
currents of thought which intermingled themselves to
make history. The romanticists of the Renaissance
themselves argued that “it was absurd to regard the
whole period from Constantin to Columbus as a mere
empty chasm separating
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6 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

two kindred ages of Enlightenment; on the contrary,
it was necessary to perceive beneath the surface of
things one continuous process slowly working itself
out in this and every age.”3
Historically speaking, there were two Aristotles: the
author of Metaphysic and Logic, claimed as the
philosophical authority of mediaeval Christian
theology; and the author of Politics and Ethics. The
latter was completely forgotten until the Arabs
resurrected him and introduced him to Europe, to be
taken over by the Renaissance Humanists. The
evolutionary view of human progress was thereafter
elaborated by a gallaxy of luminaries in the
firmament of the world of thought. Finally, Hegel
shaped it as the key to world history or the history of
civilisation. “He saw the whole process of the political
development of the human race as a gradual
realisation of the idea of freedom.”4 That evidently is
the common ground for Hegel's Idealism and
Marxian Materialism. Any hiatus in the evolution of
thought since the dawn of civilisation is only
imagined by those who claim to have sucked out of
their thumbs a whole philosophy of the future which
has no past. The history of thought is the key to the
history of civilisation, because it can be logically
reconstructed.
To keep some sort of record of the past in the form o£
legends and mythology has been a common practice
with all ancient peoples. But the writing of history did
not begin until the Greeks, with their remarkable
rational and secular approach to every problem of
human existence, appeared on the scene of antiquity.
The progressively triumphant, agelong struggle for
the spiritual emancipation of man began when in 585
B.C. an eclipse took place according to the prediction
of Thales. That epoch-making experience suggested
3 F. J. C. Hearnshaw, The Science of History.
4Ibid.
 7

INTRODUCTION 7
to the bold Ionian thinkers the idea that physical
phenomena were not brought about by the caprice of
countless gods. With the awakening of an insatiable
curiosity, they began to enquire into everything,
including the past of the human race. The Hegelian
view that philosophy is the clue to history, that
“history is philosophy teaching by example”
(Bolingbroke), originated with Thucydides, and was
expounded almost in its modern form by Dionysius
of Halicarnassus in the first century B.C. Philosophy
having inspired the writing of history, its history,
logically as well as empirically, provided the motive
force of the history of civilisation, which is, as
Michelet said, “the story of man's struggle against
nature, the war of liberty against fatality.”
During the thousand years when the secular spirit of
enquiry was overwhelmed by the Christian faith,
history naturally became a handmaid of theology. But
that also was a blessing in disguise. Patristic
historiography was the creator of the science of
history. The history of man, from his fall in the
Garden of Eden to his redemption, could not be
imagined except as an evolutionary process, a causal
chain of events. Even the dogma of predestination is
essentially a rational concept. After the miracle of
creation, nothing comes out of nothing; every step in
man's life, towards salvation or redemption, is
caused—indeed, by the will of God, but nonetheless
caused. That is a rational view, which Patristic
historians had to develop in order to fortify the
position of the Catholic Church. The Ecclesiastical
History of Eusebius, written early in the fourth
century, was the first attempt to write a history of
human society, since the ancient Greeks. St.
Augustin's Civitas Dei, written a century later, was a
landmark in world literature, not because of the effort
to rationalise the Nicean creed, but because inspite of
itself it was the first essay in the philosophy of
history.
 8

8 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Matter is indestructible; so are ideas. Thousand years
of almost impenetrable darkness could not extinguish
the fire of the spirit of enquiry kindled by the
founders of science and philosophy. Disowned by
Christian Europe, the inspiring tradition of man's
early struggle against nature was treasured by the
infidel Arabs, who eventually passed it on to the
natural heirs, so to say. Learning from the Greek
masters, particularly Aristotle, a succession of Arab
scholars from the tenth century onwards, occupied
themselves with the science of history. The
culmination was Ibn Khaldun's Universal History,
written at the close of the fourteenth century. It was
such a profound treatise on the philosophy of history
that Ibn Khaldun has been called “the founder of the
science of history”.5 The Arabic culture, inspired by
the secular and rational spirit of the ancient Greek
philosophers, reached Europe through the
Universities of Spain and Italy. Its contribution to the
European Renaissance was incalculable. With the
humanist revival of secularised history, a cycle of the
dynamics of ideas was completed. Embodying the
precious heritage of the past, stretching out to the
remotest antiquity, Vico indicated the future
development. The philosophy of history;and the
history of philosophy mingled in his work. Therefore
Vico was hailed by Michelet as his master, and
Michelet harmonised the apparently contradictory
Hegelian and Marxian views of history.
Vico spoke of “two histories—of languages and of
things”. By things he evidently meant human acts—
social and political. If events were given a wider
connotation, history would have to include at least
geology. Vico suggested that philology should be
considered as a part of history. That was a great idea,
which revealed the intimate connection between
history and philosophy. Because, philo-
5 Robert Flint, History of the Philosophy of History.
 9

INTRODUCTION 9
logy is also a part of philosophy. The earlier stages of
the history of philosophy merge into the history of
language. The method of the science of history is
criticism, as observation and experiment are the
methods of the physical sciences. The past is to be
studied for a rational explanation of the present. The
discovery of a rational connection between the past
and the present of the human race shows off history
as an evolutionary process. Consequently, it becomes
possible to deduce some general laws governing
historical events.
But the past is not there for the historian to study.
There are only records. They are of two kinds—
physical (implements, ruins of buildings, relics of art
and crafts, etc.) and written documents, which can be
called mental or spiritual records. The latter are of the
primary importance, because only with their help can
the significance of the physical records be fully
appreciated. Philology is the instrument for
reconstructing a universal history of the past on the
basis of a criticism of written records. History of
languages thus is a part of the science of history. On
the other hand, words originate in course of the
process of biological evolution to serve as vehicles for
the expression and communication of primitive
emotions and ideas. Languages develop to serve the
purpose of coordinating disjointed ideas and
emotions. So, the history of languages is the early
history of the evolution of thought—the history of
primitive philosophy. Since without the aid of
philology no history could be written, to that extent,
Hegel was right in saying that the history of
philosophy was the history of civilisation. Most
probably, he got the idea from Vico's doctrine of two
histories. The fact, however, is that by a critical study
of the records of the past, history discovers the
hidden springs of human action. So, the past can be
reconstructed more accurately as the history of
thought. If Hegel's dictum is stated in Croce's
words—”all true historians are willy-nilly
 10

10 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

philosophers”—then it can be appreciated as
containing the generally acceptable truth about
history.
The materialist conception of history, to identify the
history of civilisation with the history of class
struggle, loses all sense if intelligence is accorded no
place in the process of social evolution. In that case,
Marxism as a philosophy of action will have no leg to
stand on, and revolutions will be impossible. They are
historically necessary, but they are also made by men
moved by the idea of revolution. However, it is
palpably absurd to regard history as a succession of
events brought about by the automatic development
of the means of production. The man cannot be
eliminated from the evolutionary process of history.
Social forces are not meta-physical categories; they
are the collective expression of the creativeness of
man, and the creative man is always a thinking man.
Economic determinism in social evolution and
cultural history does not necessarily follow from
Materialism. The one is a philosophy, while the other
is only a method of interpreting history.
Philosophically, Materialism must concede objective
reality to ideas. It can claim absoluteness only in
epistemology. History, particularly cultural history, is
also ideologically determined. Therefore, it is an error
to conceive Historical Determinism as purely
economic. History is determined, but there are more
than one determining factor. Moreover, Determinism
is a logical concept. It is inherent in a determined
process; no extraneous factor intervenes; because, in
that case, the process becomes dualistic, while
Monism is inherent in the logical concept of
Determinism. Materialism is the only logically perfect
philosophy, because it alone makes Monism possible.
Therefore, Determinism is inherent in Materialism.
But economic Determinism, being a dualist concept,
cannot be necessarily related to Materialism.
 11

INTRODUCTION 11
Philosophically, the materialist conception of history
must recognise the creative role of intelligence.
Materialism cannot deny the objective reality of ideas.
They are not sui generis; they are biologically
determined; priority belongs to the physical being, to
matter, if the old-fashioned term may still be used.
But once the biologically determined process of
ideation is complete, ideas are formed, they continue
to have an autonomous existence, an evolutionary
process of their own, which runs parallel to the
physical process of social evolution. The two parallel
processes, ideal and physical, compose history. Both
are determined by their respective logic or dynamics
or dialectics. At the same time, they are mutually
influenced, the one by the other. That is how history
becomes an organic process. If the present can be
convincingly explained by a more rational
understanding of the past, then it will be evident that
only a synthesis of Idealism and Materialism, more
correctly speaking, a dispassionate and
comprehensive appreciation of the entire heritage of
human thought, can be the only philosophy of the
future. Such a non-partisan philosophy will throw a
flood of light on the thick gloom which to-day hangs
on the horizon, and blaze new trails for humanity, out
of the present impasse.
To put the proposition more precisely, what is needed
is a restatement of Materialism so as to recognise
explicitly the decisive importance of the dynamics of
ideas in all the processes of human evolution—
historical, social, political and cultural.
Epistemologically, Idealism stands rejected. The old
problem of perception, which baffled philosophy for
ages, has been solved by modern Materialism with
the aid of the latest knowledge of physiology. The
gulf between physics and psychology thus is no
longer unbridgeable, A bridge is thrown across by
merging psychology into physiology. All components
of the most highly developed
 12

12 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

organism can be reduced to carbon compounds which
are physico-chemical substances. Vitalism cannot
introduce a mysterious metaphysical factor, such as
Bergson's elan vital or Driesch's entelechy, into the
process of biological evolution, without leaving the
ground of experimental science. In so far as Idealism
takes philosophy beyond the radius of experience,
and invokes super-sensual categories, it is hardly
distinguishable from religion. As such, it is of no use
for man in the quest for freedom. It is long since
Plato's Uni-versals have been relegated to the realm of
poetry. Honest and consistent idealist philosophy has
had little to add to the ancient Sage. Modern Idealism
since Descartes could never get out of the vicious
circle of dualism, which stulti-fies philosophy because
it leads to religion. Notwithstanding his
transcendentalism, Kant was more of a materialist
than usually perceived. The monist Idealism of
Spinoza and Hegel was inverted Materialism.
In so far as it claims nothing more than that ideas
have an independent history of their own, that the
history of philosophy is the master-key to the
problem of reconstructing the history of the race,
from the dawn of civilisation, Idealism flows into
Materialism, the two together providing a
comprehensive explanation of the past and present,
and a rational guide for mankind exploring the still
unknown depths of the future.
“Quick transitions to new types of civilisation are
only possible when thought has run ahead of
realisation. The vigour of the race then pushes
forward into the adventure of imagination. The world
dreams of things to come, then, in due season,
arouses itself to their realisation. Given the vigour of
adventure, sooner or later, the leap of imagination
reaches beyond the safe limits of the epoch, and
beyond the sale limits of the learned rules of taste. It
then produces
 13

INTRODUCTION 13
the dislocation and confusion marking the advent of
new ideals for civilised efforts.”6
No sensible materialist would find any difficulty in
sharing this view of a front rank idealist philosopher
of our time. There is no other way to explain how
great revolutions take place in history. History is
made more by the brain of man than by his brawn.
Without recognising ideas as the driving force of
history, the materialist conception of history becomes
a very superficial doctrine, and historical determinism
a fallacious proposition. The view that social
evolution and even cultural history are determined
entirely by the operation of economic forces cannot be
logically deduced from Materialism nor can it be
empirically verified. Even in the narrow sense of a
social philosophy, Marxism is not identical with
economic determinism. The social, political and
cultural history is determined, because nature is a
cosmos—a law-governed rational system. But just as
in nature, there are more than one determining factor
in history. Human intelligence is one of them.
Cultural history, particularly, is ideally determined to
a very large extent.
The materialist conception of history fails when it
dismisses ideal systems (ideologies) as mere
superstructures of economic relations, and tries to
relate them directly with the material conditions of
life. The logical development of ideas and the
generation of new social forces take place
simultaneously, together providing the motive force
of history. But in no given period can they be causally
connected except in the sense that action is always
motivated by ideas. A new idea must be referred back
to an old idea. Philosophy has a history of its own,
and it is not a kaleidoscope of phantoms. Inasmuch as
action is motivated by ideas, determinism in
6 A. N. Whitehead, Adventure of Ideas.
 14

14 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

history is primarily ideal. Historical Determinism
comes to grief whenever its exponents take a
superficial, one-sided view, ignoring the dynamics of
ideas.
From time to time, the march of history is, obstructed
by the requirements of the established social order,
which sets a limit to human creativeness, mental as
well as physical. The urge for progress and freedom,
born out of the biological struggle for existence,
asserts itself with a renewed vigour to break down
the obstacle. A new social order conducive to a less
hampered unfolding of human potentialities is
visualised by men, embodying the liberating ideas
and cultural values created in the past. A new
philosophy is born out of the spiritual heritage of
mankind, to herald a reorganisation of society.
The passionate belief in the creativeness and freedom
of man is the essence of the romantic view of life. The
idea of revolution, therefore, is a romantic idea; at the
same time, it is rational because revolutions take place
of necessity. Revolution, thus, may appear to be a self-
contradictory concept. Can reason and romanticism
be fitted into the selfsame evolutionary process? That
is the fundamental problem of the philosophy of
history.
The rational order of nature and history is
determined; it must run its course; it cannot be
changed by any human endeavour. That rationalist
view seems to exclude the possibility of revolution.
But there is another way of looking at the thing
without abandoning the rationalist position. Human
will is a part of nature; it also grows out of the
rational order. Man's desire, and endeavours in
pursuance thereof, are also determined; therefore,
revolutions take place of necessity; they are
historically determined. As mutations in history, they
are inherent in the rational process of social evolution.
The difference between reason and romanticism is
that
 15

INTRODUCTION 15
one perceives what is necessary and therefore
possible, whereas the other declares impetuously
what is desirable, what should be done. Is the idea of
revolution, then, irrational? Is there no room for
reason in the scheme of revolutionary practice? There
must be, if revolutions take place of necessity.
Romanticism tempered with reason, and rationalism
enlivened by the romantic spirit of adventure, pave
the road to successful revolutions.
The apparently baffling problem stated above arises
from a syllogistic interpretation of the complicated
warp and woof of actual life, unfolding itself in the
context of the rational system of nature. Rationalism
is the intellectual and moral sanction for the classical
view of life. On the other hand, romanticism is a
revolt against the classical conservative attitude;
therefore, it is irrational. This syllogistic simplification
confuses teleological rationalism with the secular
concept of reason. The latter is identical with human
intelligence, and therefore cannot be antithetical to
will. In the last analysis, there is no contradiction
between rationalism and the romantic view of life.
The two are harmonised in the idea of revolution. If
romanticism is the urge of the will of man to break
out of the elaborate chains of tradition, orthodoxy and
teleological reason, then it is the most powerful
incentive to revolution.
The romantic view of life is subjective. It logically
leads to the liberating doctrine that man is the maker
of the world, developed during a whole period of
history from Vico to Marx. Indeed, it originated
earlier, in the Renaissance, which represented the
revolt of man against the tyranny of teleological
reason and the theological moral order. On the other
hand, secular rationalism, developed in the modern
scientific view of life, is objective. It places man,
grown out of the background of an evolutionary
process in the context of a law-governed physical
Universe, in
 16

16 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

the centre of the world, ultimately subject to the laws
of nature, but having the possibility, if not every time
the actual power, of progressively acquiring mastery
over it. Essentially, there is little difference between
the two views of life. Modern psychology has
eliminated the distinction between the subject and the
object. By doing so, it has solved the old problem of
perception, and freed philosophy from the vicious
circle of epistemology.
Marxism is an attempted synthesis between the two
apparently antithetical views of life—the rationalist
and the romantic. Perhaps Marx himself was not
aware of the far-reaching implication of his
philosophy; therefore, it remained full of fallacies,
which could be explained only by dogmatic
interpretations and spurious interpolations. The
attempt wil] have to be completed so as to combine
the various currents of past thought into a
comprehensive system of the philosophy of life. But
thereafter, new contradictions will arise, and the
history of philosophy as well as of society will go on
and on for ever. That philosophy is sublime which
opens up before mankind the vista of infinity without
deluding it into the wilderness of metaphysical
abstractions and fantasies.
 17

CHAPTER II
HUMAN NATURE
MORE than two hundred and fifty thousand years
have passed since the origin of the human species. It
is rather an arbitrary estimate. Because anthropology
has discarded the hypothesis of monogenesis.
However, the point is that only a small fraction of the
time during which the human race has inhabited the
earth comes under the purview of recorded history.
Another period is covered by legends, myths,
mythologies and epics. The historical value of those
superstitious, poetical, imaginary and hear-say
accounts of prehistory is of late being increasingly
appreciated. Eventually, the scope of history proper
may be extended backwards. Even then, by far the
larger part of the time since the origin of the human
species will remain the realm of prehistory. Yet,
whatever is constant in human nature was formed
during those remote days. Anthropology will have to
dig deep in that subsoil in order to discover the
hidden springs of the mental evolution of the species.
The history of the infancy and adolescence of the
human species coincides with the process of
biological evolution. It is therefore that subsequent
history, the history of civilisation, is to be regarded as
an organic evolutionary process; and it could be
rationally explained only when it was so conceived.
The history of the infancy and adolescence of the
human race has to be biologically reconstructed—as
stages in the process of the biological evolution of the
species. The biological approach to pre-history, the
history of early savagery, throws a flood of light on
the age-old problem of human nature.
The knowledge about the descent of man rules out
the doctrine of creation. The appearance of man on
earth
 18

18 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

having no other reason than the origin of a new
biological species, the laws of the development of the
human race cannot be essentially different from the
general laws of organic evolution. Human nature,
therefore, is determined by those laws. Subject to an
evolutionary process, it cannot be an immutable
category. It is a hackneyed saying that human nature
never changes. The truth, however, is just the
contrary: To change is human nature. Otherwise,
there is no sense in regarding the history of
civilisation as an evolutionary process.1 Yet, just as
life is the red thread running through the whole
process of biological evolution, similarly, there is a
residue of “humanness” underlying the flux of the
process even before it has gone beyond the
borderland where the primitive man is still not fully
differentiated from his animal ancestry. The origin of
humanness, therefore, antedates the origin of the
species. That is a logical corollary to the doctrine of
descent. The origin of a new species is a mutation in
the process of evolution. The qualitative change,
however, is superficially functional; the biological
form involved in the process undergoes no essential
change, anatomically or physiologically. In structure
and size, the brain of the primitive man differs very
little from that of the anthropoid ape. The one inherits
the mental and emotional equipments of the other as
the basis of “humanness” which, therefore, is a direct
outcome of the process of biological evolution ever
since the origin of organic matter.
1 “The foundation of all understanding of sociological theory—
that is to say, of all understanding of human life—is that no
static maintenance of perfection is possible. This axiom is rooted
in the nature of things. Advance or decadence are the only
choices offered to mankind...... The very essence of reality, that
is, of completely real, is process. Thus, each actual thing is only
to be understood in terms of its becoming and perishing. There
is no halt in which actuality is just its static self, accidentally
played upon by qualifications derived from shift of
circumstances. The converse is the truth...... The pure
conservative is fighting against the essence of the Universe.” (A.
N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas').
 19

HUMAN NATURE 19
Notwithstanding any obstinate scepticism in that
respect, science has abolished the hiatus between
inanimate nature and the organic world. Life grows
out of the background of non-living matter. There is a
causal connection between the two. It would be going
beyond the purview of this work to dispel all doubt
on that score. The point of departure is the scientific
view which rules out the doctrine of creation as an
unnecessary hypothesis. The physical Universe is a
cosmos; living nature is a part of that law-governed
system; it logically follows that the processes of
organic evolution are also determined. Empirical
knowledge, which culminated in the discoveries of
Darwin and Wallace, corroborated this logical
hypothesis. It went into the formulation of the
doctrine of evolution, which represented discovery of
reason in living nature. “Just as physiology has found
no case of interference with the order of nature as
revealed by physics and chemistry, the study of
evolution has brought to light no principle which
cannot be observed in the experience of ordinary life
and successfully submitted to the analysis of reason.”2
Taking place in the context of the law-governed
physical Universe, biological evolution is also a
rational process. Life is neither an inexplicable
category called intuition, nor is it a mysteriously
purposive urge; it is a determined physical process. In
metaphysical terms, it is the unfolding of reason in
nature. But reason itself is not a metaphysical
category; it was not conceived as such until the
necessity for rationalising the irrationalism of the so-
called revealed religions was felt. Then, the concept of
reason was identified with the ad hoc doctrine of
Providence in order to mitigate the absurdity of the
notion of an anthropomorphic God, and to fit both the
notion of God and the doctrine of Providence into
philosophical thought (theology), which
2 J. B. S. Haldane, Facts and Faith.
 20

20 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

developed throughout the ages under the impact of
reason inherited by the human species as a primitive
instinct from its immediate animal ancestry. Reason is
the simple, instinctive, notion that every object of
experience is connected with some other object or
objects which may or may not have been already
experienced; but, because of the belief in the
connection, which holds the world of experience
together, their existence is assumed. There, belief is to
be defined as a conviction regarding matters of fact.
This notion determined all the forms of early human
thought, such as magic, fetishism, animism and
natural religion.
Consciousness is the property of life in the zoological
world. It means to be aware of the environments.
Simple awareness is presently supplemented by
reactions to the things of which the organism becomes
aware. From that stage of biological evolution, there
begins the growth of the nervous system to serve as
the means of inter-relations between the organism
and its environment. The growth culminates in the
formation of the brain which, physiologically, is
called the mind. So, mind is the highest expression of
the property of life called consciousness, and thought,
that of reaction to simple awareness. The mind
becomes conscious of the environments, the radius of
which gradually expands until the entire nature is
embraced. It being consciousness of a law-governed
system, human mind is necessarily rational in
essence.
In other words, the intellectual and spiritual life of the
primitive man was conditioned by the elemental
instinct of reason. It is an instinct, because it is a
product of pre-human biological evolution. “The very
beasts associate the idea of things that are like each
other or that have been found together in their
experience; they could hardly survive for a day if they
ceased to do so.”3 In his later works,
3 James Frazer, The Golden Bough.
 21

HUMAN NATURE 21
Darwin had shown that every aspect of the mental
constitution of man could be referred back to animal
mentality. A whole succession of anthropologists and
historians of culture subsequently developed the idea.
Robert Briffault, for example, wrote in 1927 that “a
scientific psychology has become possible since the
fact has been apprehended that the human mind is
built upon a foundation of primal impulses common
to all forms of life, of instincts similar to those which
shape animal behaviour.”
Conceptual thought distinguishes the mind of the
savage from that of the anthropoid ape. But let it be
repeated that even then there is little anatomical or
morphological difference. Conceptual thought
depends on language. So, it can be said that man is
fully differentiated from his animal ancestry only
when he coins words for expressing definite ideas.
But from this it does not follow that memory, some
very primitive ability of associating things and events,
and the habit of expressing emotions through
behaviour, are altogether absent in lower animals.
Indeed, they do communicate feelings through
articulate sounds. Koehler's experiments with
chimpanzees are the most instructive in this
connection. He came to the conclusion that they had
“a high degree of intelligence” enabling them to solve
practical problems. But their thought and the
resulting action are dependent entirely on stimuli
from objects in their field of vision.4 The step from
that mental state to the human mind capable of
conceptual thought is long. The causal chain of
mental evolution, however, is not broken. Memory is
the ultimate basis of conceptual thought, and animals
do possess memory. That is evident from their
observable be-
4 My long and fairly systematic observation of animal
behaviour, particularly of cats, warrants disagreement
with the view that animals are altogether incapable of
what can be called conceptual thought. Rudiments of
that human capacity are clearly discernible in them.
There behaviour is often determined by the memory
of things not present in their field of vision.
 22

22 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

haviour. Language enables the savage to attach labels
to-the mental equipments inherited from the animal
ancestry, and consequently it becomes easier for him
to remember past experiences and differentiate one
object of experience from another. The result is the
origin of conceptual thought—thinking stimulated by
mental images.
An insight into the biological substrata of the mental
and emotional life of the homo sapiens compels
rejection of the time-honoured dictum that human
nature is to believe. The scientific basis of this
tendentious doctrine^ which served the purpose of
bolstering up the irrationalism of revealed religion at
the cost of reason, is an uncritical acceptance of the
evidence of the superstitions of the savage, which
survived the infancy and adolescence of the race, and
are found still lingering in civilised society. The
venerable doctrine about the constant of human
nature can be differently stated: Man is naturally
superstitious. Superstition being the result of
ignorance, the corollary to the doctrine would be that
ignorance is the natural state of man. Differently
formulated, we have the traditional saying “ignorance
is bliss”.
Anthropology and critical history of culture have
traced the superstitions of the savage to his instinctive
rationality—nothing comes out of nothing, everything
is caused by something else. The idea was far from
being as clear as that in the mind of the savage.
Therefore, it must be called instinctive; it was still a
matter of biological mechanism, determined by the
latter's causal connection with the cosmos of the
physical Universe. In other words, instinctive
rationality was a vague feeling on the part of the
primitive man; and elemental feelings are automatic
biological reactions. Instinctive rationality rules out
belief in anything supernatural. Man being a part of
nature, as long as he clings to the mother's breast, his
mind cannot possibly
 23

HUMAN NATURE 23
conceive of anything outside nature. The idea of God
as well as of anything supernatural* is entirely absent
in the mind of the savage. Researches into the origin
of civilisation led Lubbock, for instance, to the
conclusion that “atheism” was the characteristic
feature of the mentality of the primitive man,
“understanding by this term not a denial of the
existence of a deity, but an absence of any definite
idea on the subject.”5 The same authority is more
explicit in another place. “The lowest races have no
religion; when what may perhaps be in a sense called
religion first appears, it differs essentially from ours;
it is an affair of this world, not of the next; the deities
are mortal, not immortal, a part, not authors, of
nature.” Again, “Even among the higher races, we
find that the words now denoting supernatural things
betray in almost all, if not all, cases an earlier physical
meaning.”6 This opinion, endorsed by other
authorities like Tylor and Frazer, is based on data
gathered in course of extensive and painstaking
scientific researches among primitive tribes in
different parts of the world.
The residue of humanness, therefore, is the biological
heritage of reason. To put the same thing differently,
human nature is not to believe, but to struggle for
freedom and search for truth, the latter aspect
manifesting itself in homo sapiens. The distinction is
fundamental. Belief in supernatural beings or
mysterous metaphysical forces would make
submission to the object of belief the essence of
human nature. If that was the case, man would have
never emerged from the state of savagery. Because, as
soon as the biological form belonging to the human
species became a thinking being, mind and thought
entered into the process of organic evolution as its
determining factors. Having
5 John Lubbock, Lord Aveburry, The Origin of
Civilisation.
6 lbid.
 24

24 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

grown out of the background of the law-governed
physical Universe, they are rational categories;
therefore, the entire subsequent process of man's
intellectual and emotional development is also
rational.
Before man's imagination populated nature with gods
and hit upon the practice of propitiating them with
prayers and sacrifices, the savage believed that he
could obtain similar results by magic. “Magic rose
before religion in the evolution of our race, and man
essayed to bend nature to his wishes by the sheer
force of spells and enchantments before he strove to
coax and mollify a coy, capricious or irascible deity by
the soft insinuation of prayer and sacrifice.”7 Frazer
has shown that there is a close analogy between the
magical and the scientific conceptions of the world.
Both assume a succession of events according to
immutable laws, the operation of which can be
foreseen and, therefore, events predicted or
anticipated. “It (magic) assumes that in nature one
event follows another necessarily and invariably
without intervention of any spiritual or personal
agency. Thus, its fundamental conception is identical
with that of modern science; underlying the whole
system is a faith, implicit but real and firm, in the
order and uniformity of nature. The magician does
not doubt that the same causes will always produce
the same effects.”8 Magic, thus, is antagonistic to faith,
even of the natural religion, which allows gods to
regulate the operation of natural phenomena
according to the wishes of the supplicating man. Yet,
there was a time when magic and natural religion
were closely associated, proving that the latter was
also an expression of rationality inherent in human
nature, “a device of human reason “.
Both magic and natural religion assumed, one
explicitly
7 James Frazer, The Golden Bough.
8Ibid.
 25

HUMAN NATURE 25
and the other by implication, that man can have the
power to free himself from the domination of the
ruthless forces of nature by controlling them either
directly through spells and incantations, or indirectly
by propitiating the gods who were conceived as
enormously more powerful men. When experience
exposed the limitations of the terrestrial magician's
power, the savage looked up to celestial ones—the
gods of the natural religion. They were not conceived
as superhuman immortal beings; they were parts of
nature, being originators and controllers of its various
phenomena. They represented the ideal of man—
personifications of power and freedom, power as the
means to freedom.
Animism is supposed to prove that the primitive man
instinctively believes in supernatural forces. The
defenders of this view hold that animism was
antecedent to magic, being the origin of religion.
Their whole argument centres around the term
“anima” which, they maintain, was conceived by the
savage as something immaterial, spiritual. The notion
of an immaterial soul, which eventually came to be a
cardinal dogma of religion, is said to have originated
in animism. The controversy about the priority of
animism or magic is anthropologically important;
philosophically, it is immaterial. The case of those
who hold that it is human nature to believe does not
improve even if priority is conceded to animism.
The doctrine of soul, indeed, originated in animism;
in that sense, the root of religion may be traced to the
philosophy of the savage who believed that all actions
and reactions in nature were purposeful. But the
anima was not something separate from the body; it
was a “vaporous materiality”, identified with breath.
There is abundant philological evidence to that effect.
In all the old languages —Hebrew, Sanskrit, Greek,
Roman, Slavonic, Arabic—the words for soul or spirit
etymologically mean “breath”.
 26

26 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Now, breath is a property of the body; animism thus
placed soul in the body. “It is one thing to Regard an
object as having anthropological consciousness, and
another to believe that consciousness is a distinct
power capable of quitting it or of surviving its
destruction or of existing independently. The human
spirit is not necessarily believed to enter upon a life
after death, still less is the spirit of the animal.”9 The
word anima means life. The soul of animism clearly
was a biological notion. It was not a matter of belief,
but result of experience. Savages hold the animistic
doctrine of soul “on the very evidence of their senses
interpreted on the biological principle which seems to
them most reasonable.”10 Tylor, therefore, speaks of
the “logic of the savage”. On all competent authority,
animism was also an expression of the rationality of
the primitive man. The fact that it contained the germ
of religion only proves that the latter also is
essentially rational.
If the prejudices of animism did not place their
sanctions outside nature, natural religion was the
rational effort of the barbarian to explain the
phenomena of nature and his experience thereof. Had
the notion of a creator or an almighty Ged or a cosmic
force been current in the dawn of civilisation, then the
barbarian would not feel the necessity to search for
the cause of such natural phenomena as rain, storm,
movements of the stars etc.,—a search which led to
his inventing the gods of natural religion. The search
was an expression of his innate rationality: everything
must have a cause. The gods were conceived as great
magicians who could make nature bend before their
will, and magicians were men who knew the laws of
nature, and that knowledge gave them the power of
divination.
Natural religions were theoretical systems “devised
by
9Carveth Read, Man and His Superstitions.
10 Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture,
 27

HUMAN NATURE 27
human reason, without supernatural aid or
revelation.”11 A similar view was held many centuries
earlier by Thomas Aquinas. “Some religious truths
are attainable by the unaided exercise of human
reason, while others required the disclosure of
supernatural revelation before they could be known.”
This doctrine was preached by mediaeval theologians
with the object of reconciling Christianity with the
natural religion of the pagans. But incidentally it
admitted that simple deism was a rational cult as
against the mysticism of the revealed religion.
Having reached the conclusion that the age of
religion-was preceded by the age of magic, Frazer
takes up the investigation of the cause which induced
mankind to turn its mind in another direction, and
identifies it with the urge for a true theory of nature
and a more fruitful method of turning her resources
to account. “Men for the first time recognised their
inability to manipulate at pleasure certain natural
forces which hitherto they had believed to be
completely within their control… Thus cut adrift from
his ancient moorings and left to toss on a troubled sea
of doubts and uncertainty, our primitive [philosopher
must have been sadly perplexed....... If the great
world went on its way without the help of him or his
fellows, it must surely be because there were other
beings, like himself, but far stronger, who, unseen
themselves, directed its course and brought about all
the varied series of events which he had hitherto
believed to be dependent on his own magic.”12
The still lingering belief that the sense of morality is
intimately associated with religion, is not borne out
by historical research. The savage, with no notion of
God, has a strong sense of good and bad. With him, it
is instinctive;;
11 Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture.
12 James Frazer, The Golden Bough.
 28

28 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

that is to say, his sense of morality is not prompted by
any inner voice, nor is it dictated by the fear of God.
Morality, therefore, is also essentially rational. The
fashionable expression—”law of the jungle” —only
betrays human conceit. There are rules of conduct
even among higher animals. Those rules go into the
composition of human instincts. They are part of
man's biological heritage—the constant of human
nature. In man, they express themselves as the sense
of morality. One knows from experience what is good
for him and what is bad for him. Therefrom he
generalises that what is good for him is good for all
like himself, and what is bad for him is also bad for
all. That is the origin of morality.
Modern historical research has revealed that
philosophy is older than religion, if superstitions of
the savage, such as fetishism, magic and animism,
and also the spurious piety of the barbarian, who
propitiates the gods of natural religion for selfish
motives, are not counted as religion. This fact proves
that human nature is essentially rational, because
rationalism is the guiding principle of philosophical
thought. The earliest, philosophies were the first
attempts of human intelligence to explain natural
phenomena in physical terms without assuming
supernatural agencies causing them. The piont of
departure of those attempts was the belief that nature
was a rational, law-governed, system. That belief was
possible because human mind, not yet confused by
metaphysical speculations, nor lured by religious
imaginations, could function in its native posture—in
tune with nature. The relation between philosophy
and religion, between reason and faith, can be clearly
traced in the history of the western world. Science as
a free enquiry into nature, and philosophy as a
rational plan for attaining the ideal of “good life”
developed to a high level in ancient Greece, centuries
before the rise of Christianity. Natural
 29

HUMAN NATURE 29
religions, which preceded scientific enquiry and
philosophical thought, were pseudo-theological
systems, also devised by human reason. Their
theology was spurious, because the gods of natural
religion were made by men, after their own image,
and lived in nature.
The ancient history of the other countries of old
civilisation is still to be reconstructed. But even now
there i& enough reliable evidence indicating that
religion in the strict sense was a later development
there also. In India, the Vedic age of natural religion
was followed by a period of rational enquiries,
fragmentarily recorded in the Upanishads. Out of
them rose the systems of philosophy. Hindu religion
as expounded in the iVedanta and Gita was a later
development. The sequence is not clear, with a good
deal of overlapping and many long gaps, because
Hinduism is not a revealed religion. In China, there
was no religion until Buddhism in a degenerated
form came from India. Of the two currents of thought
in ancient China Confucianism was rational and
Taoism naturalist.
In the present stage of world history, pending the
composition of a universal history, the evolution of
thought in the western world has to be taken as the
general pattern. More than six hundred years before
the rise of Christianity, there developed in Greece an
intellectual life which laid the spiritual foundation of
modern civilisation. Full of vigour, it survived the
onslaught of an organised religion which completely
dominated European mind for more than a thousand
years. Ancient Greek thought was rationalist, and
consequently the earliest philosophy was materialism.
“Long before the rise of the philosophers, a freer and
more enlightened conception of the Universe had
spread amongst the higher ranks of society.13
13 Lange, History of Materialism.
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30 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

A gallaxy of bold thinkers beginning with Thales gave
various explanations of the Universe without going
outside nature. Their common point of departure was
that “nothing is without a cause.” Anaxagoras, for
instance, spoke of the “world-forming Reason”. After
more than two-thousand years, that early prophet of
rationalism inspired the leaders of the French
Revolution, to the extent that ultimately Robespierre
made a goddess of reason^- Diogenes of Apollonia
declared that the world was regulated by reason and
identified it with air. Leukippos thought that the
“logos” was nothing but the mechanical law which
guided the movement of atoms. The ideas of the
earlier philosophers were summarised by the founder
of physics, Democritos, who held that the postulate of
the absolute necessity of all things was the condition
for the study of nature, and also of any rational
knowledge of nature. Empedocles regarded
rationality as an eternal property of the elements. The
founder of the Eleatic school, Xenophanes, was also a
rationalist.
Socrates was not alone to drink the cup of poison.
Even Aristotle, who later on became the patron-saint
of Christian theology, had to flee from Athens to
escape a similar fate. All the works of Protagoras were
burnt, and he also escaped the wrath of the
priesthood of natural religion by fleeing. Anaxagoras
was arrested, but managed to run away and save
himself. Diogenes was persecuted as an atheist. Yet,
the wisdom of the first philosophers survived not
only decayed natural religion, but the powerful
onslaught of Christianity. Christian theology
accepting the authority of the atheist Aristotle was a
revenge of nature.
Because of a multitude of definitions, or of the
absence of rational ones, the concepts of freedom and
truth are dismissed by practical men as objects of
metaphysical speculation. Yet, the quest for freedom
is the incentive which differentiates the human
species from its biological background.
 31

HUMAN NATURE 31
It is the most basic human urge, though most of the
time it remains buried deep under the surface of
consciousness. Indeed, the incentive itself is a
biological heritage. Of course, in the context of the
pre-human process of organic evolution, the incentive
for freedom has a physical connotation. It expresses
itself in the struggle for existence. To live is to survive
the deadly impacts of the forces of nature.1'4 To live,
organisms must not only free themselves from the
stranglehold of inanimate nature, but struggle also
against other manifestations of life itself. Therefore,
every success in the biological struggle for existence
can be called a conquest of freedom.
It seems to be more difficult to trace the highly
philosophical and ethical concept of truth in the
biological essence of human nature. Is it not a purely
metaphysical category? If it were, then, it could have
nothing to do with human nature, which is physically
determined, biological evolution being a process
embedded in the physical Universe. But before the
appearance of homo sapiens, who could philosophise,
populate nature with supernatural beings, imagine a
metaphysical cosmic force or will, and conceive of
ethical values, it was not all a spiritual void. The
psyche is said to be the repository of residues
antedating homo sapiens. The psyche, however, is not a
mystic entity serving as the link between the mortal
man and the immortal world-spirit. It is the
subconscious part of the mind—a biological heritage,
the storehouse of experiences of the primitive man as
well as of his vertebrate animal ancestors. The psyche
is not a mystic entity, because, as the subject of the
science of psychology, it can be reduced to physico-
chemical constituents, with which philosophy can
build the bridge across the gulf between
14“The meaning of cultural progress is in a conflict
between Eros and Death, between the Life-instinct
and the Instinct of Destruction. This conflict is the
essential import of life, and cultural progress is
consequently to be described as the struggle for the
existence of mankind.” (Sigmund Freud, Civilisation
and Its Discontents).
 32

32 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

physics and psychology. The psyche, in other words,
is the umbelical chord which binds man, with all his
spiritual attributes, to Mother Nature—the physical
world. All metaphysical concepts and ethical values,
conceived and created by homo sapiens, are physically
determined; the psyche is a daughter of the Mother
Earth.
Truth, therefore, is not a metaphysical concept. It is a
matter of human experience. It is a matter of fact.
Truth is correspondence with> objective reality,— the
relation between two objects of experience. Therefore,
it is the content of knowledge. The old saying,
“knowledge is power,” is not an empty phrase. It
summarises the lesson of the entire human
experience. The biological struggle for existence was a
blyKl urge; man's struggle for freedom from the
tyranny of the forces of nature was guided by his
knowledge of nature. The one became successful in
proportion to the increase of the latter. The biological
heritage of the quest of freedom created already in the
savage the urge for knowledge which gave him
power to carry on the struggle against the forces of
nature. The search for truth, therefore, is intimately
associated with the quest of freedom as the essence of
human nature.
 33

CHAPTER III
THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE
IT is a very significant fact of the history of
philosophy that Christian theology and scholastic
learning, as represented by Thomas Aquinas,
Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, Ockham and others,
conceived and developed the pregnant idea of a law-
governed Universe,1 which inspired the pioneers, like
Giordano Bruno, Cusa, Copernicus and Galileo, to lay
down the foundation of modern science. Without that
idea as its point of departure, no science would be
possible. The germs of modern science thus grew in
the womb of the dark Middle-Ages, which was
dominated by the mysticism of a so-called revealed
religion. Reason triumphed over faith in a struggle
which lasted for a whole millennium.
But a much more significant fact is that, even during
the first thousand years of the Christian era, reason
was not altogether overwhelmed by faith. The
breakdown of the antique social order created a
spiritual chaos. That was a time when Freudian
“paranoiacs” sought “to set the world right by means
of a fantasy which they proceeded to translate into
reality.”2 A mass fantasy was created by an
increasingly large number of “paranoiacs” uniting to
bring about a state of happiness by reforming painful
and depressing realities in conformity with a
delusion. Yet, the rational essence of human nature
successfully weathered all those vicissitudes, to
reassert itself ultimately as the revolt of man against
the Almighty God and his more powerful agents on
earth. As a mater of fact, even the mysticism of
1 Theology is the application of reason to religious
beliefs and the attempt to state them in a systematic
manner.
2 Sigmund Freud, Civilisation and its Discontents.
3
 34

34 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

a revealed religion is but a perverted form of
rationalism inherent in human nature. Mysticism
does not deny order in nature, but only ascribes it to
the inscrutable will of God: It is too grand a scheme to
be comprehended by human intelligence.
“The technique of religion consists in lowering the
values of life and distorting the image of the real
world in a fantastic way; and this presupposes the
intimidation of the intelligence. By the forceful
fixation of a psychic infantilism and its incorporation
into a mass fantasy, religions succeed in saving many
people from an individual neurosis.”3 So, mystic
religious belief is only a consolation for the tormented
soul tossing in the stormy sea of uncertainty. That is a
temporary predicament. The origin and history of
religion are psychological problems; they are inherent
in the evolution of the human mind. All attempts to
solve these problems must begin not with gratuitous
assumptions, such as “it is human nature to believe”,
but with obvious and elementary questions.
“Why did human beings ever come to hold these
opinions at all, and how did they arrive at them?
What was there in the condition of early man which
made him to frame to himself such abstract notions of
one or more great supernatural agents of whose
objective existence he had certainly in nature no clear
and obvious evidence? What first suggested to the
mind of man the notion of deity in the abstract? And,
how from the early multiplicity of deities did the
conception of a single great and unlimited deity first
take its rise? Why did men ever believe there were
gods at all, and why from many gods did they arrive
at one?”*
Answers to these pertinent questions are to be found
in a philosophical examination of the intellectual
development
3 Freud, Ibid.
4 Grant Alien, The Evolution of the Idea of God.
 35

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 35

of the human race. The enquiry leads to the
conclusion that religion was the refuge of the
frustrated rationalism of the savage. In the absence of
positive knowledge, and owing to the impossibility of
gaining it under the circum-.stances of the age, the
attempts of the great ancient thinkers —those
forerunners of science and philosophy—to explain
nature rationally, were bound to be speculative. Only
a few could rise to the dizzy heights of speculative
thought, as distinct from “the fantasy of paranoiacs”.
But natural religion could not permanently satisfy the
curiosity of mankind at the dawn of civilisation.
Adolescent human intelligence, generally, required
something less infantile and more convincing.
“Religion is the outcome of an effort to explain all
things—physical, metaphysical and moral—by
analogies drawn from human society, imaginatively
and symbolically considered. In short, it is a universal
sociological hypothesis, mystical in form.”5
More correctly, it is an intellectual hypothesis.
Instinctively believing that everything is caused, man
must imagine causes of the objects of his experience,
if he cannot discover them; and the imaginary causes
of the diverse phenomena must eventually be traced
to a final cause. Summarising the findings of “the
modern science of the history of religion”, a
dissenting author of great competence writes: “The
ideas of God and of the soul are the result of early
fallacious reasonings about misunderstood
experience.”6
The logical view of the origin and evolution of
religious thought is corroborated by the various
definitions of religion given by recognised authorities
on the subject. All those definitions can be classified
under two heads: “intellectual” and “affective “.
Herbert Spencer's definition—”religion is the
recognition of a mystery pressing for
interpretation”—
5M. Guyau, The Non-Religion of the Future.
6Andrew Lang, The Making of Religion.
 36

36 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

is the most representative of the former category.
“Mystery” and “interpretation” are the key words.
Ever since the dawn of civilisation, man has been
trying to interpret the mysteries of nature. The effort
presupposes that the mysteries can be interpreted.
Instinctive rationalism is the basis of that assumption.
So defined, religion differs essentially little from
science, which also proposes to explain the mysteries
of nature. Only, for science, mysteries are as yet
unknown relations and functions of nature, which are
still to be discovered, known and explained.
Explanation can be hypothetical as well as empirical;
religious interpretation of the mysteries of nature,
however, is imaginary. The gods of the natural
religion or the Supreme Being of monotheism are
analogous to the hypothesis of science. Thus
conceived, religion is a backward stage of science—of
the human quest for knowledge and truth. Essentially
it is a rational system of thought, limited by the
inadequate store of positive knowledge. When the
available store of knowledge is not sufficient for
setting up theoretically verifiable working
hypotheses, human spirit thirsting for knowledge
necessarily falls back on imagination. The result is
religion.
This view of religion is further developed by other
competent investigators in the field. For instance,
Sabatier came to the conclusion that religion “is a
commerce, a conscious and willed relation, into which
the soul in distress enters with the mysterious powers
on which it feels that its destiny depends.”7 This is a
corroboration of the view suggested above that
religion is frustrated rationalism of the savage. The
unknown relations and functions of nature are
declared to be beyond the reach of human
intelligence; they are determined by imaginary
powers, who or which are not essentially different
from man, because the latter can enter into relation
with them. All the processes of nature, which en-
7 A. Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion.
 37

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 37

velop human existence, are determined; but man does
not know how; therefore, he must depend on powers
which are supposed to run the mechanism of the
world. Freud's picture of religious mentality brings
out the salient point of Sabatier's conclusion.
Anthropology is concerned with the primitive state of
the race. Frazer's definition of religion, nevertheless,
has a general application. He defines religion as the
“propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to
man, which are believed to direct and control the
course of nature and human life.”8 The gods of
natural religion were propitiated by sacrifice; prayer
in higher forms of religion serves the same purpose.
The point of the definition is that the basic
assumption of religious thought, whether polytheistic
or monotheistic, is that nature is a law-governed
system; the laws may be given by superior powers,
but, inasmuch as they govern human life, and direct
the course of nature, in the context of which human
life is lived, they can be discovered. Therefore, Max
Muller defined religion as “a department of thought”.
Belief and thought are not identical functions of the
human brain. Thinking is a rational process.
Turning to the affective definitions of religion, one
must accept Schleiermacher's as the most
representative: “Religion is a feeling of absolute
dependence upon God.” The similarity with
Sabatier's “intellectual” definition is evident. How did
the feeling develop? And how was the idea of an
Almighty God conceived? The conception of an idea
is again a rational process. The starting point of the
evolution of the idea of God was the instinctive urge
to discover the causes of natural phenomena;
eventually, the various superhuman agencies
controlling the diverse phenomena of nature were
traced to one supreme power. The metaphysical
concept of a Final Cause is also a rational notion. Be-
8 James Frazer, The Golden Bough.
 38

38 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

cause, it excludes miracles, something coming out of
nothing,, which are the characteristic feature of
religious belief. The feeling of absolute dependence
results from the experience: that man cannot influence
the processes of nature, which go in their own way,
presumably according to their own laws. In that state
of helplessness, man imagines a Supreme Being as the
creator and the ruler of the world. Having thus
imagined the Final Cause, either anthropo-
morphically or mystically, man subordinates himself
to its effects. He does not surrender to an esoteric
faith, but to his innate rationalism.
There is a significant corollary to Schleiermacher's
definition of religion: “The religious sentiment is no
doubt a feeling of dependence. But the feeling of
dependence, really to give birth to religion, must
provoke in one a reaction— a desire for deliverance.”9
Significantly enough, this implication of
Schleiermacher's definition is pointed out by an
agnostic historian of religion. The feeling of
dependence is not coincident with religion; it
precedes religion and gives birth to it. The feeling that
the microcosm (man) is dependent on the imperious
laws of the macrocosm (the physical Universe) is a
secular feeling—a thoroughly rationalist view. That is
the relation between religion and science, and it is a
causal relation. Increasing knowledge of the relations
and functions of nature progressively makes the
feeling less poignant. In the absence of that
knowledge, the feeling of dependence, born of
experience, gets hold of the mind of man. He escapes
the nemesis of the death instinct by completely
surrendering himself to a saviour of his own
imagination.
The most significant point of the corollary to
Schleiermacher's fideist rationalism is that absolute
dependence on God represents the urge for freedom.
Man wants
9 Guyau, The Non-Religion of the Future.
 39

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 39

to know nature, because knowledge will give him the
power to be free from her tyranny. Having failed to
attain that secular object, man of the pre-scientific era
surrenders to an Almighty God, hoping for
deliverance with his help or by his grace. Religion
thus, after all, is an expression of man's struggle
against nature. There is nothing supernatural in it.
Finally, we have the affective definition of William
James: “One might say that religious life consists in
the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our
supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting
ourselves thereto.”10 So, even the arch-irrationalist of
our time admits that religious thought is essentially
rational; the world is not enveloped in an inscrutable
mystery; that there is an order. Order is a rational
concept, and as such accessible to human intelligence.
The point, however, is that even the most extravagant
mysticism, if it tries to appeal to the reason of man,
cannot get away from the idea that the world is a law-
governed system, and human life, being a part of the
world, is governed by reason. In other words, religion
cannot get away from biology. Therefore, Christianity
was bound to outgrow its original mysticism and
culminate in a rationalist theology, which inspired the
rise of modern science. The grand idea of a law-
governed Universe is inherent in religious thought,
and in course of time crystallises itself as the solvent
of all religions. There is the dialectics of the dynamics
of ideas.
In the nineteenth century, criticism of religion and
religious philosophy was involved in a sterile
controversy between “intellectualism” and
“voluntarism”. The controversy was sterile because it
raised psychological problems which could not be
solved in the atmosphere of inadequate biological
knowedge of the time. Philosophically also, the
10 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.
 40

40 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

controversy was idle. Aristotle knew that there was
no fundamental difference between intelligence and
will. He described man as a “thinking desire”. The
urge underlying religious sentiment is not surrender,
but desire. The surrender to God is motivated by the
desire for deliverance. The relation between
intelligence and will was recognised by some
metaphysicians of the nineteenth century. “Will is not
merely a function which sometimes accrues to
consciousness, and is sometimes lacking; it is an
integral part of consciousness.”11 Will is not an
irrational impulse; the religious sentiment of absolute
surrender to God is, in the last analysis, an intelligent
act—an act committed with a purpose, believing that
it will produce the desired result.
With the rise of monotheistic religions, man begins to
come out of the spiritual wilderness of mysticism;
theology becomes a logical system in order to
rationalise anthropomorphic monotheism. On the
other hand, monotheism itself is a rational concept.
Primitive rationalism of the savage, the instinctive
belief that every event is caused by some unseen
power, populated the landscape 'with the numerous
gods of natural religion. Monotheism followed as a
corollary to that primitive rationalist view: The gods
of natural religion, in their turn, must be traced to
some cause. The search for the causes of the
phenomena of nature ended in the notion of an
Almighty Creator of the world. It is inherent in the
logic of religious thought that the idea of one God, the
supreme architect of the world, should follow from
polytheism.
When the God of gods is a matter of logical
deduction, he can be conceived as the “Universal
Reason”, as was actually done by the heralds of
Christian monotheism, such as Socrates and Plato.
After them the idea of a Supreme God developed in
the metaphysics of Aristotle and the
11 Wundt, Ethics.
 41

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 41

Pantheism of the Stoics; both were antagonistic to the
faith in a Creator. The Christian conception of God
was anthropomorphic. The absurdity and naivety of
the conception, therefore, was shrouded in mysticism,
revelation being a mystic cult. Otherwise, straight-
forward-; unabashed, anthropomorphic monotheism
opens up the floodgates of rationalism. Islamic
monotheism, the most rigid and naivest form of the
creed, had that consequence. Christian theology,
though based upon the rational idea of a Supreme
Being, conceived as the “Universal Reason”, could
defy reason so long as its monotheism remained
confused by the trinitarian dogma. The confusion was
not cleared until Arabic thought penetrated Europe to
influence scholastic learning. As soon as Christian
theology outgrew mysticism and became consistently
monotheistic, it heralded the rise of modern science
by proclaiming that the Universe was a law-governed
system. The continuity of human thought, as the red
thread running through the entire history of the
human race, is remarkable.
The state of savagery is the intellectual infancy of
man. In that state, primitive rationality takes the form
of the belief in the volition of invisible supreme
powers behind the diverse phenomena of nature. In
course of time, experience reinforces reason, and man
attains intellectual adolescence. The discovery that
events in his immediate environments and of direct
experience, such as the fall of stones, flow of water,
rustling of leaves, movement of shadows, so on and
so forth, are due to physical causes, enables man to
outgrow the animistic belief of the savage. The
religion of the primitive man progressively discards
the infantile faith in the arbitrary volition of invisible
powers, and moves towards the doctrine of law,
conceived as the providence. The intellectual
development is towards monotheism—the notion of
an Almighty Being ruling the world according to
reason or
 42

42 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

law. In the last analysis, monotheistic religion is also a
result of the rationality of man.
Monotheism, however, did not grow directly out of
the background of the polytheistic natural religion.
Metaphysical and moral thoughts, which followed the
unsuccessful attempts of early science and
philosophy, went into the making of the monotheistic
religions, particularly, Christianity. Therefore, even
during the dark Middle-Ages, reason could not be
altogether suffocated by blind faith; and eventually, it
reasserted itself in the scholastic learning of great
Christian theologians who heralded the Renaissance
of science and philosophy. The early fathers of the
Christian Church took pride in pointing out the
agreement between their doctrines and the principles
of Greek philosophy. They asserted that faith and
reason were not mutually exclusive.” Many centuries
later, scholasticism developed that doctrine into the
notion of a law-governed Universe.
The failure of ancient naturalist speculations gave rise
to doubt about the possibility of positive knowledge.
On the one hand, the belief in the gods of natural
religion had been shaken by the bold speculations of
the early philosophers. In that atmosphere of
intellectual unsettlement and scepticism, the attention
of the thinking man was turned towards the problems
of human life, which were in the reach of direct
observation. The intellectual life of Greece, at that
time, was dominated by the “wise men” known in
history as the Sophists. The founder of that school,
Protagoras, enunciated the dictum: “Man is the
measure of things”, which came to be the guiding
principle of Humanism throughout the subsequent
ages. Sophist rationalism exposed the fallacies and
absurdities of traditional beliefs, and compelled all
thinking men to probe deeply into the problems of
human life. Socrates was a Sophist; but he was also a
pious Athenian. Yet, he incurred the wrath
 43

THE LAW-COVERNED UNIVERSE 43

of the priesthood and put on the martyr's crown of
thorns, because he laid the foundation of a
monotheistic theology. Above all, he was a rationalist.
The terms “God” and “Reason “ were used by him
interchangeably. He differed from the Ionion
naturalists in that he deduced laws inductively,
starting from man and his experience. He restated the
humanist doctrine of Protagoras as follows: “The
world is explained from man, not man from the
universal laws of nature.” He taught that the
universal Reason which had created the world could
be conceived only on the pattern of human reason.
Anthropomorphic monotheism was only a step from
the rationalist Humanism of Socrates. Indeed, he
actually postulated “an architect of the world “, and
then proceeded to rationalise the concept. At that
point, the threads of his thoughts were taken up by
Plato, who elaborated the fundamental doctrines of
Christian theology several hundred years before
Christ. Early Christianity, thus, was not the ideology
of slave revolt; nor later on, of Roman Imperialism. It
resulted from the setback which Greek science and
philosophy suffered in the intellectual atmosphere of
the ancient world, which set a limit to the possibility
of acquiring positive knowledge.
Plato developed the moral philosophy of Socrates,
and found in the notion of One God a sanction for it.
Placing reason above the world of sense perceptions,
Plato, however, departed from the position of Socratic
rationalism. Platonic Reason came to be a mystic
conception; as such, it went into the making of the
teleological view of the Universe, which was taken
over by Christian theology. Nevertheless, Plato
conceptually pictured the Universe as an
interconnected system, mechanistic as well as
teleological. Ideas represented the eternal laws of
nature. Plato identified God with cosmic intelligence,
which was co-existent with matter, but not antecedent
to it. Clearly, all these doctrines, couched in a mystic
terminology, can be fitted into a materialist
philosophy.
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44 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Yet, they constituted the philosophical foundation of
Christian theology.
From the proofs of “intelligence and design “,
presented by all natural objects, Plato inferred a
teleological view of the Universe. “All in the world is
for the sake of the rest, and the places of the single
parts are so ordered as to subserve to the preservation
and excellency of the whole; hence, all things are
derived from the operation of a divine intellectual
cause.”12 That is a conceptional picture of the world as
a law-governed system. Teleology is rationalism with
the gratuitous notion of a Final Cause tacked on to it.
Although Platonic teleology became more articulated
in Aristotle's doctrine of “Form and Matter “, the
latter was the founder of exact sciences; as such, he
rejected the master's mysticism, and attached greener
importance to the rational trends of Platonic thought.
Early Christianity was influenced by Plato's
mysticism; but eventually, breaking away from
oriental cults, it required a rationalist theology to
triumph as a monotheistic religion. At that period of
its history, Aristotle's logic and metaphysics became
the foundation of Christian theology. His
metaphysics, with its doctrine of the fourfold cause,
made a religious philosophy possible. Conceiving the
Supreme Being as the absolute substance, Aristotle
put God in matter. Faith was thus reconciled with a
rationalist view of the Universe. Quite inconsistently
with his view that experience was the source of all
knowledge, Aristotle asserted that the First Principle
or the Final Cause was accessible through experience.
Beginning empirically, his system degenerated into
dogmatic speculations, which went into the making
of the religious philosophy of the early Middle-Ages.
His physics became metaphysics. In the absence of the
material possibility of acquir-
12 Draper, The Intellectual Development of Europe.
 45

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 45

ing an exact knowledge of things and their inter-
relations empirically, forms (ideas) became the subject
matter of investigation, the instrument of which was
logic. Under such intellectual conditions, philosophy
was bound to degenerate into wild speculations
which fostered Scepticism in healthy minds. In that
intellectual chaos, the average man's mind was
fascinated by the new faith heralded by the sage of
the antiquity. To overcome scepticism, speculative
philosophy prepared the way to a higher form of
religion—Christian monotheism. Aristotle's
rationalism laid the foundation of Christian theology,
which was the result of a misapplied and perverted
rationalism. With Plato, the idea of God was an ad hoc
assumption, a product of poetic imagination; actually,
a postulate. Aristotle placed God on an empirical
background. He rationalised the idea of God.
The intellectual life of the antique society was
overtaken by a spiritual crisis. Socrates set up his
moral philosophy to stop the rot. But having no
authoritative sanction, Socratic ethics could not stem
the tide of scepticism. The relativist ethics of the
Sophists had a greater attraction. Plato sought to
supply a supernatural sanction to the moral
philosophy of Socrates. But his “ideas” were too
misty to carry any conviction with the sceptics.
Aristotle's Final Cause served the purpose of
stabilising the spiritual life by giving it a new
orientation—a rationalised theology for a
monotheistic religion. Aristotle derived morality from
an immutable First Principle—of Goodness and
Truth, that is, from God. The Stoics took over
Aristotle's ethics, but rejected the speculative
elements of his as well as Plato's philosophy. Early
Christianity was a combination of Hebrew
monotheism and Stoic ethics.
The Stoics combatted scepticism with the following
argument: Everything unreasonable is dangerous.
The pleasures and pains of the body are to be
disregarded; only the pleasure and pain of the
intellect are the concern of
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46 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

man. By his passions, man is made a slave; his reason
makes him free. It is his duty to overcome the senses
and despise passions. Thus, man becomes free and
virtuous.
Early Christianity spread as the revolt of man against
Roman despotism. It rose to satisfy an intellectual
need and moral craving of the time. A common
misfortune had overtaken the peoples of the Roman
world. Their faith in the gods of natural religion was
undermined by the fact that they could do nothing to
help their devotees. In the absence of any faith,
demoralisation spread far and wide. In that
depressing atmosphere, Christianity rose to declare
the equality of all men before God. It was naturally
hailed throughout the Roman world, and very soon
penetrated every department of public life. Therefore,
persecution failed, and Emperor Constantine
embraced the new faith. Early Christianity was
frankly contemptuous of learning, science and
philosophy. But before long, it came under Platonic
and Stoic influence. In the Patristic literature,
mysticism mingled with Hellenic rationalism. Some
of the early Church Fathers, notably Augustin, had
been learned pagans before they became believing
Christians. Nevertheless, in course of time, the
Trinitarian controversy, the dispute over the mystic
cult of trans-substantiation, overwhelmed the
rationalism of Platonic theology adopted by the early
Fathers. That setback was due to the fact that during
that period Christianity compromised its monotheism
in order to establish itself firmly in a pagan world.
The dark ages, however, did not last as long as is
generally believed even to-day. The inroads of the
barbarians from the North, and, two-hundred years
later, the rise and dramatic spread of the Islamic
power, dealt a staggering blow to the religion of
miracle-mongering, idolatry and relic-worship to
which Christianity had degenerated after the two
centuries of Apostolic and Evangelist purity. No
miracles happened to save Rome from the heathens
from
 47

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 47

the North; nor could the saints arrest the spectacular
spread of Islam as far as the Atlantic coast. The
necessity of purifying Christianity was felt by the
more intelligent and learned inhabitants of the Roman
world.
Early in the eighth century, the iconoclastic Emperor
Leo the Isaurian ascended the throne of
Constantinople. His edicts prohibiting image worship
marked the beginning of the efforts to purify
Christianity and make a truly monotheistic religion
out of it. That was the commencement of the
Byzantine theology with its doctrine of twofold truth-
one to be attained by faith, and the other by reason.
The exploits of the Khaliphs must have convinced
Emperor Leo that monotheism was a much more
powerful religion; and it is reported that he also acted
under the influence of two Jewish advisers. He was
denounced by the orthodox as a Mohammedan and a
Jew. That fact proved that the Byzantine theology
resulted from the influences of the two monotheistic
religions—Judaism and Islam. The monks opposed
Leo's iconoclasm, which was carried on by six
successive Emperors over a period of hundred and
twenty-five years. The monks were successful in their
revolt against the reform, because they could sway
the people steeped in ignorance and therefore given
to superstitious beliefs.
Iconoclasm was defeated in the East, but it triumphed
in the West. There, the vulgarisation of Christianity
outraged religious men. During the dark ages the
monasteries had become the refuge of learning in the
West. When the Arabs established themselves in
Spain, ancient Greek philosophy, particularly the
works of Aristotle, penetrated Western Europe to
inspire scholastic learning and a rationalist theology.
The twelveth century saw Western Europe pulsating
with a new intellectual life. Ancient Greek philosophy
and the Alexandrian science had penetrated Europe
through the universities founded in Spain by the Arab
conquerors. In the seclusion of the monasteries, many
a pro-
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48 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

foundly pious man of great learning were considering
the crucial question whether the absurd dogmas of
Christianity should not be thrown in the crucible of
reason. Not a few Church dignitaries themselves felt
the urge to put religion to the test of reason. So
potential and widespread was the resurgence of
reason and philosophy that Rome was alarmed.
Before long, Pope Hildebrand thought that it was
wise to take the rising scholastic learning under
Apostolic patronage. One of the founders of
scholasticism, Gerbert, rose to the papal throne with
the name of Sylvester II. He was a pupil of the Arabs,
having gone to study at Cordova.
As a matter of fact, Western Europe felt the impact of
resurgent rationalism even earlier than the twelveth
century. Already in the nineth century, the German
monk Gottschalk questioned the venerable dogma of
predestination. A revolt of reason against authority
was evidently involved in that controversy. Scotus
Erigena also lived at that time. He proposed to
combine philosophy with religion, and made a
pilgrimage to the birthplace of Plato and Aristotle.
Holding that matter was also eternal, coexistent with
God, Erigena argued: “Reason is first in nature, and
authority in time. For, although nature was created
together with time, authority did not begin to exist
from the beginning of nature and time. But reason has
arisen with nature and time, from the beginning! of
things. Reason itself teaches this. For, authority, no
doubt, hath proceeded from reason, but reason not by
any means from authority. And all authority which is
not approved by true reason, turns out to be weak.
But true reason, seeing that it stands firm and
immutable, protected by its own virtues, needs not.
be strengthened by any confirmation of authority.”13
The Trinitarian doctrine, established by the First
Council of Nicea which formulated that mystic cult of
trans-substan-
13 Maurice, Mediaeval Philosophy.
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THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 49

tiation, had prevented Christianity to develop as a,
purely monotheistic religion. With that dogma
challenged, Christianity outgrew the handicap of
mysticism. The history of thought had reached a point
where mystic religion must join issue with reason.
The orthodox ecclesiasts, particularly of Italy, made a
desperate attempt to curb the growth of rationalism.
In order to rationalise faith, they,took over Erigena's
philosophy, mixed it up with Aristotle's metaphysics,
and Stoic pantheism, and conferred on the strange
concoction the blessings of the Holy Scriptures. That
was the rise of scholastic theology. But the subterfuge
did not work. The doubt about orthodox religious
ideas had spread too far and wide to be so easily
silenced. There was a growing demand for orderly
thought. The new method of drawing distinction
between faith and reason was fascinating. It allowed a
considerable margin for rational thought, which thus
grew under the stepmotherly patronage of the
Church, and particularly in the seclusion of the
monasteries.
“The awakening mind of the West was displaying, in
an unmistakable way, its propensity to advance....... It
became impossible to divert the onward movement,
and on the first great question arising—that of the
figure and place of the earth—a question dangerous
to the last degree, since it inferentially included the
determination of the position of man in the Universe,
theology suffered an irretrievable defeat. Between her
and philosophy, there was thenceforth no other issue
than a mortal duel.”14
From the eleventh century, the University of Paris
became the seat of scholastic learning. The historic
duel between faith and reason was now fought as the
“Realist” and “Nominalist” controversy. Erigena's
philosophy was developed by a series of bold
thinkers, Roscellinus and
14 Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe.
4
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50 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Peter Abelard being the most prominent. The early
Church Fathers had taken over the Platonic doctrine
of the “Universals” to give their oriental mysticism a
philosophical appearance. Roscellinus was the first to
challenge the reality of the “Universals “,
characterising them as mere names. He invoked the
authority of Aristotle, who had refuted the Platonic
doctrine. Orthodox Ecclesiasts were placed in a very
awkward position. Because, they had also relied on
Aristotle's authority. Roscellinus boldly declared that
the Trinity of Christian theology was incompatible
with the unity of real existence. He was accused of
heresy and died as a martyr to the cause of freedom
and progress.
But the spiritual upsurge was irresistible, and
orthodoxy had to give in ground, though inch by
inch. It received support from the most unexpected
quarter. In his effort to combat the heresy of the
“Nominalists” of the University of Paris, the
cannonised Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm, fell
back on the double-edged sword of Byzantine logic
(of twofold truth) and “consecrated the privilege of
reason by showing the harmony between reason and
faith.”15 He, of course, conceded to reason only the
secondary place, arguing that, to harmonise, two
things did not need to be of equal status. But he did
admit that all questions about the relation between
faith and reason should be submitted to human
intellect. The result of all such well-meaning or wilful
efforts was to fan the flame of resurgent rationalism.
Still for several centuries, it remained more or less
under the tutelage of faith, (scholastic philosophy was
religious philosophy); but at the same time, it
undermined the authority of revealed religion, and
blazed the trail of spiritual freedom.
Abelard's famous book, Sic Et Non, could be called the
Bible of “Nominalism”. It stated, though in a
circumscribed
15 Lewes, History of Philosophy.
 51

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 51

manner and through suggestion, the basic doctrine of
scholastic philosophy. By the ingenious method of
pointing out the contradictory opinions of the Church
Fathers, Abelard proved that their doctrines were full
of fallacies, and therefore could not stand the test of
reason and intelligence. He insinuated that there was
so much discord and strife on doctrinal matters,
because they referred to imaginary things, and
everybody imagined them in his own way. In an
earlier work, Abelard discussed the doctrines of faith
and mysteries of religion without any restraint;
nothing was too profound or too secret for his
penetrating criticism. He was condemned by the
Church not so much for his denial of the Trinity, as
for his assertion of the supremacy of reason, which
clearly represented a revolt against authority. As
.against his appeal to Rome, the lower ecclesiastical
court, which had condemned him, argued: “He
makes void the whole Christian faith by attempting to
comprehend the nature of God through human
reason. He ascends up into heaven; he goes down into
hell. Nothing can elude him, either in the height
above or in the nethermost depths. His branches
spread over the whole earth. He boasts that he has
disciples in Rome itself, even in the College of
Cardinals. He draws the whole earth after him. It is
time, therefore, to silence him by Apostolic
authority.”16 Abelard escaped the death of the martyr
by fleeing to the Islamic kingdom of Spain.
“Nominalism” preached by Roscellinus as early as the
close of the eleventh century, was more profound
than just the opinion of a schoolman. It was the light
of philosophy breaking through the darkness of the
Middle Ages. It was scepticism asserting itself against
superstition and human authority, which dominated
the mediaeval mind. It was an onslaught on the
hierarchy of the Church as well as of the
16 Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe.
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52 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

intellectual world of mystic theology. The birthplace
of “Nominalism”, the University of Paris, gave birth
also to such disruptive doctrines: “There have been
many truths, from eternity, which were not God
himself.”17 When held up as the author of the
doctrine, Jean de Brescain, a teacher in the University,
argued that the doctrine was true, “only
philosophically, not theologically”. This subtle
argument-only provoked such outbursts as “the
Christian religion prevents us from learning anything
more” (than theology); “the only wise men in the
world are the philosophers”; “the teachings of the
theologians are based upon fables.”18
The Arab Philosophers are to be thanked for
quickening, the intellectual resurgence in Western
Europe. While Gins' tian theology had taken over
Platonic mysticism with some fragments of Aristotle's
logic and metaphysics, the entire volume of the
philosophical and scientific thought of ancient Greece
was rescued by the Arabs from the ruins of the
antique world; it was treasured and elaborated by a
brilliant gallaxy of their philosophers. The severe
monotheism of Islam made that grand achievement
possible. The Almighty God of a monotheistic religion
creates the world out of nothing; thereafter, he leaves
it alone to go its own way. Interfering with secular
affairs, he would come under the purview of the laws
of the world, and thus compromise his position. The
Hindu doctrine of karma could have a similar
implication; but Hinduism never became a
monotheistic religion. Therefore, Hindu religious
doctrines, since the fall of Buddhism, remained
entangled in the wilderness of mysticism, and never
promoted rationalist thought and secular learning.
Scholastic rationalism developed on the authority of
the
17 Lewes, History of Philosophy.
18Maywald, Die Lehre van Zweifacher Wahrheit, Ein
Versuch der Trennung van Theologie und Philosophy im
Mittel-alter.
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THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 53

scientific works of Aristotle. To what a great extent
the Arab philosophers contributed to that intellectual
movement, can be judged from the well-known
saying current in those days: “Nature interpreted by
Aristotle, and Aristotle interpreted by Averroes”—the
greatest of Arab philosophers. In Averroism
culminated the contest between faith and reason,
.despotic ignorance and free thought—a contest
which had begun in the nineth century, when Erigena
counterposed philosophy to theology. Averroes had
been preceded by a succession of great thinkers
equally bold and brilliant. Only one or two instances
may be cited by way of illustration. Al Gazali was an
older contemporary of Averroes. He had acquired
scepticism from the ancient Greeks, and, having failed
to derive satisfaction from religion, he “finally
resolved to discard all authority”. He declared: “My
aim is simply to know the truth of things;
consequently, it is indispensable for me to ascertain
what is knowledge. Now it was evident to me that
certain knowledge must be that which explains the
object to be known in such a manner that no doubt
can remain, so that in future all error and conjecture
respecting it must be impossible. Thus, when I have
acknowledged ten to be more than three, if anyone
were to say 'on the contrary, three is more than ten,
and to prove the truth of my assertion, I will change
this rod into a serpent'; and if he were to change it,
my conviction of his error would remain unshaken.
His manoeuver would only produce in me
admiration for his ability. I should not doubt my own
knowledge.”19 Al Gazali arrived at the conclusion that
no knowledge could possess such mathematical
exactness, unless it were acquired by sense
perception. In reason he found the judge of the
correctness of the sense perceptions.
Abubaker of Andalusia rejected the geocentric view
of
19 Quoted by Lewes in History of Philosophy.
 54

54 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Ptolemey three-hundred years before Copernicus. It is
recorded that he had worked out “an astronomical
system and principle of celestial motions; that in his
system all movements were verified; and that no error
resulted.” A treatise elaborating Abubaker's
astronomical theories was written after his death by
his pupil Alpetragius. That book prepared the way
for the revolutionary discovery of. Copernicus.
Abubaker's hypothesis was recognised as an immense
contribution to astronomical research, and scholastic
scientists, like Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon,
belonging to different schools, equally relied upon the
work of Alpetragius.
Not only in science and philosophy, but in religious,
thought also, Europe was influenced by the impact of
Arab learning. Owing to the intermingling of a
variety of national cultures—Jewish, Assyrian,
Persian, Egyptian and Greek— the Muslim world,
during the earlier centuries of its history breathed the
spirit of cosmopolitanism. So long as peoples live
apart, they regard each other's religions as a mass of
absurdities. Closer contact breaks down the wall of
ignorance, and mutual understanding and respect
becomes possible. It stands to the credit of the Arab
philosophers that they, for the first time, conceived
the idea of a common divine origin of religions as
well as that of a law-governed Universe. Having
learned from the Assyrians, Egyptian* and Greeks,
Arab scientists assiduously cultivated astronomy for
centuries. The study of the celestial mechanism
logically suggested the idea that the world was a
cosmos. That grand idea was not repugnant to a
rigidly monotheistic religion with an
anthropomorphic God who, by his very nature, could
not pervade the whole world so as to interfere with its
life whimsically at any time, anywhere and in any
manner. A personal God can, according to
temperament, only watch or contemplate his creation.
The inhabitants of the world come under his
jurisdiction only on the Day of
 55

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 55

Judgment. Until then, they are free—as free as
mortals ever can be.
With a cosmopolitan spirit and the advantage of the
most rigorous monotheism, the Arab philosophers
made the bold suggestion that all religions
represented efforts of the human mind to solve the
mysteries of life and nature. They added that the
efforts more reconcilable to reason was the greater,
nobler and more sublime.
By the twelveth century, there commenced the
process of a radical change in the conception of the
world. The belief in supernatural agencies began to be
shaken by an ever increasing knowledge of nature,
and knowledge of nature revealed that it was a law-
governed system. The ancient belief in the possibility
of science was restored. European intelligence and
learning took up the threads of enquiry into the
mechanism of nature, broken off on the fall of
Alexandria under the blow of Christian bigotry.
Dogmatism was challenged by doubts; venerable
articles of faith were questioned by reason and
intelligence. The Divine Will operating arbitrarily,
defying all attempts of explanation or understanding,
began to be replaced by invariable laws of nature.
Under the impact of knowledge and learning,
radiating from the Islamic world, particularly, the
universities of Spain, and also impelled by the
curiosity and intellectual urge of resurgent Europe,
theology rationalised itself, and thus became the
solvent of religion. The teleological doctrine of a
Providential Will legalised, so to say, the notion of
natural laws, and thus made the basic contribution to
the resurgence of scientific enquiries. By substituting
the anthropomorphic God with the intellectual
concept of an impersonal Supreme Being or First
Principle or Final Cause, scholastic philosophy tacitly
identified the laws of nature with the Providential
Will. The former could be deduced from observed
facts, and verified experimentally; whereas the latter
was no more than a postulate.
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56 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Consequently, human intelligence became more
attracted to the study of natural laws.
History has honoured Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas,
Duns Scotus, Albertus Magnus and William Ockham,
as the prophets of the spiritual liberation of Europe
from the tortuous experience of the dark Middle-
Ages. Bacon was the first to grasp clearly that
philosophy should be identified with science, and
based upon the increasing knowledge of the
invariable and universal laws of nature. Thomas
Aquinas, who was cannonised by the Church, was a
metaphysician of the Aristotelian school. He pressed
teleology as against theology. He preached the
doctrine that -God had granted nature a certain
measure of autonomy; in other words, nature had
laws of her own, which operated independently of
any supernatural interference. Therefore, together
with Albertus Magnus, he advocated that philosophy
and the knowledge of nature should no longer be
under the tutelage of religion. As against Augustin,
the most illustrious of the early Church Fathers, who
had held that knowledge was the result of divine
illumination, Aquinas referred knowledge to sense
perceptions. Duns Scotus shocked the world of his
time by boldly posing the tendentious question—
”Can matter think?” Albertus Magnus, the prince
among the scholastic philosophers, demonstrated the
operation of natural laws, and therefore was
denounced by the Church and feared by the ignorant
people as a sorcerer and magician. He drew a clear
line of demarcation between natural knowledge and
theological knowledge. Finally, Ockham was an out-
and-out free thinker. With little ambiguity, he
separated questions of philosophy from the questions
of faith, and sternly kept the latter away from
interfering with reason. He even went further to
express doubt about the teleological view of the
Universe. He declared: “In the question of divine
intelligence, being the first efficient cause of all that
exists, as a philosopher, I know
 57

THE LAW-GOVERNED UNIVERSE 57

nothing about it, experience not instructing us in
what way the cause of causes operates, and reason
having neither the power nor the right to penetrate
the divine sanctuary.”
The idea that the world was not a standing miracle,
but a law-governed system thus resulted from the
rationalist Christian theology and scholastic learning.
The concept of law at that time was largely
teleological; it was conceived as the operation of the
Will of God. But reason having reasserted itself, the
operation of the divine laws of nature was no longer a
matter of blind faith. Growing curiosity to understand
how the laws of nature operated, was indeed still
frowned upon by religion; but it could no longer be
altogether suppressed. That curiosity promoted the
rise of modern science.
The thousand years from Constantin to Columbus
were not an intellectual void. The intellectual
resurgence at the close of the Middles-Ages cannot be
directly connected with the rise of the bourgeoisie. Its
root can be traced, as has been done in outlines in this
chapter, through the movement of ideas taking place
long before the appearance of the bourgeoisie to
struggle against the Lords temporal and spiritual,
who amongst themselves dominated the economic
life of Europe. The economic life of Europe was
stagnant; but the movement of ideas was not
suspended. On the contrary, the spread of
Christianity was a powerful movement of ideas,
which brought the barbarian hordes within the orbit
of the coming civilisation. The rise and radiation of
Islam also took place during that period of economic
stagnation. Yet, human history records no greater
dramatic adventure of ideas. Padua was situated near
Venice; but Paris was the capital of a barbarian feudal
kingdom. And the subversive doctrines radiated from
there. Giordano Bruno, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler
and even Descartes were all born and brought up in
the atmosphere of rationalist Christian theology,
which conceived, albeit teleologically, the grand idea
of a law-governed
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58 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Universe. Their relation with Euclid, Archimedes,
Hipparchos, Aristarchos and other scientists of
Alexandria, who lived thousand years previously, can
be more convincingly proved than with Vasco-da-
Gama's circumnavigation of the world, Columbus'
discovery of the New World, or the opening of trade
routes to the East. There is no causal connection
between the rise of modern science and philosophy
and the rise of the bourgeoisie. Science and
philosophy developed as the result of man's age-long
quest for freedom and search for truth. The
bourgeoisie, later on, patronised them because they
served their purpose. The relation was accidental, not
causal.
 59

CHAPTER IV
THE REVOLT OF MAN
THE characteristic feature of modern civilisation is
the progressive triumph of science over superstition,
reason over faith. The struggle had been going on
ever since the dawn of history. Even during the dark
Middle-Ages, when scientific knowledge acquired by
the ancient Greeks was nearly forgotten, rationalism
asserted itself in the form of the scholastic Christian
theology which conceived the grand idea of a law-
governed Universe, and thus prepared the ground for
a revival of science. “The most profound and
penetrating of the causes that have transformed
society is a mediaeval inheritance.”1
But the teleological order of the Middle Ages was like
the orderliness of a prison house: the world, indeed,
was not a standing miracle; but everything in it was
predetermined by a divine Providence, and all
terrestrial affairs were to be governed by the
ecclesiastical authority. The revolt against that
authority, therefore, was the precondition not only for
man regaining the freedom of thought, will and
action, but even to be able to hear “the audible voice
of God “, which was his own conscience.
The revolt of man known as the Renaissance heralded
the modern civilisation. It took place over a period of
two-hundred years from the middle of the fourteenth
to that of the sixteenth century. As a matter of fact, it
was a much longer process. The revival of science
began a century earlier, with Roger Bacon and
Albertus Magnus. They, on their part, had been
inspired by the Arabian scholars who had kept the
fire of scientific research burning while Europe
1 Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History.
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60 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

was merged in the darkness of ignorance during the
four hundred years between the conquest of Rome by
Genseric and the restoration of the Western Empire
by Charlemagne.
The revival of science, however, was not the specific
significance of the Renaissance. It created an
intellectual atmosphere in which the germs of
scientific knowledge could again fructify. A
mechanistic cosmology had to shake the faith in a
teleological order before the grand conception of a
law-governed Universe could give birth to modern
science. The ecclesiastical authority had to be
challenged so that man could remember that God had
created him after his own image, and consequently
hear the voice of God in his own conscience and
realise the almightiness of God in man's sovereignty,
dignity and creativeness. Created after the image of
God, man was destined to be godlike. “The rejection
of ecclesiastical authority, which is the negative
characteristic of the modern age, begins earlier than
the positive characteristic, which is the acceptance of
scientific authority.”2
Ptolemy's Almagest was rescued by Harun-Al-Rashid
in 800 A.D. Since then it was revised by a succession
of Arab scientists. The new scientific knowledge
reached Europe centuries before Copernicus
published his epoch-making work. Yet, the
knowledge remained in possession of cloistered
individuals who, in deference to the ecclesiastical
authority, dared speak only in a subdued voice and
an equivocal language. Three hundred years
separated Copernicus from Roger Bacon. During that
period, the intellectual life of Europe liberated itself
from the ecclesiastical authority. That was the period
of Renaissance. A successful struggle for spiritual
freedom created an intellectual atmosphere congenial
for the revival of science. Heliocentrism laid the
2 Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 61

foundation of a mechanistic cosmology and caused a
profound change in the intellectual outlook of
Europe.
“With a sharp gesture of impatience, Europe turned
away from the vast literature of commentaries and
glosses which the pedants of the Middle Ages had
inscribed in letters of opium on tablets of lead.
Insensibly, mankind acquired a new attitude towards
knowledge itself. Authority no longer went
unchallenged. The past was no longer supreme. As
the planet unfolded its unending wonders,
generations grew up for whom truth was not a
complete thing already given in ancient books, but a
secret yet to be retrieved from the womb of time.”3
It has been said that the discovery of the new world
enabled Europe to come out of the dark Middle Ages.
The consequence of the discovery of the Heaven by
Copernicus was much more revolutionary and far-
reaching; and that great revolution, perhaps the
greatest of all times, resulted from yet another great
discovery—the discovery of the antiquity. That great
discovery was made during the hundred and fifty
years between Petrarch and Erasmus by a brilliant
gallaxy of poets, painters, critics, essayists, historians
and philosophers, who called themselves Humanists.
Standard-bearers of the revolt of man against the
tyranny of the terrestrial agents of God, if not always
against God himself, they appealed to the tradition of
the pagan antiquity. For them, the world appeared
“no longer as a vale or tears, a place of painful
pilgrimage to another world, but as affording
opportunities for pagan delights, for fame and beauty
and adventure. The long centuries of asceticism were
forgotten in a riot of art, poetry and pleasure.”4
The neo-Platonic doctrine of the logos was taken over
by the Greek Fathers of the Church as the
philosophical
3H. A. L. Fisher, History of Modern Europe. 4 Bertrand
Russell, History of Western Philosophy.
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62 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

foundation of Christian theology. But the biblical
dogma of creation, most probably interpolated
subsequently, could not be reconciled with Plato's
view in that respect. Not only Plato, but the Greeks
generally, held that creation out of nothing was
impossible. They conceived creation as an artifice or
architectural feat of God. The substance out of which
God created the world was given—as eternal as God
himself. St. Augustin disowned the Platonist tradition
of Christian theology, and shifted it on to the
foundation of pure (blind) faith buttressed on the
authority of Aristotle. The ideological view elaborated
by scholastic rationalism reduced man to the helpless
position of a mere cog in the vast wheel of the law-
governed Universe.
The men of the Renaissance revolted against that
degradation. They turned to the Platonic and
Epicurean views of life. Believing that the conscience
of man was the voice of God, they claimed freedom of
acting according to their conscience; and, as any
action presupposed the will to act, they also
proclaimed freedom of the will. If man was the
noblest creation of God, godliness was inherent in
him; he was free to will, act, create, and enjoy the
beauties of his creation. “A new type of man began
with Petrarca, men accustomed to introspection, who
selected their own ideals, and moulded their minds to
them. The mediaeval system could prepare them for
death; but seeing the vicissitudes of fortune and the
difficulties of life, they depended on the intellectual
treasures of the ancient world, on the whole mass of
accessible wisdom, to develop themselves all ronud.”5
But it was neither an uncritical revivalism nor slavish
imitation. Petrarch devised the method rediscovering
a world long hidden behind a thick veil of fanciful
legends and allegories. The classics had to be
interpreted by reason
5 Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 63

freed from the fetters of scholastic logic and
ecclesiastical learning. So interpreted, the culture of
the antiquity was a display of human dignity and of
human reason in an atmosphere of intellectual and
moral freedom. Humanism of the Renaissance thus
was inspired by “those elements of spiritual freedom
and intellectual culture without which the civilisation
of the modern world would be impossible. The study
of Greek implied the birth of criticism, comparison,
research. Systems based on ignorance and
superstition were destroyed to give way before it. The
study of Greek opened philosophical horizons far
beyond the dream world of the Churchmen and the
monks; it stimulated the germs of science, suggested
new astronomical hypotheses and indirectly led to the
discovery of America. The study of Greek
resuscitated a sense of the beautiful in art and
literature.”6
The significance of the Renaissance has been
differently assessed by various historians. Voltaire
described it as the “bright light of liberated reason
which shone in contrast with the era of priestly
tyranny”. He represented the view of the eighteenth
century rationalists, who traced their descent from the
Renaissance—of the antiquity, of literature, of art, of
humanism. Michelet, who first used the term
Renaissance, together with Hallam, also held that
Renaissance was a reassertion of classical rationalism
as against the ecclesiastical orthodoxy, religious
philosophy and Gothic art of the Middle Ages. The
Renaissance continued to be the source of the
inspiration of European culture until the reaction after
the French Revolution advocated a catholic revival.
Another view traces the roots of the Renaissance to
the Franciscan religious revival. According to it, the
distinctive features of the Renaissance culture—
individualism and crea-
6 J. A. Symonds, The History of the Renaissance.
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64 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

tive spirit originated in the mysticism of the Middle
Ages. While some belonging to this school went to the
extent of claiming that the Renaissance was the
outcome of the mediaeval Germanic culture, further
research led to the conclusion that an intellectual
ferment had been going on ever since the tenth
century. The intellectual development of Europe was
not completely interrupted during the Middle Ages;
there was a continuity ever since the dawn of
civilisation.
Burckhardt's Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy
published in 1860, since when the positive elements of
the mediaeval Christian culture have been more fully
appreciated, still remains the standard work on the
subject. He describes the Renaissance as a general
awakening and rebirth of intellect and human
personality; the traditions of scholastic learning with
supernatural sanction was rejected in favour of a
return to the pre-Christian pagan ways of rationalist
and scientific thinking. “By the side of the Church,
which had hitherto held the countries of the West
together, there arose a new spiritual influence which
became the breath of life for all the more instructed
minds in Europe....... The logical notion of humanity
was old enough—but here the notion became a fact.”7
Throughout the Middle Ages, learning remained
confined to cloisters and schools under the patronage
of the Church. The men of the Renaissance challenged
that spiritual monopoly. The humanists claimed not
only to have an independent judgment based on
classical learning, but a free and rational
understanding of the religious traditions also. One of
the more impetuous among them, Pico della
Mirandola, for instance, exclaimed:
“God made man at the close of the creation, to know
the laws of the Universe, to love its beauty, to admire
its
7 Burckhardt, Renaissance.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 65

greatness. He bound him to no fixed place, to no
prescribed form of work, and by no iron necessity,
but gave him freedom to will and to move. ' I have set
thee free', says the Creator to Adam, ' in the midst of
the world that thou mayest the more easily behold
and see that all is therein. I created thee a being
neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor
immortal, only that thou mayest be free to shape and
overcome thyself. Thou mayest sink into a beast, and
be born anew to the divine likeness. To thee alone is
given a growth and a development depending on thy
free will Thou bearest in thee the germs of a universal
life.” 8
The significance of the Renaissance undoubtedly was
profoundly revolutionary; but it was a revolution in
the realm of ideas and values, which destroyed the
moral sanction of the feudal order, and consequently
prepared the ground for the social and political
upheavals of the following centuries. From the fact
that the Renaissance approximately synchronised
with the rise of the trading class, it is deduced that
individualism and humanism were principles of the
ideology of the bourgeoisie. Historically, that is not
true. The Renaissance was a humanist revival it
invoked the humanist tradition of the pagan culture
of the Greco-Roman antiquity. Individualism is an
equally ancient principle of libertarian thought. The
Renaissance declared the dignity and sovereignty of
the individual on the authority of the Sophists,
Epicureans, Stoics and also of early Christianity. A
careful study of the economic conditions of the early
Middle Ages shows that there was no causal
connection between the rise of the trading class and
the Renaissance; that humanist individualism was not
a mere superstructure, nor a justification, of any
particular economic system.
8 Discourse on the Dignity of Man.
5
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66 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

The four hundred years from the conquest of Rome in
the middle of the fifth century by the barbarians
under Genseric, and the rise of Charlemagne in the
nineth century, could be called the Dark Age, when
Europe was sunk into an intellectual coma. The fall of
the Roman Empire of the West was soon followed by
the dramatic rise of the Islamic power which, having
mastered the Mediterranean, conquered Spain. At the
same time, the Norman raiders blockaded the
northern and western coasts of the continent. The
cumulative result of those events was that, by the
nineth century, completely landlocked Europe
relapsed into agrarian economy. Since the days of the
Phoenicians, the Mediterranean had been the great
artery of European trade. With the Arabs sitting
astride that ancient channel of traffic, the commercial
activity of Europe necessarily declined. “The
interruption of commerce brought about the
disappearance of the merchants, and urban life
collapsed.”9
It is generally believed that the situation remained
completely static until the first crusade at the end of
the eleventh century. The whole of the Mediterranean
Sea was indeed not open for European trade until
then. But even after its main basin had come under
the domination of the Arabs, the 'Byzantine fleet
managed to keep the Adriatic and the Aegean Seas
open for a limited traffic with the Italian coast.
Venetian traders under the protection of the
Byzantine Empire, which until then had resisted the
Islamic power, resumed traffic even with Africa and
Syria by the end of the nineth century. The merchants
of Pisa and Genoa also continued the struggle with
the Arabs for the control of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Early
in the eleventh century, the Genoese seized Sardinia,
and a Pisan fleet defeated the Arabs in the Strait of
Messina. In the middle of the century, the Pisans
entered the port of Palermo, while the Genoese
appeared on the African coast.
9Henri Pirenne, Economic and Social History of
Mediaeval Europe.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 67

If the Italian traders could not be kept out of the
Mediterranean for long, the blockade of the northern
coast was .also broken soon enough. By the end of the
nineth century, there “we find a maritime and
commercial activity which is in striking contrast with
the agricultural economy of the continent ...... The
Vikings were pirates, and piracy is the first
stage of commerce. So true is this that from the end of
the nineth century, when their raids ceased, they
simply became merchants.”10 On the other hand, the
Swedes moved eastwards, and following the trade
route along which ancient Greek merchants used to
carry amber from the Baltic, they reached the Black
Sea by the Middle of the nineth century. There
developed a brisk trade in furs and honey as well as
slaves. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Baltic
arid the North Sea became the scene of busy
commercial navigation. Numerous trading posts were
established along the coast line between the mouths
of the Vistula and the Elbe. The port of Hamburg was
one of them. From those ports, Danish ships traded
with Britain. The discovery of old English, Flemish
and German coins in the basin of the Baltic proves
that at the time of King Canute (first half of the
eleventh century) there were trade relations between
the mouths of the Thames and the Rhine to the
eastern coast of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia.
In the twelveth century, Flanders and Brabent were
the most prosperous industrial countries of Europe.
As a centre of trade, Bruges outshined all other towns
of the time, and came to be called “the Venice of the
North”. Pirenne, however, is of the opinion that it
was “a misnomer, for Venice never enjoyed the
international importance which made the Flemish
port unique”. The trade between Flanders and Italy
was carried overland until the fourteenth century,
when Genoa and Venice established direct maritime
10 Pirenne, Ib.
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68 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

relations with Bruges. Even during the dark Middle
Ages, there must have been a trading class in
landlocked Europe to act as the middlemen between
Flanders and Italy. The Hansa towns were prosperous
trade centres; the Hanseatic League was a powerful
commercial combine, which dominated the political
life of those towns and their nighbour-hoods. The
commercial middle class of Germany colonised the
southern and eastern shores of the Baltic before the
Teutonic Knights conquered those Slav countries. As
early as the middle of the twelveth century, the Hansa
League was the medium for the exchange of goods
between the steel yards of London and the fairs of
Nijninovgorod.
“The volume of mediaeval commerce corresponded
to-an economic activity whose magnitude is
sufficiently vouched for by the ports such as Venice,
Genoa, Bruges, by the Italian colonies in the Levant,
by the shipping of the Hanseatic towns, and by the
development of the Champagne fairs. Economists
who have asseverated the insignificance of mediaeval
commerce have pleaded in support of their argument
the absence of a class of capitalist merchants in
Europe previous to the Renaissance. They may be
disposed to make an exception in favour of a few
Italian firms, but it is the exception that proves the
rule....... Numbers of retail dealers were to be found
among the petite bourgeoisie of the towns, but it
would be fantastic to reduce the exporters and
bankers to their level. Only those who are completely
blinded to reality by a pre-conceived theory can deny
the importance and influence of commercial
capitalism from the beginning of the economic
Renaissance....... Mediaeval sources place the
existence of capitalism in the twelveth century
beyond a doubt.”11
A certain amount of commercial activity had been
going on in the South as well as in the North even
during the
11 Pirenne, Ib.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 69

previous two centuries. “By the beginning of the
twelveth century, the trade and industry of Western
Europe had sufficiently recovered from the
interruption caused by the Saracens. The great
historic cities of the Roman Empire, whose
population had been depleted through the
destruction of sea-borne commerce, began to recover
something of their former numbers and affluence.
Villages grew into walled towns. Suburbs of
merchants and craftsmen spread themselves around
the castle or borough. The merchants and craftsmen
organised themselves in guilds and began to demand
conditions under which money could be safely made.
In broad outline, they claimed to be permitted to
compound for their own farm or taxes, to be
permitted to make their own by-laws, to have their
civil suits tried in their own courts and within their
own walls, to be able to select their own officers, and
that serfs resident for a year and a day within a town
or a borough should be regarded as free.”12
That is a picture of the rise of the bourgeoisie, which
is said to be the social basis of the Renaissance—its
economic motive force. The phenomenon was not
limited to Italy; the whole of Western Europe was
entering the period of a great social upheaval—the so-
called bourgeois revolution. The trading class had
entered the field of industrial production outside
Italy. Flanders and Brabant were economically the
most advanced countries of Europe. Yet, Italy had the
privilege of producing what is called the ideology of
the rising bourgeoisie. The Renaissance culture
flowered there; Italy was the scene of the historic
revolt of man against God and his agents on earth,
while “in the rest of Europe religion remained, till a
much later period, something given from without,
and in practical life egoism and sensuality alternated
with devotion and repentence.”13
12 Fisher, History of Modern Europe,
13 Burckhardt, Renaissance.
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70 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

The spirit of the Renaissance was exactly contrary to-
the hyprocritical piety and sanctimonious cant that
characterised the cultural atmosphere of the other
European countries. The spirit breathed by “these
intellectual giants, these representatives of the
Renaissance, show in respect of religion, a quality
which is common to youthful natures. Distinguishing
keenly between good and evil, they yet are conscious
of no sin. Every disturbance of their inward harmony
they feel themselves able to make good out of the
plastic resources of their own nature, and therefore
they feel no repentance. The need of salvation thus
becomes felt more and more dimly, while the
ambitious and the intellectual activity of the present
either shut out altogether every thought of a world to
come or else cause it to assume a poetic instead of a
dogmatic form.”14
***
Evidently, there was no causal connection between
the Renaissance and the rise of the bourgeoisie. It is
true that Florence, a centre of trade and banking, was
the home of the artistic aspect of the Renaissance
culture. But the Medicis belonged rather to the
mediaeval aristocracy than to the rising bourgeoisie.
They were too closely connected with the Vatican to
desire the dissolution of the established order, to
which they themselves also belonged. Genoa and
Venice were more bourgeois; and their contribution
to the Renaissance was not much. Venice was the
typical home of vulgar materialism. Its rulers pursued
the objects of enjoying life, in the carnal sense, of
creating the most lucrative luxury industries and of
carrying on maritime trade to make money and more
money. In cultural history, the mediaeval republic of
the Doges did not occupy a place of honour. In the
creation of aesthetic values, it did not stand in the
front rank,
14 Burckhardt, Ib.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 71

“Literary impulse in general was here wanting, and
specially that enthusiasm for classical antiquity.”15
Nor did Venice contribute anything to original
thinking, and literature received but indifferent
patronage there. Not until the sixteenth century did
Venice recognise the value of Petrarch's poetical
works. But by that time, much of his works left as a
legacy to Venice had been lost owing to negligence.
Indeed, until the latter half of the fifteenth century,
humanist culture was but inadequately represented in
the republic of the merchant princes. There was
nothing original in Venetian culture. Not one of the
great men of the Renaissance was a native of that
mercantile city. “The aptitude of the Venetians for
philosophy and eloquence was in itself not less
remarkable than commerce and politics; but this
aptitude was neither developed in themselves nor
rewarded in strangers, as it was elsewhere in Italy.”15
There was a general intellectual backwardness in the
first bourgeois republic, compared to the other parts
of Italy under despotic rulers. And the Church was
not responsible for that deplorable state of things. In
Venice, the clergy was completely under the
government; yet the barbarous belief in the relics of
the Saints prevailed. The State had a markedly
theocratic complexion. The Doge was vested with a
semi-clerical status.
On the other hand, the feudal tyrants of Southern
Italy were the first to patronise the men of the
Renaissance; and later on not a few of the great
humanists were graced with the benediction of the
Pope. At least two of them actually ascended the holy
throne, and there was a succession of “Renaissance
Popes.”
Apart from Emperor Frederic II, the most remarkable
figure of the Middle Ages, Alfonso of Aragon, who
became
15 Burckhardt, Ib.
16 Sabellico.
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72 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

the king of Naples, was a promoter of the
Renaissance. In addition to George of Trebizond and
several other Greek scholars, Lorenzo Valla, together
with several other humanists, resided in the court of
Naples. They were all paid handsomely. Yet, the king
used to remark: “It is not given to pay you, for your
work would not be paid for if I gave you the fairest of
my cities; but in time I hope to satisfy you.” While
appointing Giannozzo Manetti as his secretary,
Alfonso said: “My last crust I shall share with you.”
When it appeared that Alfonso might become the
king ot Italy, Aeneas Sylvius, one of the early
humanists, who later became Pope, wrote: “I had
rather that Italy attained peace under his rule than
under that of the free cities.” Federigo, the Duke of
Urbino, himself a great scholar and student of science,
was another princely patron of the Renaissance. He
was fully conversant with the entire scientific
knowledge of the time and desired its practical
application. Some of the Sforzas, Francesco and
Ludovico particularly, also took keen interest in
intellectual matters, and had their children educated
in humanist culture.
The Renaissance was a phase of man's age-long
struggle for freedom, and freedom is an ideal concept.
It was A chapter in the cultural history of mankind,
which had its own logic and own momentum. The
Renaissance was inspired more by the humanist,
rationalist and scientific ideas of the ancient Greek
civilisation than by the economic interests and
political ambition of the mediaeval trading class.
Rationalism and the spirit of enquiry had been
penetrating the seats of learning of Europe ever since
the eleventh century. The modest beginning under
the reign of Charlemagne led to the rise of the Paris
University which, by the beginning of the twelfth
century, became the scene of the great controversy
between Realism and Nominalism. That controversy
was the manifestation of an intellectual ferment
which disturbed the palcidity of religious orthodoxy
and
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 73

ecclesiastical bigotry. Famous Nominalists like
Roscellinus, Abelard, Anselm and Occam, were the
pioneers of Renaissance Humanism. Abelard was
actually condemned by the Church as an heretic. His
pupil, Arnold of Brescia, was the first to raise the
standard of revolt in Rome. Those men all belonged
to the clergy and lived in the atmosphere of
theological learning. They did not have the remotest
connection with the bourgeoisie, which was still to
rise—two hundred years later. The University of
Oxford was founded at the end of the twelfth century
by a group of scholastics who had studied in Paris. In
quick succession, numerous similar seats of learning
sprang up in France, Italy and England. “They were
the result of a spontaneous popular movement
carried out under the shelter and direction of the
Church.”17 Disruptive ideas to blossom in the
Renaissance were incubated in the mediaeval seats of
learning.
Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon lived early in the
thirteenth century. The one is known in history as
“great in magic, greater in philosophy and greatest in
theology”, while the other, as the “admirable doctor “
who ushered in the age of reason and revival of
science. Bacon also was accused of magical practices.
Demonstration of scientific knowledge was in those
days confounded with magical power. Albertus
Magnus was great in magic because he made not only
chemical experiments (then called alchemy), but also
observed botanical phenomena in hothouses. His
treatise on plants was the best work on natural
history written since Aristotle and until the
Renaissance.18
Of the two basic ideas of original Christianity, that of
man was completely eclipsed by that of God during
the early Middle Ages, when the minds of the few
educated men were absorbed in theology. The current
of European culture was
17 Fisher, History of Modern Europe.
18 See Charles Singer, From Magic to Science.
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74 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

fed by three different streams of thought,—Greek
philosophy, the tradition of the Roman Empire, and
Christian religion. After the fall of Rome, Christianity,
which was the newest, became the predominating
factor. The renaissance of the European mind, after
several centuries, as evidenced by the rise of
scholastic learning, represented resurrection of the
pagan tradition of Rome. Scholastic learning
celebrated the dignity of human reason. The second
basic idea of original Christianity—that of man, his
relation to God—began to emerge out of the thick
mist of theological mysticism. Even during the earlier
centuries, the Latin learning of the schoolmen revived
the memory of Virgil and Cicero, who represented the
spirit of ancient Humanism. But the cultural tradition
of the Roman Empire, after all, was a reflection of the
greatness of Greece. The European mind, therefore,
had to go-back to that fountain-head to draw
inspiration for a new spirit of creativity. Ancient
Greek learning had culminated, on the one hand, in
the scientific achievements of the Alexandrian period
and, on the other, in the ethical ideas of the
Epicureans and the Stoics. This, latter current flowed
into the tradition of pagan Rome.
Epicures divided philosophy into physics and ethics,
and subordinated the former to the latter, although
Epicurean physics provided a metaphysical sanction
for the freedom of the individual. His ethics was
humanist; his philosophy was the art of enjoying life;
it had no concern for death or the power of the Gods
whom he called the product of delusion; it was
indifferent to the future, because there was nothing
after death, the soul being a congerie of atoms which
dissolved into its constituents.
Notwithstanding their mysticism, the Stoics
developed ethical ideas which were also humanist.
They taught: Live according to reason; since the
world is composed of matter and God, who is the
reason of the world, live in harmony with nature; as
reason is supreme in nature, it ought to be
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 75

so in man. Our existence should be intellectual, and
all bodily pains and pleasures should be despised. A
harmony between the human will and universal
reason constitutes virtue.
Both the currents of ancient Greek thought reached
Italy—Stoic and Epicurean philosophy directly, the
rationalism and scientific knowledge through the
Arabs. Therefore, the renaissance of the European
mind attained the climax there. While in the rest of
Europe it remained a smouldering fire, breaking out
in flames here and there, in the form of the heretical
movement, and finally stultifying itself in Lutheran
neo-dogmatism and Calvinist philistinism, which
resulted from the Reformation.
The teachings of the great rationalist scholastics, who
invoked the humanist spirit of early Christianity as
also of the culture of pagan Rome, created a stir
throughout the world of Latin Christianity. There was
a growing demand for a reform of the Church,
moderation of the ecclesiastical authority and
liberalising of the dogmatic orthodoxy. The demand
expressed itself in the heretical movements which,
originating in the south of France (Languedoc) under
the impact of Islam in Spain, spread from England to
Bohemia. Wyclif, Huss, Jerome, Arnold of Brescia and
others, accused of heresy, and many martyred on that
charge, heralded the final triumph of the Renaissance
in Italy. The establishment of the mendicant orders
with the object of suppressing the heretical movement
destroyed the faith in the possibility of reforming the
Church.
Originally, Christianity represented the revolt of man
against the tyranny of the Jewish God and despotism
of imperial Rome. The Sermon on the Mount
contained the highest moral ideals ever conceived by
human imagination. Christianity was to establish in
the world a moral order as conceived by the Greek
Sages. The belief was confirmed by the early Church
Fathers adopting Platonic theology and
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76 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Stoic philosophy. For nearly a thousand years,
Christianity satisfied the spiritual need of its devotees
and the Church was the refuge of learning and
culture.
Eventually, ecclesiastical Christianity belied all the
promise. Natural religion had convinced man that the
Gods were constantly looking after his affairs;
Christian monotheism could not carry that
comforting conviction. The ways of its God were
believed to be mysterious. Under neo-Platonic
influence, in the early Middle Ages, Christianity took
over a good deal of oriental mysticism. But the
ordinary religious man felt the need of the protection
of some anthropomorphic supernatural power. To
satisfy that need, Christianity, having abandoned its
original simplicity and taken over a heavy ballast of
mysticism, had to develop an elaborate theology to
explain the ways of God so as to prove that he was
actively interested in the affairs of man. The parallel
development was the rise of a priesthood as the
intermediary between man and his God. The
institution of the seven sacraments embraced all the
important events of the life of the faithful, and
completely subordinated him to the priest, who alone
was authorised to perform the mystic ritual. Finally,
Thomas Aquinas expounded the doctrine that the
power over the soul of man had been conferred on the
priest by divine ordinance: The priest was entitled “to
make the body of Christ, to act in the person of
Christ.” The elevation of the Pope to a superhuman
and supernatural position was the logical
consequence of the mystification of Christianity and
the rise of an all-powerful priesthood.
An almost godly character and position were
conferred upon the High Priest, who had originally
been only the Bishop of Rome. It was assumed on the
authority of patristic Scriptures that the Pope
occupied the place of Christ in the mystical body of
the Church, which embraced heaven, earth, the dead
and the living. Original Christianity had promised
man salvation; ecclesiasticism and the spiritual
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 77

domination of the priesthood meant death for man.
The rebirth was a return to paganism.
Describing the degeneration of the Church,
Burckhardt writes: “Safe in the sense of her
inviolability, she abandoned herself to the most
scandalous profligacy. She levelled mortal blows
against conscience and intellect, and drove multitudes
of the noblest spirits whom she had inwardly
estranged into the arms of unbelief and despair.” The
Renaissance was the result of that inward
estrangement. Despair turned man's eyes to
paganism. To enjoy life heartily was the spirit of the
Renaissance. It was maintained that the world was
destined to happiness as against the Christian view of
its misery and early destruction. Renaissance
Humanism rose in revolt against the Christian culture
of the Middle Ages. It was a new way of life, which
looked for inspiration to the other side of the pious
centuries of vain theological disputations, papal
tyranny and priestly profligacy.
The priest was the herd of the Christian soul. The
man of the Renaissance refused to be herded, and
dared take his soul in his own care. Christianity had
taught man that the springs, mountains, woods, were
the home of evil spirits. The man of the Renaissance
shook off the fear of demonical powers. Passionate
love of nature, appreciation of her beauties was the
most powerful expression of the revolt of man. The
spirit of the new culture was expressed vividly in the
early Latin poems of the “Clerici Vagantes”, who had
inherited the secular and sacrilegious tradition of the
Languedoc poets. Referring to those early Latin
poems, composed mostly by unknown and obscure
clergymen, Bruckhardt writes: “A frank enjoyment of
life and its pleasures, as whose patrons the gods of
heathendom are invoked, while Catos and Scipios
hold the place of the saints and heroes of Christianity,
flows in full current through the rhymed verses.
These Latin poems of the twelfth century with all
their remarkable frivolity are doubtless a product in
which the whole of
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78 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Europe had a share. Here is a reproduction of the
whole ancient view of life—the same unstable
existence, the same free and more than free views of
life, and the germs at all events of the same pagan
tendencies in their poetry.”
Given the background of that tradition of spiritual
revolt and emotional abandon, the Renaissance was
naturally remarkable for its passionate worship of
beauty and partiality for the joy of life. “It was the
aesthetic against the ascetic “, as Lord Acton has
described the spirit of the time. All historians
notwithstanding differences of opinion in other
respects, marvel at the Renaissance art. At the same
time. Humanism has been criticised for its indifferent,
callous, negative attitude towards morality. To
challenge human judgment by boldly posing in
practice the problem of the relation between ethics
and aesthetics, was an outstanding feature of the
Renaissance culture. It was, however, not a new
problem, arbitrarily created by the wantonness of the
men of lax morality. The problem is as old as
philosophy, and therefore can be traced all the way
back to the dawn of the history of human culture. The
Greeks were very much concerned with it, and
offered several solutions—Platonic, Pericletan,
Epicurean, Stoic. On the basis of the experience of the
millennium of Christian culture, the problem arose
again in the context of the atmosphere of a general
spiritual crisis. Reacting to that crisis, the Renaissance
Humanists had to face the problem courageously.
Their approach was practical. They did not theorise
about the relation between ethics and aesthetics; they
lived a life which indicated a solution of the old
problem. It confronted them in a somewhat different
form, as the conflict between asceticism and
aesthetics.
Mediaeval Christian culture, with the sanction of the
Stoic tradition, had identified virtue with asceticism.
The world was regarded as a vale of tears, everything
in it sinful. The more one resisted the temptation of
life, the nearer he
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 79

came to God, and the greater was the chance of
salvation. Such a view of life naturally killed all
incentive for man to live as man. The ideal was
approximation to saintliness, and as that ideal could
not be attained, or even honestly pursued, by the
average run of mortal man, virtue became the veil for
hypocrisy. Apparently cherishing the sublime ideal of
divine truth, in practice, the pious Christian lived a
life of lies. The world was populated by pseudo-saints
and sanctimonious censors of everything natural,
everything human. If the entire Christian world was
not to be converted into a menagerie of maniacs,
trying sincerely or fraudulently to be saints or angels,
or a vast laboratory for experiments with untruth and
hypocrisy, a revolt against what passed as virtue and
morality was the urgent need of the moment. Even a
sanctimonious Protestant historian had to admit it
subsequently. “I know not whether any man of sound
understanding—any man, not led astray by some
fantom, can seriously wish that this state of things
had remained unshaken and unchanged in Europe;
whether any man persuades himself that the will and
power to look the genuine entire and unveiled truth
steadily in the face could ever have been nurtured
under such influences. Nor do I understand how any
one could really regard the diffusion of this most
singular condition of human mind as conducive to
the welfare and happiness of the human race.”19
Humanism rose as the response to that spiritual crisis.
The supernaturalism of the mediaeval Christian
culture was opposed with naturalism. If God had
made man after his own image, the flesh could not be
impure, its desires could not be sinful, and to satisfy
them could not be immoral. Humanism was neither
immoral nor amoral. It rejected the morality which
identified virtue with asceticism, which would kill
humanness for the sake of a vain quest for saintliness.
l9 Ranke, History of the Reformation.
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80 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

A new standard of morality was set up; it was
naturalism: man being a part of nature, to enjoy the
gifts of nature, according to her laws, was virtuous; to
act otherwise, was vice. The relation between
aesthetics and that naturalist conception of ethics is
evident. By offering a practical solution of an old
problem of cultural history, Renaissance Humanism
promoted such a riotous development of art.
Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his now famous Notebook:
“I have always sought for first principles, as to how
nature works in herself, and how I may approach her,
how the eye knows the variety of things, how our
visual power works, how visual images came about,
and in what manner the theory of sculpture and
painting should be framed.”20
Scientific observation of nature was the foundation of
the Renaissance art. Jt was not consistent with
Christian ethics which identified virtue with
asceticism—the vain attempt to suppress natural
desires. One could not obey the law of nature, enjoy
her beauties, reproduce in works of art his emotional
response to those beauties, unless he realised that he
was a part of nature, as such subject to her laws, and
that the experience of the joy of life qualified him to
enjoy the beauties of nature. With the Humanists, art
thus became an emblem of moral truth. “It was
conceived as an allegory, a figurative expression
which under its sensuous form concealed an ethical
sense.”21 Renaissance art was not a mere imitation of
nature, but discovery of reality which, for Humanism,
was the moral truth.
That is quite evident from its development; and the
moral significance of the Humanist aesthetics cannot
be fully grasped unless the process of its evolution is
carefully followed. The earlier Renaissance artists
were mostly friars; Dante himself was rather a
representative of mediaeval
20 E. McCurdy, The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci.
21 Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 81

supernaturalism than of the dawning Humanist
naturalism. Yet, just as Beatrice was more of a woman
of flesh and blood, belonging to this “vale of tears”,
than a mere divine apparition, just so did the
religious subjects of the paintings of the early
Renaissance artists gradually come closer to the flesh
and blood of human life, until we reach Titian's
Madonna, who was so very far from the idealised
Holy Mother of the Christian ascetic conception, not
to mention Leonardo's Mona Lisa with the
bewitching, if hot wicked, smile.
In his treatise on painting. Leonardo writes that the
artist must amalgamate his mind with the mind of
nature, because only then he could imagine the
purpose, gauge the emotion behind every movement
of the subject. Naturalism, the refusal to assume any
transcendental mystery behind nature thus was the
inspiration of Renaissance art; and naturalism was an
ethical attitude inasmuch as it rejected asceticism as
the measure of virtue. “The self-assertion of the
Humanists was open and unashamed; man was to
train himself like a race horse, to cultivate himself like
a flower, that he might arrive soul and body to such
perfection as morality might covet.”22
The Renaissance Humanists were not indifferent to
morality; but they refused to practise vice as virtue;
they set up a new standard of ethics and created new
moral values in their works of art. Nevertheless, to
the superficial student, the early Humanist attitude
towards ethical problems does appear to be negative.
They rejected old standards, which claimed
supernatural sanction; but they did not discover any
alternative sanction for morality. Until morality found
a secular sanction, it could not be divorced from
religion or some sort of transcendentalism, without
creating an ethical chaos. Humanism did create the
impression of such a moral chaos, although the
Renaissance art suggested the theory
23 Sir Walter Raleigh, Some Authors.
6
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82 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

of a spontaneous secular morality, which could be
elaborated only on the basis of the subsequently
acquired biological knowledge. In this respect also,
the genius of Leonardo anticipated future intellectual
development by three hundred years. He wrote that
nature was not only governed by law, but the laws
could be discovered by man, and they operated in
each higher organism as “the rule of mind.”
***
Why did the intellectual awakening noticeable
throughout Western Europe ever since the eleventh
century reach the climax in Italy? The question
becomes all the more puzzling when it is noted that
during the two hundred years (1350-1550) when
“Italy produced an output of art, scholarship and
literature such as the world had not seen since the
glory of ancient Athens,”23 the rest of Europe
appeared to relapse into slumber. The fifteenth
century was intellectually barren, not only in
England, but in France also. Germany was still
struggling out of her barbarian past. The question has
occupied the mind of historians, and different
answers have been suggested.
One fact, however, has not been sufficiently noted.
During those two hundred years, which may be
characterised as the Golden Age of European culture,
national States were rising and consolidating
themselves in Western Europe, while Italy was in a
state of political disorder. That fact seems to throw
light on the relation between culture and nationalism.
It is true that the Italian Renaissance produced a
Machiavelli, who has gone down in history as the
prophet of nationalism. But as a man of the
Renaissance, Machiavelli was much greater; he was
also a humanist, and as such cosmopolitan.
Humanism and cosmopolitanism were the two
logically interlinked strands of the Renaissance
culture. Something like nationalism grew in Florence
towards the end of the
23 Fisher, History of Europe.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 83

thirteenth century. A certain school of historians
deplores that a nascent national culture was swamped
by Renaissance Humanism. Dante is believed to have
been the bard of nationalism. But he was the first to
seek inspiration in pagan .antiquity, which was
certainly not nationalist. Socrates wore the crown of
martyrdom because he did not believe in the national
gods of Greece; Plato was not a good citizen;
Xenophone was a positively bad one; homelessness
was a pleasure for Diogenes. Drinking deep in the
fountainhead of the cosmopolitan tradition of the
ancient humanists, Dante sang: “My country is the
whole world.” Petrarch has been credited with the
saying: “Wherever a learned man fixes his seat, there
is his home.” According to Petrarch, cosmopolitanism
was the expression of the “tranquility of soul” which
remained untouched by everything that troubled the
patriotically inclined. Cosmopolitanism, the attitude
of those whose interests were personal and not
political, or of those also who adopted a non-political
stand, became fashionable among the humanist
intelligentsia. Ghiberti, for example, held: “Only he
who has learned everything is nowhere a stranger;
robbed of his fortune and without friends, he is yet
the citizen of every country, and can fearlessly
despise the changes of fortune.” Galiollus Martius,
who was rescued from the clutches of the Inquisition
by Lorenzo Medici, wrote: “The man who walked
uprightly and acted according to the natural law born
within himself would go to heaven, whatever nation
he belonged to.” Those were the representative views
of the men of the Renaissance.24
Apart from its cosmopolitanism, which was a logical
corollary to Humanism, the Renaissance culture was
intensely individualist, and as such came to be the
source of inspiration for all libertarian movements in
subsequent times. Alberti's dictum—”men can do all
things if they will”— “became famous for generations
to come. The respect for
24 Art outstanding exponent of Cosmopolitan
humanism was Erasmus.
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84 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

the dignity of the individual, the belief in the
creativeness of man, the passionate defence of the
freedom of will,— these characteristic features of the
Renaissance culture resulted from the influence of the
ancient literature. “This period first gave the highest
development to individuality, and then led the
individual to the most zealous and thorough study of
himself in all forms and under all conditions. The
mode of conceiving and representing both the
individual and human nature in general was defined
and coloured by that influence.”25
Michelet also had reached a similar judgment about
the significance of the Renaissance culture. “To the
discovery of the outward world, the Renaissance
added a still greater achievement by first discerning
and then bringing to light the full, whole nature of
man.”26
It was thus neither an afflorescence of the Italian
national culture nor ideology of the bourgeoisie. It
was the revolt of man—the universal man casting off
the fetters of religion, claiming the heritage of the
entire human culture, whose vision and creativeness
could not be confined to national boundaries. Dante,
Petrarch, Bocaccio, Leonardo, Raphael,. Michelangelo,
Alberti, Aretino and many others of the brilliant
gallaxy of human genius who together composed the
Man of the Renaissance—the universal man, the
archetype of the future of a free humanity, did not
belong to any country, any class, any age. Embodying
the culture of the past, they created a new culture
which heralded a future still to come.
The political state of Italy in the fourteenth century
was congenial for the unique phenomenon because it
precluded the possibility of the rise of any power
which, on the fraudulent pretext of representing a
collective ego, would demand sacrifice of the man of
flesh and blood. The Church
25 Burckhardt, Renaissance.
26 Michelet, History of France.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 85

was discredited; the Vatican was seriously weakened
by its own wickedness; there was no national State;
nor was there any class to claim the leadership of the
established order, which happened to be a disorder,
or to herald a new order to be ruled by the liberator.
After the death of Frederic II in the fourteenth
century, Italy was broken up into a number of City
States, and the southern part of the Peninsula came
under the rule of a number of despots—soldiers of
fortune. In order to consolidate their position, they
sought alliance of the men of talent, presumably
imitating Charlemagne. Poets, scholars .and scientists
adorning their courts were expected to endow a
legitimacy upon the upstarts. Many of them were
exiles from the North—Milan, Florence, Venice—
homes of the rising bourgeoisie. Dante was one of
them. Giotto also shared with Dante the patronage of
Grande della Scala of Verona—one of the earliest
despots of Southern Italy. “The Italian despotisms do
not appear to have stunted the free expression of
human spirit or to have introduced habits of servility
and abasement.”27
In that atmosphere, birth lost significance. Only merit
counted. Mediaeval society, whether aristocratic or
ecclesiastical, was caste-ridden. Only men of noble
birth could have a place of honour. In fourteenth
century Italy, caste distinctions disappeared. Learning
and talent secured the highest place in society.
Aristotle had laid down: “nobility rests upon
excellence and inherited wealth.” Dante revised the
philosopher of mediaeval culture and declared:
“Nobility rests upon personal excellence or on that of
predecessors.” Talking with his ancestors in heaven,
he argues that “nobility is but a mantle from which
time is ever cutting something away, unless we
ourselves add daily fresh worth to it.”28
27 Fisher, History of Europe.
28 Divine Comedy.
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86 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Later on, Dante identifies nobility with the capacity
for moral and intellectual eminence, and calls nobilita
the sister of filosofia.
That was the starting point of Renaissance
Humanism. New values were created. It held that
birth decided nothing as to the goodness or badness
of a man. Poggio exclaimed: “There is no other
nobility than that of personal merit.” Other great
humanists agreed with him. In the Middle Ages, man
was conscious of himself only as member of a race,
people, family or a guild. The Renaissance taught him
to realise his individuality—the basic unit of any
collective existence. “Man became a spiritual being.”29
***
Another factor which contributed to the triumph of
the Renaissance in Italy was the impact of the
rationalist and scientific thought of the Arab scholars.
After the downfall of the antique civilisation, its
positive outcomes—scientific knowledge and
rationalist thought—were inherited by the-Arabs.
Early Christianity, particularly of the African Patristic
period, was contemptuous of science and philosophy.
The libraries of Alexandria were destroyed and
Hypatia murdered on the order of Bishop Theophilus,
three hundred years before the Muslims captured that
seat of ancient learning and scientific enquiry. In the
beginning of the sixth, century, Emperor Justinian
closed all the schools of Athens, and drove away the
teachers who flew to Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia.
From them, the Arabs learned the teachings of the
Greek philosophers. The heritage of ancient culture
eventually reached Europe through Spain and Italy.
The Arabs not only rescued Greek learning from the
ruins of the ancient civilisation, buried deep under
the debris of Christian bigotry; their scholars and
philosophers greatly added to the precious heritage
before it reached Europe to herald
29 Burckhardt, Renaissance.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 87

a new culture and a new civilisation. The Nominalists
of the Paris University, who were the first to shake
the foundation of Christian orthodoxy, echoed the
Arab philosopher Avicenna who had first raised the
question about the relation between the Universals
and the particulars. The Arab philosophers were
generally inclined towards empiricism; therefore,
they made substantial contributions to the scientific
knowledge inherited from the Greeks. By the nineth
century, the most important Greek works on science
had been translated into Arabic. The greatest of the
Arab thinkers, Averroes, was recognised in the
Middle Ages as the most authoritative commentator
of Aristotle. He held that, while the soul perishes with
man's brain, reason was immortal and therefore, by
cultivating reason, man can enter into a communion
with the Universal and Eternal. It was in the form of
Averroes' rationalism that Arabic thought influenced
European intellect through Spain.
Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Emperor Frederic
II, the three most outstanding personalities of the
Middle Ages, were disciples of the great Arab thinker.
Averroism was condemned by Christian orthodoxy as
the source of the most arrant heresies. But apart from
historically heralding the Renaissance, rationalist
scholasticism and the heretical movements were like
streams of clear water running into the sand.
The influence of Arab thought in Italy was more
dynamic. There, the European mind directly felt the
impact of its iconoclastic and scientific aspects. In the
thirteenth century the University of Padua, was the
centre of intellectual life in Northern Italy. Under the
influence of scholastic rationalism that centre of
mediaeval learning became “a strong fortress of
barbarism, and struggled against Humanism until the
seventeenth century.”30
It is instructive to note that the University of Padua
30 Lange, History of Materialism.
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88 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

was patronised by the merchant princes of Venice.
That fact throws light on the relation between the
rising bourgeoisie and the Renaissance. Scholastic
rationalism freed the human mind from the rusty
chains of Christian orthodoxy, but at the same time
forged a new chain; it was the authority of Aristotle
as interpreted by Averroes. The soul of man was
liberated from the tutelage of the priest. But his mind
still remained fettered by a blind faith in terrestrial
authorities. Freedom of the will had no meaning
unless it led to freedom of action. Spiritual liberation
must express itself in man becoming conscious of his
sovereignty, of his creativeness, which, knew no
bounds. The heritage of ancient culture could not
become the source of inspiration for a new stage of
human development, unless rationalism was
reinforced by Humanism. In Padua, the rationalist
struggled against the physicist until scholasticism
collapsed under the frontal attack of the humanist
Petrarch. Dante represented the transition from
mediaevalism to modernism. He was the first
romanticist, should the men of the Renaissance be so
characterised, because they dared take destiny into
their own hand and felt that each had the power to
shape the world as he wanted to live in.
The strongest impetus to the Renaissance came from
the South of Italy. The scientific knowledge of the
Greeks considerably expanded by the Arab scholars,
came to Europe through that way. While Padua
remained the stronghold of scholastic rationalism,
Salerno became the centre of scientific learning. Until
the seventeenth century, medical students from all
parts of Europe flocked there to learn the teachings of
Hippokrates and Galen, elaborated by the researches
of their Arabic pupils. The ethnological conception of
a privileged Christianity was weakened by the
contact with the new vigorous faith preached by the
Arabian Prophet. That unsettling and revolutionary
impact was felt directly and more strongly in the
South of Italy.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 89

“The knowledge and admiration of the remarkable
civilisation which Islam had attained was peculiar to
Italy from the time of the crusades. This sympathy
was fostered by the half-Mohammedan governments
of some Italian princes and by constant commercial
intercourse with the Eastern and Southern
Mediterranean. In the thirteenth century, the Italians
recognised a Mohammedan ideal of nobleness,
dignity and pride.”31
Emperor Frederic II, who had left the inhospitable
northern climate of Germany for the sunny olive
groves of Southern Italy and Sicily, could be called
the foster-father of the Renaissance. Himself a highly
cultured person, he was a friend of the enlightened
Saracens, a protector of learning and promoter of
scientific studies. His court at Palermo set the model
for the courts of the despots of Southern Italy, which
were adorned by the presence of great humanists. In
the tradition of his famous grandfather, Barbarossa,
Frederic II continuously waged a war against the
Pope and instigated the Italian princes to defy the
authority of the Vatican. As a token of their defiance,
the princes patronised secular learning and promoted
Humanism. “It was upon the same territory
(Southern Italy) that the spirit of freedom first took its
rise in Europe. For, that strip of land in Lower Italy
and specially Sicily, was then the native home of
enlightened minds and the cradle of the idea of
toleration.”32
While they were appealing to Plato in their struggle
against rationalist scholasticism, which invoked the
authority of Aristotle, the humanists were also
Epicureans. Their individualism was based on the
Epicurean as well as the Stoic tradition. While
Platonic Humanism and the scientific knowledge of
the Greeks came to Italy through the intermediary of
the Arab scholars and thinkers, Epicureanism
31 Burckhardt, Renaissance.
32 Lange, History of Materialism.
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90 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

as also the Stoic view of life had reached there directly
centuries ago and deeply influenced the intellectual
atmosphere of Rome immediately before the advent
of Christianity. During the dark ages following upon
the sack of Rome by the barbarians from Germany,
the works of Epicures were destroyed. But the
writings of Cicero and the didactic poem of Lucretius
had survived the furore of Christian piety. The
Renaissance humanists not only welcomed the
message of ancient Greece received through the Arab
scientists and philosophers, but drew also upon the
native tradition of pagan antiquity. From Cicero and
Lucretius, they inherited the Epicurean vision of a
godless Universe and of pleasure derived from virtue.
Already in the twelfth century, Epicureanism had
become the bugbear of the Church. It was condemned
as heresy throughout Italy. When Florence was
largely destroyed by fire in 1115 and 1617, that
calamity was characterised as “divine judgment on
the heresy of the luxurious and gluttonous sect of
Epicureans.”33 Lorenzo Valla, a younger contem-
porary of Petrarch, wrote a “Discourse on Pleasure “
which scandalised the hypocritical clergy and the
blasphemous Vatican, but was read avidly in the
cultivated courts of the rebellious princes. Dante
testifies to what an extent the Epicurean view of life
had influenced the cultural atmosphere of Italy in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Inferno was
populated by two classes of sinners—heretics and the
Epicureans. The great humanists of the fourteenth
century (Petrarch, Bocaccio, Valla, etc.) were deeply
influenced by the writings of Cicero and Seneca. The
Epicurean stamp on the humanist view of life and the
Renaissance culture in general is unmistakable.
Nevertheless, not a few of the most enthusiastic
apostles of the new culture belonged to the Church,
including some members of the monastic orders
created to act as the “spiritual
33 Giovanni Villani.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 91

police”—to protect Christian orthodoxy and
ecclesiastical authority against rationalism and
heresy. The spirit of the Renaissance thus was truly
humanist; it heralded a universal cosmopolitan
culture, which expressed no selfish class interest nor
the special genius of any nation.
Apart from the tradition of the ancient Greco-Roman
culture and the impact of Arabian learning, the
advent of Pope Nicholas V has been identified by
competent historians as a contributing cause of the
Renaissance. “On that day, the new learning took
possession of the Holy See, and Rome began to be
considered the capital of the Renaissance.” While still
an obscure monk, the new Pope is reported to have
run into debt for collecting Greek manuscripts. When
he reached the Vatican, his agents searched half the
world for hidden treasures of ancient knowledge and
learning. A large number of lay scholars were
employed at the Vatican to translate profane Greek
dramas. No less than five thousand old manuscripts
on secular subjects were placed on the shelves of the
Vatican Library.
After Nicholas V, who went down in history as the
“Renaissance Pope”, the humanist historian Aeneas
Sylvius ascended the Pontificial throne as Pius II. He
was the typical man of the Renaissance and has been
described as “enemy of hypocrisy and superstition,
courageous and consistent “. In him history saw the
remarkable spectacle of a prince of the prelate
initiating criticism of the Scriptures. He argued that
“even if Christianity were not confirmed by miracles,
it might still be accepted on account of its morality.”
That set the tone of the humanist attitude to
Christianity. Under the regime of that “most modern
of mediaeval Popes”, Lorenzo Valla, who had
narrowly escaped the tentacles of the Inquisition,
became a high functionary at the Vatican, and from
that protected position wrote his famous book
exposing the “Donation of Constantine” as a fiction.
That legendary gift of the first Christian Emperor
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92 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

was the sanction for the Bishop of Rome claiming
supreme temporal power in the Western Empire. “He
is, indeed, the founder of freedom of speech in
history. When his history of his own time was
published, a great number of passages injurious to his
countrymen and to his ecclesiastical brethren had to
be suppressed. They have been printed lately and
contain in fifty pages the concentrated essence of the
wickedness of Italy.” 34
Pope Leo X invited Raphael to undertake the
restoration of ancient Rome. Under him, “the Vatican
resounded with song and music and their echoes
were heard through the neighbourhood as a call of
joy and gladness.” 35 The humanist courtier Ariosto,
who was Ambassador of Ferrera to Rome at that time,
kept on record that under Leo X the Vatican was “a
greater centre of culture than the Florence of the
Medicis”. Bibbiena's profane comedies were
applauded in the Holy City. Ficino wrote that
towards the end of the fifteenth century, when the
Renaissance was in its high tide, there was no place
where liberty prevailed as at Rome. Pope Nicholas V
handsomely rewarded Filelfo for his blistering satires.
And Poggio, famous for his devastating mockery, the
fiercest critique of the clergy, enjoyed the patronage
of the Vatican for half a century. Bandello was a
Dominican monk. Finally, there is the testimony of
Erasmus who visited Rome in 1515, and warmly
extolled “the light and liberty” he found there.
***
The Christian belief in a divine government of the
world had been destroyed by the prevalent spectacles
of injustice and misery. Therefore, Dante, an intensely
religious man, surrendered the life on this earth to the
caprices of fortune. In his old age, even Poggio wrote
a book on “The Miseries of the Human Condition “,
in which he depicted the world
34 Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History.
35 Burckhardt, Renaissance.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 93

as a vale of tears and expressed doubt about the
possibility of human happiness. That pessimistic view
was general among the humanists, who took up a
cold and resigned attitude towards the prevailing
atmosphere of violence and misrule. Rejecting the
notion of Providence, they spoke symbolically of the
turning of the wheel of fortune. But the danger of
sinking in the treacherous morass of fatalism was
headed off by turning to the ancient belief in
astrology. The course of life was determined by the
movement of heavenly bodies which were physical
systems. Practice of astrology meant that man wanted
to know what would be the course of his life if he did
not take destiny in his own hand. The belief in
astrology, therefore, expressed the will to penetrate
the future so as to determine it.
Great humanists, however, were free from the
superstition. Petrarch, for example, was
contemptuous about the astrologers. In his novels he
mercilessly exposed the lies of their system. Giovanni
Villani declared: “No constellation can subjugate the
free will of man.” Matteo Villani condemned
astrology as a vice, and Mirandola described it as the
source of “all impurity and immorality “. He also
exclaimed with his characteristic vehemence: “The
dark Ages which spared themselves the trouble of
induction and free enquiry, can have no right to
impose upon us their dogmatic verdict.”36
Burckhardt, himself an ardently religious man and
anxious to show that the men of the Renaissance were
essentially Christian, writes: “Their Humanism was in
fact pagan, and became more and more so as its
sphere widened in the fifteenth century. Its
representatives, advance-guard of unbridled
individualism, display as a rule such a character that
even their religion becomes a matter of indifference to
us. They easily got the name of atheists and spoke
freely against the Church.”37
36 Mirandola, Discourse on the Dignity of Man.
37 Burckhardt, Renaissance.
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94 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

With their paganism, the humanists humanised
religion itself. Codrus Urcius, a professor at the
University of Bologna, wrote against the Church and
the monks in the most abusive language. But he also
wrote reverentially about “the true god-man Jesus
Christ”. Yet his house and manuscripts were set on
fire by the “spiritual police “. Thereupon, driven to a
frenzy of wrath and despair, the old scholar rushed
out in the street and there, standing in front of an
image of the Madonna, exclaimed: “Listen to what I
tell you; I am not mad; I am saying what I mean. If I
ever call upon you in the hour of my death, you need
not hear me or take me among your own, for I will go
and spend eternity with the Devil.”
With the humanists, the idea of greatness and fame
replaced the Christian faith in heaven. Virtue was to
be practised not for any recompense in the world to
come, but to conquer a place of distinction and
honour in this, and to be immemorialised in history.
The notion of immortality was thus given a new
meaning. It was not an idle dream to be realised, if
ever, by the grace of a capricious Providence. It could
be attained by man's own effort. The ideal of
immortality could be realised in the permanence of
the product of the creative genius of man, in the
continuity of human culture. That noble ideal was
found in “Scipio's Dream “—the sixth book of
Cicero's Republic. Therein is a fascinating description
of the life of great men after their death. It is a picture
of the pagan heaven. In the Divine Comedy, the devout
Dante also dreamed “Scipio's Dream” and set the
pattern of the humanist ideal of fame and historical
greatness.
***
The spirit of scientific enquiry inherited by the Arabs
from the Greeks had reached Western Europe
through Spain early in the thirteenth century. But the
University of Paris and other seats of learning were
preoccupied with theological
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 95

disputes and metaphysical speculations. Empiricism
and .scientific study remained confined to a few
individuals like Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon and
Gerbert of Rheims. “The Renaissance of the twelfth
century”, therefore, was unable to defeat
mediaevalism in Western Europe as did the Italian
Renaissance two hundred years later.
The failure of the ancient Greek philosophers to
explain nature in natural terms led to Platonic
mysticism, which prepared the ground for the rise of
the Christian religion.33 Originally a creation of the
innate rationality of man, the desire to know the
cause of things, religion filled up the spiritual vacuum
created by the inadequacy of ancient scientific
knowledge. For a thousand years, the European mind
was dominated by the religious mode of thought.
Eventually, Arab scholars laboriously collected the
scattered records of knowledge left behind by Thales,
Pythagoras, Democritos, Hippocrates, Euclid,
Archimedes, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, Galen and
other forerunners of science. A succession of them —
Khaled, Ben, Yezid, Ben Musa, Geber, the two Al
Hazens, Avicenna and Averroes—sifted, co-
ordinated, elucidated and added to that precious
patrimony of mankind. It ultimately reached Europe
to stimulate the age-long struggle for spiritual
freedom and search for truth. The expansion of social
and political freedom—modern civilisation—resulted
from that struggle.39
While the prosperous traders of Genoa, the powerful
merchant princes of Venice and the opulent bankers
38“Greek science was not killed, it died. It had reached the limit
of possible expansion within the mould in which it was cast.”
B. Farrington. Science in Antiquity.
39 “Science is the last step in man's mental development, and it
may be regarded as the highest and most characteristic
attainment of human culture. It is a very late and refined
product that could not develop except under certain special
conditions. Even the conception of science, in its specific sense,
did not exist before the times of the great Greek thinkers—
before the Pythagoreans and the Atomists, Plato and Aristotle.
And this first conception seems to be forgotten and eclipsed in
the following centuries. It had to be rediscovered and re-
established in the age of the Renaissance.” Ernst Cassirer, An
Essay on Man.
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96 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

of Florence, preoccupied with the power politics,
court intrigues and wars waged with mercenary
soldiers, were unconcerned with larger political
issues of general interest, Rienzi established a
republican government at Rome and inscribed on its
banner “Liberty, Justice and Peace”. The great
Petrarch was the Tribune's friend, philosopher and
guide; but that was before Renaissance Humanism
had brought about a spiritual revolution—a
revolutionary change in the cultural atmosphere. The
ignorant and superstitious masses of the Roman
people could be still swayed by the monks. They
turned against Rienzi shortly after they had acclaimed
him. as the Tribune. “The political scheme of Rienzi
failed. But it started a movement in the world of
thought, deeper and more enduring than State
transactions. For his ideas were adopted by the
greatest writer then living, and were expounded by
him in the most eloquent and gracious prose that had
been heard for a thousand years. Petrarca called the
appearance of the patriotic Tribune and rhetorician
the dawn of a new world and Golden Age.”40
The European mind resumed the struggle for spiritual
freedom more successfully in Italy, because the
revival or empiricism and scientific enquiry was more
widespread there thanks to the fact that a large share
of the patrimony of ancient scientific knowledge had
fallen to that fortunate land. At any time, among any
civilised people, individuals may appear who, like
Roger Bacon and Gerbert of Reims, for instance,
might be “masters of the whole knowledge of the age.
It is another matter when a whole people takes a
natural delight in the study and investigation of
nature, at a time when other nations are indifferent,
that is to say, when the discoverer is not threatened or
wholly ignored, but can count on friendly support of
congenial spirits. That this was the case in Italy, is
unquestionable.”41
40 Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History.
41 Burckhardt, Renaissance.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 97

The Italian Renaissance is usually interpreted as a
revival of art and literature. The scientific work of the
period is not only ignored, but some historians go to
the extent of maintaining that its contribution to
science was inconsequential and negligible. The
artistic and literary creation of the Renaissance was,
indeed, so very imposing as to hold historians
spellbound; thus, they overlooked its other aspects.
Beginning from Dante, most of the great personalities
of the period were keenly interested in scientific
study and many made contributions which have not
yet been quite surpassed. Leonardo da Vinci, for
example, anticipated not a few of the technological
achievements of our time. Dante was a keen student
of natural phenomena. Petrarch was not only a
geographer; he wrote a book called Aspects of Nature.
Giotto was a naturalist. Botany and Zoology were
studied in the gardens of the Academy of Florence.
The study of the structure of plants and their
classification was taken up at the point where
Theophrates had left off two thousand years ago.
There also recommenced the recording of the story of
the animal world as Aristotle had begun. Aeneas
Sylvius was a geographer as well as a historian.
Salerno and Bologna were the principal centres for
the study of the medical sciences. “latrochemistry,”
which replaced alchemy, contributed to the
development of the art of healing disease. “A stream
of new chemical thought begins in the period of the
Renaissance. In the schools of latrochemistry,
biological and medical thought becomes prevalent.”42
All the great painters and sculptors were keen
students of anatomy so much so as to convince the
great historian Michelet that the discovery of man by
the Renaissance was a greater achievement than the
discovery of the outer world, by which he meant
knowledge of nature. The Italians were the first
among modern peoples to be keenly interested in the
observation of nature.43
42 Ernst Gassier, An Essay on Man.
43 See Humboldt, Cosmos. 7
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98 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

The science of perspective (optics) and a minimum
knowledge of anatomy and physiology are the pre-
requisites for realistic painting and sculpture. The
treatise of Andreas Vasilius on “Human Body” was
published simultaneously with the famous work of
Copernicus. It was based on anatomical and
physiological researches carried on at the schools of
Padua and Bologna for many years. Mondino da
Zuzzi had published a textbook on anatomy as early
as the end of the thirteenth century. As testified by
Leonardo da Vinci, the object of the Renaissance
artists was to see the world in the light of nature, and
for that purpose they studied nature and the human
body in the minutest detail. “In order to obtain an
exact and complete knowledge of these, I have
dissected more than ten human bodies, destroying all
the various members, and removing even the very
smallest particles of the flesh which surrounded these
veins without causing any effusion of blood other
than the imperceptible bleeding of the capillary veins.
And as one single body did not suffice for so long a
time, it was necessary to proceed by stages with so
many bodies as would render my knowledge
complete; and this I repeated twice over in order to
discover the differences.”44
As regards the achievements of particular men, the
Renaissance produced not only a scientific prodigy
like Leonardo. He was matched by Toscanelli and
Pacioli. In the fifteenth century, those three were the
masters of mathematics, natural sciences and
technology. Leonardo had rejected Ptolemy's
“Almagest” before Copernicus, and the latter freely
called himself his pupil. The typical men of the
Renaissance were of universal genius—universal
men, in the true sense. “Prodigies of versatility were
not infrequent. Men passed and repassed from
painting to sculpture, from sculpture to architecture
and metal work, and from these
44Leonardo da Vinci, quoted in E. MacCurdy's The
Mind of Leonardo da Vinci.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 99

forms of energy to poetry, philosophy and natural
sciences. The classical examples of this
omnicompetence were Michelangelo, Leonardo da
Vinci and Alberti”.45 Raphael was also an architect,
while Michelangelo built the fortifications of Florence.
In technology, Leonardo was two hundred years
ahead of his time. While Galileo was still an obscure
teacher of astronomy at Padua, Leonardo not only
anticipated theoretically twentieth century feats of
technology, but actually built a model aeroplane and
tried to fly.
Leonardo has been described as a mighty universal
genius who can be compared to Aristotle, and as a
master of physical science, to Archimedes. “A painter,
sculptor, engineer, architect, physicist, biologist and
philosopher, was Leonardo, and in each role he was
supreme. Perhaps no man in the history of the world
shows such a record. His performance, extraordinary
as it was, must be reckoned as small compared with
the ground he opened up, the grasp of fundamental
principles he displayed, and the insight with which
he seized upon the true methods of investigation in
each branch of enquiry.”46 Believing that painting was
based on geometry, Leonardo mastered that science,
and for that purpose carried on extensive studies in
mathematics generally. He dissected human bodies in
order to acquire exact anatomical knowledge, without
which he held the human form could not be truly
reproduced either in painting or in sculpture. For
understanding optics, he studied the structure of
human eyes.47
The famous eighteenth century surgeon, William
Hunter, expressed the following opinion: “I am fully
persuaded that Leonardo was the best anatomist at
that time In the world. Leonardo was certainly the
first man we know of to introduce the practice of
making anatomical drawings.”
45 Fisher, History of Europe.
46 Watham, History of Science.,
47See J. P. Richter, The Literary Works of Leonardo da
Vinci.
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100 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

As regards geology, Leonardo anticipated Hutton and
Lyell by three hundred years in formulating the basic
ideas of what subsequently came to be known as the
uniformitarian theory. He argued that the biblical
deluge was not universal, nor were fossils found
inland and on mountain tops laid down there by the
great flood. He visualised that water circulated
through rain, rivers, sea, cloud, and again down as
rain; that ancient bottoms of seas had become
mountains, and mountains had been washed away by
rain. Though gifted with the power of soaring
imagination, which enabled him to anticipate
profound theories of science, in practice, Leonardo
depended rigorously on experiment and observation.
“All true sciences are the result of experience, which
passes through our senses. Where reason is not, its
place is taken by clamour. This never occurs when
things are certain. Therefore, where there are
quarrels, there true science is not, because truth can
only end one way.”48 Leonardo had avoided
theological controversy as irrelevant for his pursuits,
until the study of psychology brought him to the
problem of soul. Having described soul as a part of
human existence, he declared: “The rest of the
definition of the soul I leave to the imagination of
friars, those fathers of the people who know all
secrets by inspiration.” That may appear to be
evasive; but the significance of the thinly veiled
sarcasm is clear enough. To summarise, “if we had to
choose one figure to stand for all time as the
incarnation of the true spirit of the Renaissance, we
should point to the majestic form of Leonardo da
Vinci.49
Leonardo's giant personality cast its shadow to
eclipse the reputation of other scientists of the
Renaissance. There was, for example, Paracelsus, who
was the first to find fault with Galen, and criticise as
humbug and fraud what passed as medical science
until that time. He also set aside the
48Quoted by J. P. Richter, Literary Worlds of Leonardo
da Vinci.
49 Watham, History of Science.
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THE REVOLT OF MAN 101

mystical practices of alchemy and harnessed the
knowledge of chemistry of his time (latrochemistry)
in the service of medicine. Then, Vasalius of Padua
criticised Galen's notion about the structure of human
bodies, and began teaching anatomy by dissecting
corpses. There were others who followed Vasalius;
among them was Fabricius, from whom Harvey
learned about the valves in veins. An Academy for
the empirical study of nature was founded at Naples
by Telesio.
The revival of science did not take place to promote
the development of the means of capitalist
production. Neither Leonardo nor Copernicus nor
Galileo had any connection with the rising
bourgeoisie. The latter two were devout Christians,
and Leonardo was a member of the “intellectual
aristocracy” which the Renaissance was supposed to
have produced according to the materialist
conception of history. The traders and money-lenders
of the Italian cities were too vulgarly selfish and
materialistic to patronise science. Columbus found no
patronage from his native Genoa and had to appeal to
the feudal court of Spain to finance his expedition.
Venice contributed the least to the Renaissance.
Florence played a role because the Medicis, engaged
in a struggle for power with the Vatican, wanted to
outshine the Renaissance Popes as patrons of
learning, literature and art.
A recent study by a modern sociologist of Marxist
persuasion could not help revealing that there was no
causal connection between the rise of the bourgeoisie
and the Renaissance. “This new intellectual spirit
which was formed in the towns, and not in some
monastery, takes up a position opposed to the town
by a curious inversion typical of the literati.....
Petrarca, Poggio and Sadoleto showed their desire to
keep at a distance the bourgeoise engaged in his daily
routine.”50 The same study also reveals that the
bourgeoisie was indifferent to the Renaissance and
admits that the vul-
50 Alfred von Martin, Sociology of the Renaissance.
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102 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

gar trading class was culturally influenced by the revival of
science, learning, literature and art. “The bourgeoisie, who
had been engaged in active life, above all in business, had,
to begin with, forced the representatives of pure learning on
to the periphery of existence. But in the meantime, the
bourgeoisie had become untrue to its origins or, at any rate,
to its original driving power. Now activities at the centre
were once more influenced from the periphery, culture
coloured economic development and changes of
sociological origin were helped along by the intellectual
and cultural influence of the intelligentsia. The literati were
encouraging the bourgeoisie to become less and less true to
itself.”51 So, to be influenced by the new culture was
against the nature and “driving power” of the bourgeoisie.
Renaissance humanism was not the ideology of the rising
bourgoisie.
The Renaissance was the resumption of man's struggle for
spiritual freedom and search for truth undertaken at the
dawn of civilisation, but confused and partially interrupted
by the religious mode of thought which prevailed for more
than a millennium. The Renaissance did not herald the rise
of any particular class; it was the revolt of man, patronised
and promoted by all the free spirits of the time belonging to
the feudal aristocracy, the Church or the rising class of
traders. Classicism was conservative. As against it, the
romanticism of the humanists proclaimed the freedom of
will, and faith in the creativeness of man. It liberated reason
from the yoke of teleology. It maintained that the law-
governed Universe did not preclude revolutions to be
brought about by man's will to freedom and urge to create.
It declared the spiritual liberation of man, and ushered in
the era of modern civilisation, which immensely expanded
the scope of human activity. Growing knowledge of nature
increased the power of man to prosecute the struggle for
freedom more effectively than ever before.
51
lbid.
 103

CHAPTER V
REVOLT OF THE ANGELS
BY its very nature, the humanist culture of the Renaissance
was exclusive, in the sense that its diffusion was limited by
the smallness of the educated class of the time. It heralded
a new civilisation, still to rise. New ideas were conceived
and novel ideals visualised to stimulate fresh human
activities and to inspire more ambitious human
endeavours. Whatever the future might hold in store for it,
Renaissance Humanism had to cope with the given
intellectual equipment, emotional preoccupations and
cultural atmosphere of the epoch. “For lack of education,
the great mass of the public was incapable of
understanding works of refined order. Nor did this
uncultivated mass consist only of the lower classes, for the
large majority of the rich and noble have always belonged
to it.”1
The popular mind was still saturated with religion; and
religion was not something superimposed. It was a creation
of human mind. Man's mind cannot outgrow its own
creation until it has created. something new which, being
bigger and brighter than the old, outshines it. Humanism
was destined to replace supernaturalism. But the process
was bound to be long and laborious. Meanwhile, religion,
belief in the supernatural, held sway on man's mind. The
social and cultural history of Europe remained interwoven
with the ecclesiastical history; the moral and intellectual
life of man was dominated by the concern for his relation
with God.
The Christian faith was so stubbornly abiding because it
rested upon the experience of two cataclysms. Originally,
1
Charles Seignobos, The Rise of European Civilisation.
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104 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

it offered the hope of a life after death to man terrified by
the spectre of the dissolution of the antique social order.
Later on, the belief in the evangelical mission of the
Church enabled the Christian world to survive the chaos
following upon the fall of the Roman Empire. As a distant
hope hereafter and an immediate protection in this world,
Christianity became the sheet-anchor of European life, and
the Church its embodiment.
“A slow but sure and unbroken progress of intellectual
culture had been going on within its bosom for a series of
ages........ All the vital and productive elements of human
culture were here united and mingled. The development or
society had gone on naturally and gradually; the innate
passion and genius for science and for art constantly
received fresh food and fresh inspiration, and were in their
fullest bloom and vigour; civil liberty was established upon
firm foundations; solid and systematical political structures
in beneficient rivalry, and the necessities of civil life led to
the combination and improvement of physical resources;
the laws which eternal Providence had impressed on human
affairs were left to their free and tranquil operation; what
had decayed had crumbled away and disappeared; while the
germs of fresh life continually shot up and flourished; in
Europe were found united the most intelligent, the bravest
and the most civilised nations still in the freshness of
youth.”2 That idealised picture of the Middle Ages was not
conjured out of the imagination of a chauvinistic European.
It was realistic to the extent that it depicted Christianity as
the central mooring of European life and the only cohesive
factor of society until the close of the Middle Ages.
Opposing supernaturalism with Humanism, attaching
greater importance to the reality of life in this world than to
the idle dream of happiness in Heaven, the Renaissance
2
Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany.
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THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 105

demanded a complete break with the tradition of the age of
religion. The Reformation which followed, on the other
hand, was in conformity with that venerable tradition.
Therefore, the latter appeared to be more popular and
successful than the former, which was like a dazzling flash
out of nowhere to be drowned again in the surrounding
darkness of classical immobility, conventional orderliness
and catholicity of the Christian religion.
The Renaissance was a revolution, checked by the
Reformation and the so-called Counter-Reformation. So-
called, because originally it was a measure against the
revolt of man, initiated under the patronage of Ferdinand
and Isabella of Spain before the Reformation broke out in
Germany. After the Spanish conquest of Italy and the siege
of Rome by Charles V, the political situation in that
country changed; the Renaissance was caught in the ebb-
tide. But in the mean time, Humanism had crossed the Alps
and radiated northwards, though there also to be pushed
into the backwaters by the rising tide of the Reformation.
The resurgence of man had to bide time for the revolt of the
angels to blow over.
Burckhardt concluded his study of the Renaissance with the
following observation: “It can hardly be doubted that the
Renaissance would soon have destroyed those two Orders
(Franciscan and Dominican) had it not been for the German
Reformation and the Counter-Reformation which that
provoked. Their saints and popular preachers could hardly
have saved them. And who can say what fate was in store
for the papacy itself, if the Reformation had not saved it.”
That was a sound judgment about the historical
significance of the Reformation.
As a matter of fact, the revolt of the angels against the
sacrilege of the temple of God, and to restore religion to the
pristine purity of faith, had broken out first in Italy during
the later period of the Renaissance. The standard of revolt
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106 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

was raised by Savonarola at the end of the fifteenth century
in Florence, the native home of the rising bourgeoisie, who
were supposed to have created Renaissance Humanism as
the ideology of their class. Freely opposing the “atheism,
immorality” and the secular culture of the Renaissance,
Savonarola passionately advocated return to the virtues of
early Christianity, and incited the Florentine “democracy”
in a successful revolt against the corrupt government of the
opulent bourgeoisie. To divert popular attention from the
degeneration of religion and corruption of the Church,
exposed by the Humanists, Savonarola denounced the vices
of the temporal rulers—usury, luxury, amusements and
scandalous fashions. Captivating the poor people's
imagination with the picture of the early Christian
Communes, and swaying the popular mind by a fanatical
appeal to the faith in a just and benevolent God, Savonarola
attained his ideal, which was the: establishment of a
theocratic State in Florence, in which “all men were to bow
in blessed humility before the Unseen.” The Florentine friar
was neither a descendant of the great heretics of the Middle
Ages nor was he a forerunner of the Reformation. Because,
he did not challenge the authority of the Pope and the
spiritual pretension of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. He
represented the Counter-Reformation, and as such was the
embodiment of the religious tradition which resisted the
radiation of the spirit of Renaissance.
At the end of the Middle Ages, Europe entered a period of
clash between the two currents of thought underlying her
entire cultural tradition. Both the currents—of rationalism
and religion—flowed from the pre-Christian antiquity.
Essentially, both expressed man's desire to know and will
to be free. But in course of time, religion disowned its
original justification, and faith was postulated as the
antithesis of reason. That internal conflict of the European
culture which closed the Middle Ages and heralded the
modern civilisation, was graphically depicted hi
Savonarola's attitude to, and
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THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 107

appreciation of, the intellectual heritage of the pre-
Christian antiquity which inspired the Renaissance.
Attacking the Humanists, he thundered:
“The only good thing we owe to Plato and Aristotle is that
they brought forward many arguments which we can use
against the heretics. Yet, they and other philosophers are
now in hell. An old woman knows more about faith than
Plato. It would be good for religion if many books that,
seem useful were destroyed. When there were not so many
books and not so many arguments and disputes, religion
grew more quickly than it has done since.”3 The militant
monk condemned science as harmful because it distracted
man's mind from God to secular matters. But at the same
time he realised the necessity of prostituting knowledge
and learning. Science was Satan's snare; yet, a few should
have to brave it, so that “there may be no want of
intellectual athletes to confute the Sophism of the heretics”.
Human mind had been accustomed to the religious mode-of
thought for a whole millennium. Even when a new vista
was opened up by the revolt of man against the agelong
spiritual stagnation, it would not easily come out of the rut.
Because, religion had become a mental habit. As such, it
persisted even long after it had ceased to be a spiritual
necessity. That cultural and intellectual atavism was
evidenced by the Reformation, which appeared to eclipse
the Renaissance.
Humanism, however, was not a still-born child. Having
grown so luxuriantly in the congenial atmosphere of Italy,
it naturally attracted the attention of free spirits in other
parts of Europe. By the middle of the fifteenth century,
some German scholars, notably, Agricola and Reuchlin
visited Italy, and carried the message of Humanism across
the Alps. “This reflorescence of Italy in time reacted on
Germany. In consequence of the uninterrupted intercourse
with Italy.
3
Villari, Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola.
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108 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

occasioned by ecclesiastical relations, the Germans soon
discovered the superiority of the Italians; they saw
themselves .despised by the disciples of the grammarians
and rhetoricians of that country, and began to be ashamed
of the rudeness of their spoken, and the poverty of their
written language. It was not surprising, therefore, that
young aspiring spirits at length determined to learn their
Latin in Italy.... A man endowed with the peculiar talent
necessary for appropriating to himself the classical learning
of the age, then arose—Rudolf Huesmann of Groningen,
called Agricola. His scholarship excited universal
admiration; he was applauded in the schools as a Roman, a
second Virgil.”4
It is, however, not surprising that the message did not find
any great response in the Universities of the Northern
countries, though they had been the breeding ground or
scholastic rationalism—that powerful solvent of
ecclesiastical authority and religious orthodoxy. The
anxiety to rationalise faith, to revitalise atrophied religious
thought by injecting in its senile veins the serum of its
original rationality, was mildly shocked by Humanism,
which struck at the very roots of religion. If in Italy, the
University of Padua, as the centre of scholastic learning,
resisted the Renaissance culture to the bitter end, the
Northern seats of traditional learning could not be any less
conventional and conservative. France had become a
centralised National State, which recognised Catholicism
as the official religion and protected the Roman Church,
against schism and heterodoxy. The German Princes and
also the Emperor were carrying on a perennial struggle
against the Universalism of Rome. Nevertheless, with a
few honourable exceptions, most of the German
Universities did not take kindly to the message of
Humanism. They regarded it as a new form of Roman
domination. “It was the importation of a foreign element,
the setting up of an old enemy,
4
Ranke, History of the Reformation.
 109

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 109

the restoration of a world the Germans under Alaric and
Theodoric had overthrown.... The pagan spirit, the
impatience of Christianity, appears only in one or two
Germans.”5 And they kept their convictions to themselves.
Nevertheless the spirit of the Renaissance could not be kept
out of Germany. As a matter of fact, it preceded the
Reformation and, in a way, prepared the ground for it.
Erasmus represented the migration of Humanism to the
North, and he also heralded the Reformation in so far it
was a revolt against the corruption of the Church. The
invention of printing was Germany's contribution to the
cause of Humanism. The Renaissance literature, imported
from Italy by Agricola, Reuchlin and von-Hutten, could be
made easily accessible to lay readers. Boycott by the
Universities could no longer block the spread of the new
learning. The initial stage of the Renaissance in Germany
culminated in the publication of the works of Erasmus. “Of
all scholars who have popularised scholarly literature,
Erasmus was the most brilliant, the man whose aims were
the loftiest, and who produced lasting effects over the
widest area. His work was done, too, at the right moment
for the North. A genial power was needed to thaw the frost-
bound soil, and to prepare those fruits which each land was
to bring forth in its own way.”6
Erasmus has been described as the most typical European
of all times, the flower of the Renaissance and the greatest
of Humanists. Opinions may differ in this respect. But
Erasmus certainly personified more clearly and faithfully
than any other man the most characteristic feature of the
culture of his time, namely, the conflict between the
dissatisfaction with the religious mode of thought, which
drove the more courageous amongst men to fall back upon
themselves, and the lingering hope of the possibility of
reforming religion
5
Lord Acton. Lectures on Modern History.
6
Cambridge Modem History.
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110 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

so as to head off the catastrophe of the cultivated
Europeans being cut adrift from all spiritual moorings.
Erasmus is not counted among the great philosophers. He
did not produce a system of speculative thought, but lived
the noblest philosophy of life. He did not possess any
poetical talent, and his artistic taste does not seem to have
been of a very high level. He distinguished himself as the
prophet of toleration and the populariser of humanist
learning. He could be called the educator of his time. He
was a master letter writer; personal correspondence was
his main instrument for imparting ideas. He corresponded
with Popes, Emperors, Kings, scholars and statesmen, all
of whom held him in great esteem. His literary works were
voluminous, covering a wide range or problems. Apart
from the Dialogues, the book which truly reflected his
spirit was a satire in Praise of Folly.
Bearing the stamp of the typical Renaissance literature,
such as the works of Pico della Mirandola, Lorenzo Valla,
Poggio, Filelfo and others of their kind, the most popular
book of Erasmus made the deepest impression and had a
far-reaching influence on the culture and intellectual
atmosphere of the time. “This little work brought together,
with singular talent and brevity, matters which had for
some time been current and popular in the world, gave it a
form which satisfied all the demands of taste and criticism,
and fell in with the most decided tendency of the age. It
produced an indescribable effect; twenty-seven editions
appeared even during the life time of Erasmus; it was
translated into all languages, and greatly contributed to
confirm the age in its anti-clerical dispositions.”7
As a respectable publisher of conventional world classics
would most probably exclude from the collected works of
Erasmus this epoch-making book, it is worthwhile to
indicate its contents briefly. Even to-day the book can be
read with
7
Ranke, History of the Reformation.
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THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 111

equal benefit. The object is to show to what an extent folly
dominates human life. Taking the idea from a popular
fable, Folly is impersonated by a princess born in the
Happy Islands, ruled by her father, nursed by Drunkenness
and Rudeness; she becomes the mistress of a powerful
Kingdom to which all classes of men belong and she passes
them all in review. The clergy receives her particular
attention. She ridicules the men of God by observing that,
though they have the largest share of her favour, they do
not own their obligation. She pities the theologians for
having lost themselves in the labyrinth of their fantasies,
and taunts them for their Atlas-like efforts to hold up the
Church on their shoulders. Then she turns to the ignorance,
the dirty physical habits, and the ludicrous pursuit of the
monks and the barbarous style of their preaching. The
Bishops come in for their due share, being chided for the
lust for gold rather than solicitude for the souls of the
faithful. The court of Rome and the Pope Himself also
receive her favour. Turning to the secular professions, Folly
makes fun of national pride and professional conceit of all
kind. She concludes by declaring that without her the
human race will die out. Who will marry without folly?
Who can be happy without flattery and self-love? Yet, is
not such happiness a folly? It is based on delusion. It is
easier to imagine oneself a king than to be a king in reality.
Those who are the nearest to brutes, being divest of the last
vestige of reason, imagine themselves to be the happiest.
This biting satire on every aspect of mediaeval life
becomes even more pointed thanks to drawings by Hans
Holbein— another outstanding figure of the Renaissance in
Germany. The fact that such a devastating exposure of the
hypocrisy, foolishness and greed of contemporary society
was so very widely read, proved that the Renaissance
appeared to lose its early exuberance in Italy because it was
spreading over a much wider field. “The spiritual
declension of Rome was the more important by reason of
the new spirit of rationalism
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112 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

which was springing up in Northern Europe.”8 In the latter
half of the fifteenth century, a new life stirred in every
depart ment of human intelligence. Von Hutten exclaimed:
“What an age! Learning flourishes, the mind of man
awakes! It is a joy to be alive.” The message was spread in
England by Thomas More, in France by Rabelais, among,
many lesser lights. Although “it was believed that the
Renaissance prepared the Reformation, that Luther only
hatched the Erasmianegg,”9 the men of the Northern
Renais sance opposed Luther's intolerance and dogmatism,
following: Erasmus when he broke with the Reformation
on the issue of free will. In that controversy, even
Melanchthon sided with Erasmus as against Luther whom
he accused of fatalism. “In Northern countries, the
Renaissance began later than in Italy, and soon became
entangled with the Reformation. But there was a brief
period at the beginning of the sixteenth-century, during
which the new learning was being vigorously disseminated
in France, England and Germany without, having become
involved in theological controversy.”10
***
The factor which limited the spread of Humanism in Italy
was much stronger in Germany. The faith in the
supernatural, conceived as the personal God of
Christianity, held the popular mind spellbound. The
educated were also preoccupied with theology. The great
seats of learning were the scene of scholastic disputations
about the nature of God and of soul and the relations
between the two. The intellectual life was still very largely
dominated by the religious mode of thought. There was
opposition to the papal theocracy and ecclesiastical
privileges; there was also disgust with the corruption of the
clergy and the monastic Orders. But the revolt was not yet
against religion—of man against God.
8
Fisher, History of Europe.
9
Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History.
10
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy.
 113

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 113

“The opposition was stronger and more denned than
anything in Italy; but it was against Catholicism, not
Christianity.”11
In that atmosphere, the secular, iconoclastic spirit of the
Renaissance had to be subordinated to the striving for a
reform of the ecclesiastical government and attempts to
purge Christianity of clerical corruption. The Northern
Renaissance “was much interested in applying standards of
scholarship to the Bible, and in obtaining a more accurate
text than the Vulgate”.12
Erasmus himself promoted that tendency. Like Rabelais, he
preached unadulterated Humanism, the revolt of man,
through satire; but in other writings, he pleaded for reform
of the Church, doctrinal purity and simplicity of faith. Most
men of the Northern Renaissance thought in terms of
retrieving the original purity of the Christian faith.
Scholasticism had reinforced the rationalist foundation of
religion, and the educated classes of Northern Europe had
been greatly influenced by scholastic learning. Therefore,
there religion could more successfully and for a longer
period resist Humanism, which appeared to be a chaotic,
amoral, if not actually immoral, outburst of wilfulness of
extravagant individuals against universal orderliness. “The
Reformation began not in Italy, where the pagan spirit of
the Renaissance predominated, but among two peoples in
which the religious sense was strongest.”13 England could
be also added to the category. Ranke describes the
Reformation as “an intellectual movement of a totally
different kind” —different from the humanist movement
led by Erasmus. It preached a rationalised Christianity
which appeared to satisfy the spiritual cravings, intellectual
demands and cultural necessities of the educated man of
Northern and Central Europe.
11
Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History.
12
Russell, History of Western Philosophy.
13
Seignobos, The Rise of European Civilisation.
8
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114 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Thanks to its foundation of primitive rationalism, religion
in course of time indeed became a mental habit.
Nevertheless, the religious mode of thought was not a
stagnant pool; as thought, it also was subject to the law of
the dynamics of ideas. Purity is the ideal of faith, and
striving for that ideal, faith exhausts its possibilities of
promoting spiritual development. Consistent faith, striving
to regain pristine purity, therefore, is also a solvent of
religion, the other being scepticism. To avoid that Nemesis
of its logical outcome, religion necessarily institutionalises
itself. Its original foundation of primitive rationalism is
gradually buried deep under an elaborate superstructure of
irrational doctrines, dogmas, rituals and mechanical
practices prescribed by orthodoxy. Ultimately, the spirit of
man, egged on by the urge for freedom and quest for
knowledge, breaks out of the fetters of faith. To reform
religion, therefore, is an idle dream. Religion cannot be
really reformed. It must be institutionalised, and
institutionalism implies concentration of power, its
unavoidable abuse, restriction of freedom, and corruption.
Once human mind has outgrown its infancy, when spiritual
needs could be satisfied by the naive rationalism of
primitive religion, faith in the supernatural, conceived
either as many gods or one God or an impersonal
Providence, places fetters on the possibility of human
development. For the sake of further spiritual
development—intellectual growth, moral uplift and cultural
progress—they must be burst. That was the purpose of the
Renaissance; therefore, it counterposed super-naturalism
with Humanism, claimed for man the power as well as the
right to shape his own destiny, and proclaimed that a law-
governed Universe did not preclude the freedom of human
will. The Reformation, on the contrary, was a “religious
movement the object of which was to restore the purity of
revelation, and Germany undertook this mighty task”,
which by its very nature was impossible of
accomplishment, although “various events concurred to
give that direc-
 115

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 115

tion to the mind of the country, and to incite a strenuous
opposition to the See of Rome.”14
The events which promoted the Reformation in Germany
have already been reviewed. They were not peculiar to that
country. And the strenuous opposition to the See of Rome
soon lost its original concern for the purity of faith, and
secular considerations became its motive force. The
opposition to one form of institutionalised Christianity led
to the rise of an alternative institutionalisation of religion.
Faith was not purified; it became more sophisticated—a
new system of doctrinal orthodoxy justified with pseudo-
rationalism. “The Reformation and Counter-Reformation
alike represent the rebellion of less civilised nations against
the intellectual domination of Italy. In the case of the
Reformation, the revolt was also political and theological;
the authority of the Pope was rejected, and the tribute
which he had obtained from the power of the keys (to the
gates of Heaven) ceased to be paid. In the case of the
Counter-Reformation, there was only revolt against the
intellectual and moral freedom of Renaissance Italy.”15
Although the Reformation led by Luther was very largely a
theological dispute to cloak a mundane struggle for power,
originally it developed on the background of a genuinely
religious movement. The great heretics of the Middle Ages
heralded the Reformation as well as the Renaissance. The
immediate cause of the Reformation, however, was the
revival of the Augustinian doctrine of Grace to combat
Nominalist scholasticism which invoked the authority of
Thomas Aquinas. That was a genuine and disinterested
theological controversy of the kind which had for several
centuries been the ferment for the revival of classical
learning. The fight against Thomist theology in defence of
pure faith was led by Johann de Wesalia who called the
Dominican
14
Ranke, History of the Reformation.
15
Russell, History of Western Philosophy.
 116

116 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Saint the “Prince of Errors”. That was long before Luther.
.The genuinely religious tradition of the Reformation is to
be traced farther back to Wycliff, whose teachings spread
throughout Central Europe in the middle of the fourteenth
century. The Hussite rebellion in Bohemia and the
subsequent heretical movements in Southern Germany
were inspired by Wycliff's teachings. The European
heretics advocated return to the purity and simplicity of the
early Christian faith. Eventually, Luther appeared as the
champion of the old cause. But that was only apparent. He
was driven to that position by other considerations. “Luther
and Calvin were not philosophers in search for a belief
which could satisfy reason; they were theologians basing
their doctrine upon their interpretation of the Scriptures....
They had no more desire for free examination—the
freedom of each man to choose his own religion, than the
Middle Ages had.”16
Nevertheless, the Reformation was the logical consequence
of the whole history of Christianity. Its cause was rooted in
that background, not adventitious, such as the rise of a new
class. Theology could not completely eclipse the religious
essence of Christianity. It was the individual's anxiety for
salvation. After Christianity became institutionalised, every
believer recognised the Church as the sole instrument for
the attainment of salvation. But there were two ways—faith
and religious practices. Which of the two was more strictly
according to the true doctrine of Jesus? The crux of the
question obviously was interpretation of the Scriptures.
There was the traditional teaching of the Church. But even
the Church did not prohibit individual believers to study the
Sacred Books in which the divine revelation was directly
expressed. St. Augustin, relying upon the Pauline Gospel,
had laid down that only unquestioning faith in the merit of
Christ was the way to salvation. But subsequently

16
Seignobos, The Rise of European Civilisation.
 117

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 117

while not questioning the authority of Augustin, the
Church attached greater importance to religious practices,
particularly, the Sacrament. Ever since the tenth century,
when the faith in the Millennium was exploded by
experience, there had been devout Christians who claimed
the right to go directly to the Scriptures for satisfying
themselves regarding the choice of the two alternative
ways to salvation. They were condemned as heretics. They
were the forerunners of Wyclifl and Huss. They were
genuinely religious men, who wanted their belief to satisfy
reason.
Irrespective of the theological and political motives of the
movement subsequently led by him, there is no ground for
doubting that originally Luther's position was purely
religious. A neurasthenic so as to have the Messiah
complex, he felt the torment experienced by many
individual Christian souls about the choice of the way to
salvation. Early in his life, Luther seems to have found
comfort in the Pauline Gospel of unquestioning faith in the
merit of Christ, elaborated by Augustin as the doctrine of
salvation through Grace. But then adventitious
circumstances intervened to drive Luther to a position
where he appeared to out-Paul St. Paul.17
The logical implication of the Augustinian doctrine of.
salvation is to question the usefulness of institutionalised
Christianity. If prescribed rituals were not essential for the
attainment of salvation, a priesthood, an ecclesiastical
government, and a clerical hierarchy were also superfluous.
In the context of the historical background of the heretical
tradition, and also due to the support of Humanists of the
Erasmian school, Luther was compelled to admit those far-
reaching implications, once he took up the Augustinian
position as -against the Thomist. The Reformation broke
out as a revolt against Rome. As such, it was promptly
taken under patronage by the German Princes aspiring for
secular power and

17
See Mathew Arnold, St, Paul and Protestantism.
 118

118 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

the German clergy envious of their Italian colleagues who-
occupied all the higher positions in the hierarchy.
Another implication of Luther's original religious posi-tion
was the doctrine of predestination. Since religious practices
and other meritorious works were of no avail as regards the
salvation of the soul, its future must be predetermined by
Providence. The logical corollary was denial of free will.
Oil that issue, Erasmus and other Humanists disowned the
Reformation led by Luther. That was a break with the
heretical tradition also, yet another reason for the
Reformation to lose all religious significance and come
under the secular influence of the German Princes.
Ecclesiastically, the Reformation became a revolt of the
German Church against papal Univer-salism. It lost its
original religious significance when it was swamped by
Luther's theological dogmas, and Lutheranism became the
ideology of a nationalist chauvinism. “The idea even arose
that a Christian spirit of life would, by God's special
ordinance, spread from the German nation over the whole
world, as once from Judea.”18
The Reformation was, indeed, a nationalist movement; but
its driving force was not the rising bourgeoisie. The
agelong struggle for power between the Pope and the
German Emperor was carried on under the flag of a revolt
against the Roman Church. The newly elected Emperor,
Charles V, became its chosen leader. Luther was the
propagandist ancf theologian of the would-be autonomous
German Church. He and his associates appealed to the new
Emperor to dismiss his clerical advisers and govern with
the counsel of Princes and temporal electors, not to entrust
public business to prelates and financiers, but to the
nobles. Then he would have the voice of the nation; he
would no longer need the benediction of the Pope and his
Cardinals; on the contrary, they would require imperial
confirmation. “Then will the strong
18
Ranke, History of the Reformation.
 119

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 119

German nation arise with body and goods, and go with
Thee to Rome, and make all Italy subject to Thee; then
wilt Thou be a mighty King.”
That was hardly the voice of the rising bourgeoisie— the
founder of modern Democracy. The German National
State would be modelled after the mediaeval monarchy of
the Ottos with the ambition to be a theocratic Imperium.
Addressing the Diet of Worms, convened symbolically on
the day of the coronation of Charlemagne, the Emperor
invoked the might of his mediaeval predecessors. “With
the help of the monarchies, the powerful countries and the
alliances which God had granted him, he hoped to raise it
again to its ancient glory.”19 The Lutheran German
clergy—those angels in revolt—were welcomed by the
ambitious young Emperor as God-sent allies in his coming
struggle for temporal power.
According to its official historian, Ranke, the Reformation
was influenced by the constitution of the Holy Roman
Empire and the German feudal States. Ever since
Charlemagne was coronated by the Pope as the head of the
resurrected Roman Empire, there had been a continuous
struggle for supremacy between the temporal and spiritual
power. The struggle was inherent in the constitution of the
military-sacerdotal State called the Holy Roman Empire.
The German Princes as the Electors of the Empire believed
themselves to be occupying the position of the Roman
Senators. Therefore, after the Pope and the Emperor, they
were the most important factor in the constitution of the
Empire. On the other hand, the clergy, mostly coming from
Italy from the early days of the Empire, constituted
themselves into an autonomous corporation, a State within
the State. The conflict between the lords spiritual and
temporal, which ulti-
19
Ranke, History of the Reformation.
 120

120 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

mately broke out as the Reformation, was voiced seven
hundred years ago by Charlemagne himself.
Alarmed by the tendency of the clergy to usurp temporal
power also, the founder of the Holy Empire reprimanded
them for their ambition, and asked: How were they justified
in interfering in secular affairs? What was meant by their
renouncing the world? Whether that was consistent with
large and costly retinues, with compelling the ignorant to
make donations of their goods? Whether it was not better to
foster good morals than to build Churches? These old
questions were repeatedly asked throughout the succeeding
centuries, and ultimately provided inspiration for the
Reformation.
The questions implied the necessity for a revision of the
constitution of the Empire. For a short period, under the
three Ottos, the temporal lords gained the upper hand.
German Popes were installed at the Vatican by Emperors
who were Teutonic military chiefs. “The principle of the
temporal government, autocracy, which from the earliest
time had held in check the usurpation of ecclesiastical
ambition, thus attained its culminating point, and was
triumphantly asserted and recognised in the Empire.”20
But by the end of the eleventh century, the relation
changed; the universal supremacy of the Vatican was
firmly established. The Holy Roman Empire, for all
practical purposes, became a theocracy. Without a revision
of the constitution of the Empire, the status quo could not
be changed. The revision required by the temporal lords
was to make autocracy prevail upon theocracy. Therefore,
when the ferment in the religious life of mediaeval Europe
ultimately broke out in Luther's revolt against the doctrine
of papal infallibility, the right of the Church to intervene in
the relation between man and God, the power of the
hierarchy
20
Ranke, History of the Reformation.
 121

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 121

and the privilege of the clergy, the temporal lords of
Germany rushed to support it. Luther's famous theses
proposed a revision of the constitution of the Empire, such
as would free them from the fetters of Roman Universalism
and papal theocracy.
A proposal for the formal revision of the constitution of the
Empire had been made at the Diet of Basel nearly a
hundred years before by Nicholas von Kus. Himself a
Church dignitary, he maintained that it was impossible to
reform the Church without revising the constitution of the
Empire, because the two could not be separated even in
thought. On that ground, he demanded the emancipation
<of secular authority from ecclesiastical tutelage. He
opposed the Pope's right to transfer the Empire from time
to time to any man of his choice. Then, he proceeded to
ascribe to the Empire a mystical relation with God and
Christ, and absolute independence of the Church and even
the right and duty of taking part in the ecclesiastical
government. At the same time, he recommended
constitutional checks and balances so as to limit the
autocracy of the temporal power emancipated from the
domination of the Church. But the temporal lords would
not admit the least restriction of their power. The proposal
of von Kus fell through. A similar effort was made at the
time of Emperor Maximilian, with no better result.
However, the Diet of Worms of 1495 did adopt some
measures calculated to bring about a political union of
Germany while preserving the ancient military-sacerdotal
structure of the Empire. But internal dissension amongst
the Princes and between them and the Emperor could not
be settled. Consequently, papal predominance continued.
Ultimately, the Reformation succeeded in setting up a rival
Church with a new dogma, doctrinal authority and
hierarchy, but not in revising the constitution of the
Empire; nor could it reform the Roman Church. Luther and
Calvin “did not want to break up
 122

122 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

the unity of the Universal Church. They claimed to reform
it by bringing over all Christians to their Church, which
they considered the only true one, the Church of the Pope
being in their eyes the Church of the Satan, those
remaining in which would be damned.”21
The dissatisfaction with the inadequacy and degeneration
of institutionalised Christianity could not produce in
Germany revolutionary and iconoclastic consequences as
in Italy, because there even those who shared the feeling
still thought in terms of religion, still looking for a belief
which would satisfy reason.
*** **
Towards the close of the Middle Ages, Germany was. not
only the birthplace of printing; she was the home of a
variety of arts and crafts which, on the one hand, brought
into existence a numerous class of highly skilled urban
workers, and on the other, a prosperous community of
traders. Apart from the large army of anonymous architects
and master-builders, who constructed the Gothic cathedrals
and churches, there were organ-builders, wood carvers,,
bronze engravers, metal workers, sculptors and painters,
whose brilliant craftsmanship made Germany of that time
famous throughout Europe. But in those days, individuals
counted for nothing. Hundreds and thousands of creative
workers, who produced imperishable objects of art as well
as of ordinary usefulness, remained undifferentiated from
families, castes, communities and guilds. Only a few names
even of great artists could emerge from the twilight of
mediaeval collectivism and be recognised in history as
creative individuals, such as Albert Duerer, Peter Vischer
and Hans Holbein, and the last had to flee to England to
win international reputation as a great painter.
During the latter part of the fifteenth century,
21
Seignobos, The Rise of European Civilisation.
 123

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 125

Nuremberg was the Florence of Germany. It was a busy
centre of trade and industry—a typical home of the rising
bourgeoisie. As a centre of high finance, Augsburg also
measured up with its Lombard rival. The powerful banking
counter of the famous Fuggers, who held Emperors and
Popes in heavy indebtedness, was situated there. Yet,
neither of the great mediaeval German towns offered
patronage to art and literature. Like in the rest of the
country, there also the educated and wealthy people failed
to outgrow the religious mentality. “With the coming of the
Reformation,. an ill wind began to blow upon the sculptors
and painters. The swift onrush of religious and social
anarchy turned the minds of the German people into other
channels. Religion, not art, was the governing interest. It is
significant that Holbein, finding Basel too uncomfortable
for a German painter, fled to the shelter of the English
Court.”22
Disowned by Erasmus and other Humanists, Luther-anism
did 'not develop and spread as the ideology of the rising
bourgeoisie; it won the patronage of the feudal Princes
striving for secular power. When early in his career, Luther
was proscribed both by the Pope and the Emperor, he was
protected by the Elector of Saxony, who kept him in hiding
for more than a year, during which time the doctrines of
Protestantism were given the final shape. Originally
motivated by the genuinely religious concern for the
salvation of man's soul, the Reformation soon ceased to be
a popular national movement. Otherwise, Germany would
not be visited by the curse of the Thirty Years' War, which
threw her back two centuries in political and economic
evolution. The reformed religion became closely associated
with the princely order and depended entirely on its
patronage. That is why Luther so very fiercely opposed the
Peasants' Revolt which heralded the coming of the
bourgeois revolution.
22
Fisher, History of Europe.
 124

124 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

The ideals of early Christianity preached by the heretical
movements and also by the nascent Reformation, naturally
had a strong appeal for the peasantry. Early in his career,
Luther himself taught that all were children of one Divine
Father, and equally redeemed by the blood of Christ. The
peasants who in the blessedness of their time-honoured
ignorance were still sincerely religious, naturally believed
in Luther's message of liberation, and concluded therefrom
that “there should be no inequality of wealth or station”.
But Luther had in the meantime moved away from his
original genuinely religious position, and the Reformation
had become a political and theological movement. While
Sickingen with his mediaeval knights sponsored the cause
of the peasantry, moved by their naive religious faith, the
ideological herald of the bourgeois revolution condemned
the rebellion, provoked by his own religious teachings, “as
contrary to the divine and evangelical law, and therefore to
the German nation”—the pretender to the succession of
Israel as the chosen people of God.
Luther still professed to be the defender of the doctrine that
the Gospel gave freedom to the soul, but now maintained
that it did “not emancipate the body from restraint, or
property from the control of laws....... A pious Christian, he
said, should rather die a hundred deaths than give way one
hair's breadth to the peasants' demand. The government
should have no mercy; the day of wrath and of the sword
was coming; and their duty to their God obliged them to
strike hard as long as they could move a limb; whoever
perished in this service, was a martyr of Christ. Thus, he
(Luther) supported the temporal order of things with the
same intrepidity that he had displayed in attacking the
spiritual.”23
As a religious movement, the Reformation was demo-
23
Ranke, History of the Reformation.
 125

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 125

cratic and libertarian. But it lost the original character when
Luther degraded it to a doctrinal controversy of theology.
His quarrel with the Pope “coincided with the appetites of
secular Princes who cast covetous glances on the wealth of
the Church.”24
The Reformation succeeded as a negation of the time-
honoured ideals and principles of the heretical movement,
because for Luther, though a fanatically religious man,
religious thought was a stagnant pool. He did not believe in
enquiry or toleration. He firmly held that the final truth as
to all problems of life was to be found in the Bible. Man
was a helpless tool in the hands of God. He could do
nothing to change his fate. Complete surrender to the
mercy of God, and faith in Grace as the reward of faith,
alone could save man's soul despite his inherent
wickedness. Luther denounced a humanist Pope, Leo X, as
the “Anti-Christ”, while he was the anti-Humanist par
excellence. “It is not, therefore, from Luther that the liberal
and rationalising movements of European thought derived
their origin.”
Although the Protestant movement broke up into several
sects, the anti-Humanist essence of Lutheran Reformation
became most evident in Calvinism. The “Institutio” of the
dictator of Geneva set forth the doctrines of the reformed
religion: “If we contemplate man only in respect of his
natural gifts, we find in him, from the crown of his head to
the sole of his feet, no trace whatever of goodness. ......
Even the best things that rise out of us are always made
infect and vicious by the uncleanness of the flesh, and are
always mingled with dirt.” The dogma of predestination
inherent in Luther's unbalanced reading of the Gospel of St.
Paul, and extravagant interpretation of Augustin's doctrine
of Grace, became the basic article of faith in Calvin's
24
Fisher, History of Europe.
 126

126 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

reformed religion. From “all eternity”, God has chosen the
elect for salvation; the merit of the chosen few had nothing
to do with the Grace of God. A man may appear to be the
devil incarnate, yet he may be among the elect chosen for
salvation! One would be inclined to think that this
extravagance of religiousity was meant to exonerate
Calvin's own wickedness which went to the extent of
declaring, “if we (the chosen elect of God) leave man to his
own devices, his soul is capable of naught but evil.” Man
should, therefore, have no liberty, no freedom of will,
because he can only misuse the privilege. Calvin's reformed
religion was the code of prison house: every human being
is primarily and perpetually inclined to evil, and therefore
must be suspected a priori as a sinner and kept under strict
supervision. “Wishing to elevate the divine as high as
possible above the world, Calvin threw the worldly down
into the lowest depth. Wishing to give supreme dignity to
the idea of God, he degraded the idea of man.”25 For the
Humanists of his time, such as Miguel Servetus, whom he
sent to the stake, and Sebastian Castello, Calvin reserved
epithets like “hissing serpents”, “barking dogs”, “Satan's
spawn”.
In the sixteenth century, Europe was infested, harrassed and
tormented by the inhumanity and violence of the reformed
religion, while the cruelty of the Jesuitic Counter-
Reformation brutalised the flock still remaining faithful to
the orthodox creed. The light of Humanism, which shone
so lustrously during the preceding century, appeared to
have dimmed almost to extinction, if not altogether
extinguished. In reality, that however was not the case. The
fire of man's resurgence kept on burning beneath the
surface of theological pedantry, spiritual abasement and
wanton ignorance in general, which characterised the
intellectual life of Europe
25
Stefan Zweig, The Right to Heresy,
 127

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 127

during the 'years immediately following the Reformation.
Neither Lutheranism nor Calvinism produced a single great
thinker or scholar. Melanchthon was the first and last to
deserve the distinction. But he as well as Zwingli began as
Humanists. Towards the end of their career, Melanchthon
could not pull on well with Luther. He was repelled
particularly by the latter's violent opposition to free will.
Like many cultivated young men of the time, Sebastian
Castello was attracted by what appeared to be Calvin's
Stoic morality. One of the later Humanists, he was soon
disillusioned and mercilessly persecuted by the zealot of
Geneva. Castello's “Manifesto on Behalf of Toleration”,
issued in 1551 to protest against “Calvin's murder of
Servetus”, was a stirring Humanist document. Levelling
against Calvin the deadly charge that by sending Servetus
to the stakes he gave a lie to Luther's declaration that the
Reformation stood for the “freedom of the Christian man”,
Castello wrote: “To seek truth and to utter what one
believes to be true, can never be a crime. No one must be
forced to accept a conviction. Conviction is free.”
***
The foundation of the Jesuitic order by Ignatius Loyola
indicated that the spirit of the Renaissance had pervaded
the whole of Europe. It was apprehended by the Pope and
his hierarchy that, the experience of the Reformation
having demonstrated the impossibility of reforming
religion, of a return to the purity and simplicity of the
original Christian faith, unbelief and despair would spread
far and wide, preparing the intellectual atmosphere for a
new spurt of Humanism. The “atheistic and Epicurean”
view of life could not be stamped out. During the period
Europe was dazed-by the revolt of the angels and its
equally spectacular debacle, Humanism only marked time,
all along undermining the spiritual foundation of the
mediaeval society and Christian culture. It penetrated the
educational institutions
 128

128 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

to infect the mind of the youth. It was not for nothing, that
Erasmus became the teacher of the sixteenth century. The
men of the Renaissance brought learning out of the cloister
and Universities; these were academic cloisters, because,
there too, education was not secularised; they remained
associated with, and were very largely dominated by,
theology which, recognised as the highest of sciences even
by Roger Bacon, had ever since retained that pre-eminence.
A new system of imparting Humanist education was
devised early in the fifteenth century by Vittorino de Feltre.
Secular schools were founded not only to turn out lay
scholars, but all-round citizens. The new system of
education was based on the Greek idea of a harmonious
development of mind and body. The men of the
Renaissance had won the undeserved reputation of being
immoral or, at any rate, insensible to the traditional codes
of morality, because of their decisive rejection of the
Christian ascetic notion of “our vile bodies”. Not ashamed
of their bodies, they were as much concerned with the
cultivation of mind as with their physical life. That is why
painting and sculpture reached with them such a sublime
eminence. Careful observation and study of the human
body for its symmetry and beauty, with reverence and
affection, was the essential condition for the afflorescence
of the Renaissance art. The rejection of conventional
ethical notions led to the creation of new aesthetic values.
The Humanist system of education spread throughout
Europe, thanks to the services of men like Erasmus. “The
Italian Renaissance brought forth no fairer proof, and none
fraught with more important consequences for the liberal
culture of the world, than the school training based on the
ideas of Humanism, which took shape at that period.”26
“They first conceived and framed the education that has
now prevailed through Europe for four centuries, moulding
the youth of
26
Cambridge Modern History.
 129

THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 129

diverse nations by one common discipline, and establishing
an intellectual concord for all peoples.” “7
Loyola's keen eyes detected the danger of the Humanist
education, which was setting up a new standard of values
and creating new values. It was fostering the spirit of
enquiry, encouraging scepticism, attaching greater
importance to secular learning than to theology, and
teaching the subordination of dogma to reason. The Jesuitic
Order under Loyola's leadership planned to combat the
insidious spread o£ Humanism by organising educational
institutions. It was going to be a determined struggle with
the Humanist teachers for the soul of the European youth.
An extremely, sagacious man, working on a long-term
plan, Loyola preferred to swim with the current. Excellent
education was imparted; in the schools and colleges
founded by the “Spanish Fathers”, In addition to the
classical languages, science was also taught, with the result
that Loyola's means defeated his end. Jesuit schools greatly
helped the spread of modern education, including the
rapidly growing scientific knowledge. Having: in a short
time gained the reputation of able teachers, Jesuit Fathers
were invited to fill up chairs in the old Universities.
At the same time, the most powerful solvent of the
religious mode of thought was in operation. Paracelsus
followed Copernicus, and half a century before the latter,
Nicolaus Cusanus had arrived at the conclusion that the
earth was a sphere rotating on its own axis. Tycho Brahe's
Rudolphine: Tables contributed greatly to the rise of
astronomy. Galileo and Kepler had been conducting their
studies during the closing decades of the barren sixteenth
century. Jansen invented the microscope, van Helmount
conducted the study of nature, and Gilbert discovered
electric friction and the earth's magnetism. The century
closed with the martyrdom, of Bruno.
The intellectual life, which distinguished the seventeenth;
27
J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy.
9
 130

130 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

century as the beginning of the modern age, was stirring in
the womb of the sixteenth, notwithstanding the latter's
apparent spiritual exhaustion. The discovery of nature by
science enabled man to dispense with the necessity of
assuming or postulating supernatural powers and thus
evolving a religious faith to satisfy reason. The dawning
knowledge about the mechanism of the observed natural
and physical processes (the movement of celestial bodies
and the swing of the pendulum) lifted at least a corner of
the veil of mystery shrouding the universal order. Man
began to feel that after all he might not be a helpless puppet
in the hand of an inscrutable Providence. The experience of
the power to know what lay behind the veil of the mysteries
of nature awakened in him the feeling of power to do what
until then was believed to be beyond human ability. The
recollection of the achievements of an Archimedes and the
fresh memory of the soaring vision of Leonardo da Vinci
encouraged the conviction that, with an increasing
knowledge about the mechanism of nature, man would
acquire the power to control the forces of nature. A new
vista opened up before man's creative genius. He could not
only create imperishable artistic and literary treasures, but
might dream, as Leonardo did, of mastering the mechanism
of nature and eventually recreating the world to his liking.
For the first time in his history, man, inspired with the
creative spirit of the Renaissance, and the vision of power
to be born of expanding Scientific knowledge, felt himself
in harmony with the grandiose conception of a law-
governed Universe, because it no longer reduced him to an
insignificant, helpless, cog in the remorseless wheel of fate,
which was to be accepted as the Grace of an insensible
God. That sublime feeling of creative power was, indeed,
still limited to a few, but those few were blazing a trail out
of a dark past and a dull present towards a future full of
hope and promise.
The debacle of the revolt of the angels marked the end
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THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS 131

<oi the age of faith in the history of European humanity. It
justified the revolt of man. It revealed the necessity more
pointedly than ever before. The choice was between God
and man. Religion could not be reformed. The coveted
return to the purity and simplicity of primitive faith, born of
the frustrated rationality of homo sapiens, turned out to be
an unattainable ideal. To hold its sway in a complicated
society, any religion must be institutionalised, and the
doctrines and dogmas of an organised institutionalised
religion could not have the charm and spell of a simple
faith which once satisfied the embryonic reason of the
primitive man. Religion, therefore, could no longer elevate
man above the. selfishness, vulgarity and ugliness of life to
the beatitude of an imaginary communion with God. It only
debased and degraded man either to a slave of the priest or
an abject believer in predestination, a helpless reed tossed
in the uncharted sea of fate dictated by the arbitrariness of
an inscrutable Providence. The alternative for man was to
revolt, to throw off the tutelage of God, stand on his own
feet, take destiny in his own hands.
The Renaissance had blazed that trail of spiritual revolt.
The Reformation dissolved the decayed Christian
Universal Order. The ultimate defeat of God's agents on
earth in the struggle for the monopoly of temporal power,
encouraged man's striving for spiritual freedom. The Holy
Empire was broken up into National States; and there was
a parallel development of immensely greater historical
significance. Ecclesiastical laws were replaced by secular
laws, made by men. God's government on earth was
superceded by governments of men. On the breakdown of
the time-honoured religious order, a moral order, with no
theological or supernatural sanction, became the ideal of
man. The striving for the attainment of that new ideal was
the motive force of the intellectual efforts, social
conquests and cultural achievements of the following two
centuries.
 132

CHAPTER VI
THE NATURAL LAW
THE intellectual stagnation of the period immediately
following upon the Reformation was more apparent than
real. Luther's violence and Calvin's bigotry had repelled
sensitive souls from the time-honoured theological studies,,
which were until then regarded as the foremost intellectual
pursuit. The latter part of the sixteenth century was indeed
conspicuous for the absence of any outstanding work of
literature or fine art. But at the same time, science advanced
silently, ushering in a new era of intellectual achievements.
Before the century was out, heliocentric astronomy was
definitely established as a landmark in the history of
thought. Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo—all
those founders of modern science lived in the sixteenth
century. Early in the next century, Lippershay, a Dutch
optician, manufactured the first telescope. Galileo quickly
saw the great importance of the new instrument, and
himself manufactured a better one. Though still very
primitive, it enabled him to survey the heavens and
discover phenomena of celestial movement which placed
the new science of heliocentric astronomy on a solid
foundation. Philosophically, Galileo's discovery had a
staggering effect; it shook the tradition of Aristotle's
authority. In his famous book, A Dialogue of the Two
Systems of the World, which caused imprisonment of the
aged savant until death, he expounded the heliocentric view
so very cogently that the Aristotelian philosopher
“Simplicio”, who defended Ptolemian geocentrism, was
made to look like~ a fool. Galileo thus not only established
modern astronomy j he also laid the foundation of modern
physics to be elaborated by Descartes and Newton.
The significance of the discovery of America was soon-
 133

THE NATURAL LAW 135

followed by Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe,
which empirically proved that the earth was round. Another
death-blow to the biblical mythology. It naturally had a
repercussion on the awe-inspiring structure of theology
which for centuries had claimed to be the queen of
sciences. Finally there was the far-reaching revolutionary
effect of the invention of printing by Gutenberg early in the
fifteenth century. .Having overcome the initial technical
difficulties, the art of printing spread throughout Europe as
the most effective medium for the dissemination of learning
and knowledge. By the sixteenth century, printing of books
in large numbers lad become a regular industry in all the
civilised countries of Europe.
The advance of science laid the foundation of a mechanistic
cosmology, which was the conditio sine qua non for
liberating human mind from the tradition of the religious
mode of thought. The art of printing was instrumental in
carrying the message of freedom far and wide. The new-
intellectual upsurge, therefore, did not remain limited to
cloisters and universities. A large section of the European
humanity, practically the entire literate laity, was caught in
the new current. Consequently, the time-honoured belief in
a theological order of the Universe was shaken, and the
cultural atmosphere became congenial for a new
intellectual outlook—the conception of a world order
governed by Natural Law.
Meanwhile, the humanist education had been spreading,
with the result that the cultivated man's mind was
becoming more receptive to the iconoclastic scientific
knowledge and responsive to its liberating appeal. “The
sense of human dignity was the chief moral agent of
antiquity, and the sense of sin of mediaevalism..... It was
not till the revival of learning had been considerably
advanced, that a perception of the nobility of the heroic
character dawned upon man's mind. Then, for the first
time, the ecclesiastic type was obs-
 134

134 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

cured, a new standard and aspiration appeared, and popular
enthusiasm taking a new direction achieved that political
liberty which, once created, intesified the tendency that
produced it.”1
The new era was ushered in by a new type of man, no
longer concerned with the baffling mystery of man's
relation with God, but with secular affairs. They
approached the problems of human existence no longer
from the theological, but from a rational and moral point of
view. Having quietly set aside the fiction of a divine
Providence, or supernatural sanction, they looked for a
secular authority for the conduct and governance of human
affairs. For centuries previously, leaders of thought had
been preoccupied with the problem of man's relation with
God and salvation of his soul; they claimed to solve the
mystery of how a spiritual power intervened in terrestrial
matters, and the competence to legislate for the government
of God. The intellectual leaders, who ushered in the new
era, were concerned with the secular problem of
harmonising human relations. They conceived the task of
the time as follows: “We have now to find human authority
promoting intellectual advancement, and accepting as its
maxim that the lot of man will be ameliorated, and his
power and dignity increased, in proportion as he is able to
comprehend the mechanism of the world, the action of
natural laws, and to apply physical forces to his use.”2
The secularisation of politics was the outstanding feature
of the new age. Political theories and economic doctrines
were dissociated from the theological preoccupation and
freed from ecclesiastical supremacy. The former were
formulated on the basis of terrestrial sanctions, and the
latter developed with a view to human welfare. Politics
was secularised by repudiating the mediaeval doctrine of
the divine right of
1
W. E. H. Lecky, The Rise of Rationalism in Europe.
2
J. W. Draper, The Intellectual Development of Europe.
 135

THE NATURAL LAW 135

kings. The conception of the Natural Law and the
hypothesis of a social contract provided the new sanction
for secular authorities—of political administration and
social organisation. The sixteenth century saw the
disintegration of the universalism of the Roman Church;
the parallel process was the practical disappearance of the
Holy Empire. Since the time of Charlemagne, the Pope and
the Emperor were the dual heads of a theocratic State—the
would-be Christian World Order. After six hundred years
of a continuous struggle for supremacy, both the powers,
the temporal of the Emperor as well as the spiritual of the
Pope, were reduced to a shadowy existence. The
establishment of sovereign National States in England,
France and subsequently in other countries, had already put
an end to the pretension of the Emperor. The Reformation
laid low the Universalism of the Roman Church, and still
further disrupted even the formal status of the Holy
Empire. The Middle Age of the Christian theocratic order
was at its end. It must give place to a new order in which
science was to supercede faith, man-made laws and
terrestial considerations were to regulate the inter-relations
of secular political communities and also of their citizens.
A new type of men—sceptics, critics, out-and-out atheists,
avowed materialists, such as Bodin, Montaigne, Descartes,
Bayle, Gassendi, Hobbes, Bacon—shouldered their way to
the forefront of European history until then crowded with
priests, prelates, popes and princes. The apparent
intellectual stagnation of the sixteenth century was broken
by a flood-tide of spiritual exuberance. The intellectual and
cultural structure of the mediaeval society collapsed under
the critical onslaught, particularly of three men, each
wielding a different weapon. Montaigne's scepticism
surveyed the surrounding institutional patterns and
examined the variety of traditional opinions from the point
of view of the sophisticated man of the world, who was not
to be taken in by time-honoured
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136 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

facades nor fall for fetishes. Rather superficial, Montaigne's
criticism was nonetheless devastating, because it appealed
to the ordinary intelligence. Descartes laid the axe of his
critique at the roots of theology, which had for centuries
kept the cultivated mind spell-bound, and ravished
rationalism. The Cartesian method threw all venerable
notions into the crucible of scepticism which dissolved
everything except the confidence in one's own judgment
guided by self-evident empirical truths. Descartes provided
Humanism with a sound philosophical foundation. Bayle's
was the scepticism of a scholar. Often showing a Voltairean
scintillation, he did not stop short of cynicism, although
always with the dignity of scholarliness. Bayle, the Sceptic,
was the founder of modern criticism. His was the deadly art
of arguing out old systems of thought with the object of
laying bare their logical fallacies and to expose their
absurdities. Before the threefold assault, mediaevalism lay
in ruins—the religious mode of thought torn asunder from
its mooring of blind faith, rationalism ashamed of its illicit
love with the mystic and obscurantist theology, classicism
exposed as barren learning and cultural artificiality. The
intellectual atmosphere was clear for creative minds to
breathe in freely, to formulate new principles of law, to
evolve new political theories, to visualise new ideals of
social evolution, and to conceive of new cultural patterns.
The revolt of man against the Frankenstein of religion and
teleological order, created by his infantile rationalism, and
the revival of science giving him the sense of creative
power born of knowledge, ushered in the modern
civilisation with incalculable potentialities, of good and
evil, to unfold during the succeeding centuries. The
publication in 1625 of The Law of War and Peace by
Grotius has been described as the beginning of the epoch of
the modern political system of Europe. At the close of the
Middle Ages, Europe was in a state of lawlessness; it was a
war of all against all. The military-sacerdotal order
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THE NATURAL LAW 137

founded by Charlemagne having disintegrated owing to its
internal discord, there was no recognised authority except
of violence, fanaticism and orthodoxy. The laws of the
ecclesiastical government had lost authority with all who
claimed the freedom of conscience and the right of
individual judgment. The laws of the Empire were there
only to be flouted by all who dared. Coming out of the
decayed mediaeval order, Renaissance Europe needed a
new system of law with a rational, secular and moral
sanction. The work of Grotius satisfied the need. The new
sanction was found in the old notion of the Natural Law. It
appealed to the Protestants and Catholics alike. The latter,
on the authority of Thomas Aquinas, regarded the Natural
Law as the “unrevealed law of God”; the Protestants would
not accept that authority, but they were respectful to the
positivism of the Roman Jurists who also appealed to the
Law of Nature. The work of Grotius obtained “the
enthusiastic assent of Europe,”3 because it laid “the
foundations of moral and legal justice, which learned men
would deem sound, and men of the world would not think
fantastic.”4 Grotius was a Humanist of scholastic learning.
As such, he could produce a treatise on law which won the
approbation of the philosophically inclined ecclesiastical
Jurists, and also of the Renaissance law-years who drew
inspiration from the tradition of Cicero. All through the
Middle Ages, law was referred to the divine origin. In the
late sixteenth century,' there was a profound change in the
conception of law in consequence of the importance
attached to human personality. Far-reaching conclusions
flowed from the dignity and autonomy attributed to every
human being. “Several conclusions arc directly derived
from this assumption. It explains the claim
which the individual makes, and the duty which he admits.
3
Henry Maine, Ancient Laws.
4
Cambridge Modern History.
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138 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

that Reason should be acknowledged to be the Natural—
which is also to say, the Divine—Law. Again, it provides
the foundation of all human legal institutions, which thus
become directly identical, in the last analysis, with moral
principles. Finally, it furnishes the ideal of a single
organisation or society of all mankind.”5
In consequence of that profound change, the old
conception of Natural Law was freed from the authority of
God, and referred to human reason. Grotius developed that
new conception of Natural Law. He defined it as “a dictate
of Right Reason which points out that an act according as
it is or is not in conformity with rational nature, has in it a
quality of moral baseness or moral necessity; and that, in
consequence, such an act is either forbidden or enjoined by
the author of nature, God.”6
In short, the Advocate-General of the Netherlands outlined
a system of law which, based upon the entire experience of
the past, incorporating its positive outcome, met the
requirements of the new situation. Grotius was a
Protestant. But he was also a colleague of Erasmus, and
with the latter had been repelled by the Reformation,
“believing that, all things considered, it had done more
harm than good”5 Experience had proved that the Church
could not be reformed, that progressive ideas and
movements must transcend the limits of the religious mode
of thought. Grotius lived when all thoughtful men “asked
what was the difference between the vindictiveness with
which Rome dealt (with dissenters) and the rigour of
Calvin who seized Servetus and committed him to the
flames..... There was not a pious or thoughtful man in all
reformed Europe who was not shocked when the
circumstances under which the
5
Ernst Troeltsch, The Ideas of 'Natural Law and Humanity
in World Politics.
6
Hugo Grotius, Prolegomena.
7
J. W. Draper, The Intellectual Development of Europe.
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THE NATURAL LAW 139

unhappy physician had been brought to the stake were
made known.”8
Grotius was a man of the Renaissance—one of those who
cultivated the humanist spirit and spread humanist learning
when Europe appeared to be in a state of intellectual
stagna-nation. At the same time, he represented the positive
aspect of the Reformation—the revolt against authority and
assertion of the claim to personal enquiry and judgment.
Unity is antagonistic to liberty. The Universalism of the
Catholic Church meant spiritual slavery for the individual
believer. By disrupting that monolithic structure of
institutionalised religion, the Reformation served the cause
of spiritual freedom, even though it advanced an alternative
totalitarianism. But once the spell of religious unity was
broken, it could not be re-established. Protestantism
triumphed in the emergence of numerous sects which could
not justify their fissiparous existence without admitting the
right of criticism and freedom of conscience. The
disappearance of a coercive unity promoted the cause of
liberty. That was the positive significance of the
Reformation. Grotius was one of the Humanists who knew
how to appreciate that legacy.
The conception of the Natural Law was a landmark in the
history of man's struggle for freedom. It liberated him from
the faith in the supernatural—a power which he can never
comprehend nor overcome, because it is imaginary; on the
other hand, the Natural Law belongs to his world;
therefore, eventually, he will be able to understand how it
operates, and consequently live in harmony with it. The
notion of the Natural Law is empirically derived; there is
nothing mysterious about it. The regularities of nature are
the facts of man's experience. The notion of Natural Law,
therefore, results from the innate rationality of man.
Religion also originated in that notion. In course of man's
in-
6
ibid.
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140 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

tellectual development, it appeared in different forms. It is
a human heritage and as such, enriched by expanding
scientific knowledge, entered into the structure of the
ideological foundation of modern civilisation.
The notion of the Natural Law became the guiding
principle of the intellectual life which ushered in the age of
modern civilisation, because it had originated with the
fathers of science and philosophy—the naturalist thinkers
of ancient Greece. The revival of science naturally
revivified the idea which was the point of departure of the
earliest enquiry into the causes of natural phenomena and
therefore of philosophical thought. In Greek mythology and
epics, Fate or Destiny was of greater importance than the
gods—the latter being also subject to the former. Neither
was Fate a super-divine force nor were the gods
supernatural. Nature was the ultimate reality; nothing
existed beyond and outside it. The gods themselves were
subject to the law of nature. “Fate exercised a great
influence in all Greek thought, and perhaps was one of the
sources from which science derived the belief in natural
law.”9
The notion of fate was the primitive conception of
determinism—that nature was not a chaotic combination
of diverse and conflicting phenomena, nor was it subject to
any arbitrary supernatural Providence; it was a law-
governed system. Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitos and
other naturalist thinkers assumed that everything came out
of one single primal substance, which was infinite and
eternal. They conceived the basic substance differently,
Thales as water, Heraclitos as fire, so on and so forth. But
all of them held that the original substance differentiated
itself into the multifarious substances of experience, these
were transformed into each other, and again all merged in
their common source. This process of the being and
becoming of the world was believed to be due to the
operation of the Law of Nature, which appeared
9
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy.
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THE NATURAL LAW 141

as the concept of “Justice” in ancient Greek thought.
Justice was conceived as keeping balance—in every sphere
of existence. To be just was to be in harmony with the Law
of Nature. Justice was identical also with virtue. Ethics was
deduced from physics, because man was a part of nature.
This highly interesting philosophical idea was elaborated
subsequently by Epicuros. It has still to be fully grasped by
the philosophy of our time. However, the point is that the
notion of the Natural Law represented the belief in physical
determinism; it was reason in nature, and also the
fundamental moral category; “but this supreme power was
not itself personal, and was not a supreme god.”10 The
profound philosophical implication of the concept of
Natural Law had been developed by Aristotle and the
Stoics, apart from the Epicureans.
Treating the concept of Natural Law as “Justice”, Aristotle
came to the conclusion that it was a necessary element of
the State; but he differentiated “conventional justice” from
“natural justice”. While the former, guided by reason and
convenience, laid down definite rules, the latter's authority
was independent of opinion, being valid under all
circumstances as the guiding principle of civilised life.
Evidently, according to Aristotle, the concept of Natural
Law in the philosophical sense implied that there was a
rational design in nature, and that man-made laws, together
with the rest of human behaviour, should conform with that
rational design. That is how justice and virtue could be
realised in life.
The idea of Natural Law was further elaborated by the
Stoics into an ethical system; they derived morality from
rationality, which was referred back to the Law of Nature.
They maintained: “Every creature has its own nature and
its own appropriate functions, and for man—whose nature
is to be citizen—the Law of Nature is the sum of the prin-
10
Russell, Ibid.
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142 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

ciples, founded in human nature, which determine the
conduct befitting him in his rational and social quality.”11
The Stoics further held that, by nature, all men were free
and equal. The Law of Nature was supreme and eternal,
therefore precedent to all enactments of any human
authority. Even religion connoted obedience to the all-
pervading Reason, which was the Law of Nature. Roman
Jurists since the time of Cicero based their doctrines on the
Stoic concept of the Natural Law. Cicero declared that the
Roman Republic had approximated the Stoic ideal of the
“Natural State” and the laws of the Republic were in full
harmony with the Law of Nature.
The concept of the Natural Law ceased to be a matter of
philosophical speculation. It became the metaphysical
sanction of legislation, and the State derived its moral
authority therefrom. It was in this sense that Natural Law
became the point of departure of political theories at the
close of the Middle Ages. The Roman Jurists modified the
original Greek version in order to harmonise it with the
established sociopolitical order. The Stoics held that
equality and freedom were the essence of Natural Law; the
Roman lawyers dropped the idea of equality and declared
that all men were free before the law of Nature.
Neverthelss, both the versions of the venerable principle
were known throughout the Middle Ages. Not only were
the heretical movements inspired by the doctrine that
equality and freedom were of the essence of the Natural
Law; it was endorsed by the early Church Fathers also. St.
Ambrose, for example, defended the original Greek
conception as against the interpretation by the Roman
lawyears. He declared that “private property is not an
institution of nature. Nature knows only common property;
she gave all things to all men. Usurpation and greed
created the law of private property.” That was an echo of
Cicero's voice raised several centuries ago: “Nations and
11
Pollock, Essays in Law.
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THE NATURAL LAW 143

princes may make laws, but they are without the true
character of law if they are not derived from the original
source of law, which existed before the State was
established. Private property is unknown to nature.”12
Again, “There is a law which is identical with true reason,
and which is in harmony with nature. It is eternal and
unchallengeable and is the expression and the command of
the divine authority.”13
As a matter of fact, the entire Christian theology, until it
had to compromise with the positive (man-made) law of the
Roman Empire, was based upon the doctrine of Natural
Law. First, there was the Golden Age (the State of Nature);
the fall of man was followed by a moral crisis—the vale of
tears and life of sin, to last for a millennium; redemption
was to come thereafter; the Natural Law operating as the
Law of Reason, would enable man to overcome the moral
crisis and return to Grace. The law of Reason was to
restrain the evils in man. But in course of time, it was
reinforced by the Canon Laws of the ecclesiastical
government compiled in the sixth century by St. Isidore of
Seville. These also claimed the sanction of the Natural
Law, which was recognised in the theology of the Roman
State religion as the “Unrevealed Law of God.” Finally,
came the Positive Law (Roman Law) to justify the actual
conditions of life, which were so very different from the
biblical picture of the world waiting for redemption after
the millennium.
The purpose of the Positive Law was to protect the poor
against the rich, the weak against the strong. It legalised
private property, but offered protection to the weak and the
poor. It proposed to prevent the war of all against all, and
to protect the fruits of labour against robbery. According to
the Roman Jurists, the State was created for the benefit of
all. They declared that nobody should have a superfluity so
12
Cicero. De Republics
13
lbid.
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144 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

long as there were men who lacked the most necessary
things. Such a system of law, even if made by man, could
legitimately claim the sanction of the Law of Nature
conceived by the early Greek philosophers as “Justice,” and
subsequently, by the Stoics, as connoting equality and
freedom. Owing to its obvious justness and equity, the
Roman Law came to be an important element of the
cultural heritage of Europe, ultimately to provide the
fathers of modern political theories with a sound point of
departure.
When Christianity became the State religion of the Roman
Empire, and the latter established a terrestrial order in place
of the chaos created by the fall of the antique civilisation,
the biblical faith in the Millennium was abandoned
imperceptibly by the Fathers of the Church. Instead of
nearing the predestined end, the world appeared to be
showing unmistakable signs of a much longer life;
consequently, the pessimistic view, born out of the chaotic
conditions of a social crisis, had to be adjusted to the
altered perspective. It became necessary to find a
compromise between the Natural Law and the Positive Law
given for the administration of the affairs of the world,
which did not seem to be moving towards an early end. St.
Ambrose himself qualified his views quoted above by the
following proviso: “But it does not follow from this that
private property is a bad thing; the doctrine of Natural Law
only requires that the rich should support the poor with a
portion of the goods which were originally the common
possession of all.” And the Prince of the Patristic literature,
St. Augustine, defended the Positive Law enacted for the
administration of worldly affairs against the criticism of the
Manichaeists—those unmitigated votaries of the early
Christian other-worldliness. “Private property in itself is
not an evil, but the evil lay in passionate chase after riches,
the accumulation of property, the elevation of material
possessions over truth, justice, wisdom, faith, love of God
and man, or even placing
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THE NATURAL LAW 145

property on the same level as these ideal virtues.”14 The
historical significance of the defence of Positive Law on
the authority of the Natural Law, conceived later as the
“Un-revealed Law of God,” is fully appreciated when it is
ife-membered that 1,500 years later the prophet of modern
Communism rejected the docrtine that “private property is
theft” and wrote a whole book to criticise the Philosophic
de la Misere as Poverty of Philosophy.
Nevertheless, doubt about the inter-relation of the Natural
Law, the Canon Law and the Positive Law, continued to
confuse scholasticism until the thirteenth century, when the
great mediaeval jurist Gratian cleared away the
contradictions of the work of his predecessor, St. Isidore.
The latter had given a misleading definition of the Natural
Law by mixing up the original Greek version and the
interpretation of the Roman Jurists. Gratian took up what
today could be called a Marxist position, so many centuries
before Hegel provided his pupil with the dialectics of
histori-cism. The mediaeval dialectician held that “private
property is sinful, but necessary; therefore, ownership
should be restricted to what is necessary.” That was
certainly an improvement on Hegelian Positivism, which
dominates the revolutionary social philosophy of our time:
according to the Hegelian formula, taken over in Marxism,
the third term of the syllogism should have been,
“therefore, private property is good”, because whatever is
necessary, is justifiable, and therefore good.
The conception of the Natural Law had survived the
vicissitudes of the Roman Empire; but in the meantime,
Christian theology had outgrown the Hellenistic inclination
of the early Church Fathers. The appeal to Reason,
unsupported by authority, no longer carried conviction. But
on the other hand, the study of Aristotle had become an
impor-
14 ;
St. Augustine, City of God.
10
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146 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

tant part of scholastic learning. The authority of “the
philosopher and also of Cicero had added importance to the
concept of the Natural Law. It had, therefore, to be fitted
into the system of Christian faith. Gratian was an
ecclesiast; but a greater authority than that of a casuist was
called for. St. Thomas Aquinas declared that the Natural
Law was the “Unrevealed Law of God,” and as such
immutable, and supreme over all other law. With the
endorsement of the rationalist Occam, the Thomist
definition of the Natural Law became an important factor
of mediaeval thought, subsequently to become the point of
departure of modern political theories. As a matter of fact,
the sanction for the doctrine of the sacred right of revolt
can be found in St. Thomas Aquinas, who categorically
asserted “the right of subjects to withhold their obedience
from rulers who were usurpers and unjust.”15
Grotius reared his legal system for a new political order on
the foundation of the tradition of the ancient and mediaeval
thought about the origin of human rights and the source of
laws to guard them. “The doctrine of natural right, as it
appears in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth,
centuries, is a revival of a Stoic doctrine, though with
important modifications. It was the Stoic who distinguished
jus naturale from jus gentium. Natural Law was derived
from the first principles of the kind held to underlie all
general knowledge. By nature, the Stoics held, all human
beings are equal..... Christianity took over this part of Stoic
teaching along with much of the rest. And when at last, in
the seventeenth century, the opportunity came to combat
despotism effectively, the Stoic doctrines of Natural Law
and natural equality, in their Christian dress, acquired a
political force which, in antiquity, not even an Emperor
could give them.”16 Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor who
tried unsuccessfully
15
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae.
16
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy.
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THE NATURAL LAW 147

to enforce equal right and equal freedom according to the
doctrine of the Natural Law.
****
At this point, some digression is warranted to examine the
social background of Grotius. Did he not formulate the new
theory of law to justify the rise of the bourgeois Dutch
Republic? There is no evidence to show that the writing of
his Law of War and Peace had any direct connection with
that dramatic event. And even if that was the case, it would
be pointless to emphasise it. Because, the role of the
trading and industrial classes in the revolt of the Spanish
Provinces of the Netherlands was insignificant. The Dutch
Republic was not a creation of the bourgeoisie.
Originally, the revolt was not against the Spanish rule.
When King Philip II left for Spain, the Government of the
Netherlands was delegated to the Duchess of Parma, a
natural daughter of Emperor Charles V by a Flemish
mistress. She would have been accepted as a legitimate
ruler, had the native nobility been allowed to conduct the
government. That wise course was not adopted. A Council
of three headed by Cardinal Granvelle was appointed to
rule in behalf of the King. The native nobility felt deprived
of their natural right to rule, and revolted not against the
Spanish King, but against the Granvelle camarilla. The
rising bourgeoisie had nothing to do with that event, which
led to the rise of the Dutch Republic. “Proud and wealthy
native noblemen, who had served the State under Charles
V, asked themselves how long these outrages were to be
endured, and when they were to be admitted to a legitimate
share in the influence and the spoils of government, from
which they were excluded by the unpopular Cardinal and
his associates.”17 That was not a new class “beginning the
struggle for political power. The revolt was led by Egmont,
a professional soldier, the Count of Hoorn,
17
H. A. L. Fisher, History of Europe.
 148

148 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

and William Nassau, Prince of Orange— “the three men
whor in the recent troubles, had most helped the
maintenance of order.”18
Additional causes of the revolt were the anti-heresy edicts
and the order that the people of the Netherlands should
accept the Catholic doctrine of the Council of Trent. With a
solemn protest against religious persecution, drawn up by
the Prince of Orange, Egmont personally went to see the
King. On the failure of his mission, young noblemen,
bigotted Calvinists like Marnix, and humane Catholics like
Brederode, joined the revolt. The flame was fanned into a
widespread conflagration when Egmont and Hoorn, taken
prisoner by treachery, were publicly beheaded. But not
until a tax was imposed to pay Alva's troops did the
commercial community join the revolt. After the
foundation of the Dutch Republic in 1572, with a
democratic Constitution, the trading and industrial classes
tightened up their purse-strings. The Republican army of
the Prince of Orange suffered defeat after defeat, because it
was ill paid, his treasury being empty. While the peasants
of Friesia, the canons of Utrecht and the nobles of
Gelderland were the mainstay of the original Republic, the
burgher aristocracy of the trading cities of Brabant and
Flanders did not come in until the Duke of Parma
succeeded Alva and advised the King to recognise the
Republic founded by the Prince of Orange with the support
of the native nobility.
* ***
Grotius, however, was not the first to formulate a modern
political theory on the basis of a secular authority. As early
as in 1324, Marsiglio of Padua improved upon the
Aristotelian theory of the State. His ideas were so very
remarkably ahead of his time, though based on ancient
wisdom, that he has been described as “the most modern of
all the
18
Ibid.
 149

THE NATURAL LAW 149

mediaevals.”19 Rejecting all authority, Marsiglio based his
political theory on facts. He boldly expressed the opinion
that the source of law was not the divine right of rulers, nor
the superior wisdom of the learned, but the common sense
of the whole body of citizens. “We declare that, according
to the truth, and to the opinion of Aristotle, the Law-Giver,
the primary essential and the efficient source of law is the
People, or a majority of them, acting of their own free
choice openly declared, in a general assembly of citizens,
and prescribing something to be done or not done in regard
to civil affairs under penalty of temporal punishment. The
truth of a proposition is more accurately judged and its
usefulness to the community more carefully taken into
account, when the whole body of citizens apply their
intelligence.”20 Those basic principles of the parliamentary
democratic system were enunciated so much ahead of time,
by a mediaeval jurist, while the bourgeoisie were hardly
out of their swaddling clothes. Marsiglio calmly ignored
the pretensions of the Holy Empire as well as the authority
of the Pope, and declared that law for the governance of
this world must have the sanction of a secular authority,
which, according to the Natural Law, was vested in the
people. He argued that positive laws were “the reasoned
application of the Natural Law.”
In the Introduction to his book, Marsiglio states that it was
written as a supplement to Aristotle's Politics. But formally
following the Aristotelian principles, he reached
conclusions which were most repugnant to the mediaeval
interpreters of the philosopher. In fact, Marsiglio's
conclusions were influenced by the clearly naturalist and
rationalist principles of Latin Averroism as distinct from
the interpretation of the Nominalists of the Paris
University, where, also on the authority of the Arab
philosopher, an attempt was made to marry reason with
faith. Marsiglio argued that faith
19
E. Emerton, Harvard Theological Studies.
20
Marsiglio, Defensor Pacts.
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150 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

should not be vulgarised by the association with reason.
Because, the one is concerned with the life after death,
while the other is a secular category. The faith may be
useful for the salvation of the soul, but it is simply
irrelevant in the consideration of the affairs of this world.
That was a roundabout way of declaring that secular
questions must be decided by the dictates of reason without
any reference to faith. It is clear how Marsiglio's separation
of reason from faith was bound to lead logically to
scepticism as regards religion, and secularisation of
politics. “Human law is a command of the whole body of
citizens, or of its prevailing part, arising directly from the
deliberations of those empowered to make law, about
voluntary acts of human beings to be done or avoided in
this world, for the sake of attaining the best end, or some
condition desirable for man in this world. I mean, a
command the transgression of which is enforced in this
world by penalty or punishment imposed on the
transgressor.”21
In the sixteenth century, before Grotius, a succession of
great lawyers devoted their intellect to a new examination
of the Roman Law from the point of view of the conditions
of their time. The most famous among them were Nicholas
of Cusa, John Gerson, Johannes Althusius and Jean Bodin.
Althusius was a Calvinist. Nevertheless, in his work the
relation between theology and the Natural Law appears to
be very ambiguous. He maintained that the original
association of men was a natural process, being an integral
part of human nature. Therefore, it is not to be explained
by any ad hoc assumption such as social contract,22 the
implication of which argument was that society was not a
divine creation, but resulted from the operation of the law
of nature.
Bodin's monumental work, Republic, was hailed as the
most complete and systematic treatise on politics since
Aristotle. In the tradition of Marsiglio, Bodin demanded
sub~
21
ibid.
22
Otto von Gierke, Johannes Althusius.
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THE NATURAL LAW 151

ordination of the ecclesiastical power to the sovereignty of
the secular State based on Positive Law. Discussing the
question of sovereignty, Bodin maintained that usurpation
was the origin of monarchy (the only sovereign power
known at that time). Rejecting the distinction made by
Aristotle between a king and a tyrant, he held that a king
governed according to the Law of Nature, whereas a tyrant
outraged it. Ideas of law, sovereignty, administration, were
in the melting pot. A comprehensive political philosophy
was the need of the tune. The classical concept of the
Natural Law as the source of all authority, provided the
common point of departure. But how did the State
originate? How did the Law of Nature operate so as to
provide sanction for a secular authority? How was the
concept of Natural Law to be brought down from the realm
of metaphysical speculation, and itself be secularised?
“From a philosophical investigation of these questions, the
lawyers passed by an inevitable transition to an
examination of the origin of government, a subject which
they pursued from their own point of view, as energetically
as the theologians.”23 Hobbes, a contemporary of Grotius,
produced a comprehensive political philosophy.
Two conflicting implications were inherent in the old
notion of Natural Law inherited from the Stoics and
elaborated by the Roman Jurists. “On the one hand, there
was a theory of limitations upon human activities imposed
by Reason in view of human nature, and on the other hand,
there was a theory of moral qualities inherent in human
beings, or natural rights, demonstrated by Reason as
deduced from human nature.”24 In the new conception of
law expounded by the predecessors of Grotius, the two
theories were mixed up. Grotius cleared up the confusion
with the argument that the purpose of law was not to limit
human rights and human activities, but to enable man to act
on his
23
W. E. H. Lecky, The Rise of Rationalism in Europe.
24
Roscoe Pound, The Spirit of the Common Law.
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152 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

own responsibility. That was a clear break with the
mediaeval notion of law, which stiffled man's creativeness
and precluded the responsibility on his part to make moral
judgments. Grotius held that certain qualities inherent in
man recognised the Natural Law. “The mother of Natural
Law is human nature itself. For, the very nature of man,
which, even if we had no lack of anything, would lead us
into the mutual relations of society, is the mother of the
Law of Nature. Among the properties which are pecular to
man is a desire for society, and not only so, but for a life
spent tranquilly and rationally. The assertion that by nature
each seeks only his own advantage cannot be conceded.
And this tendency to the conservation of society is the
source of jus or Natural Law. Natural Law would remain if
there were no God.”25
Grotius went to the extent of saying that the will of God
was always in addition to the Natural Law; it could never
contradict the latter. “Just as God cannot make twice two
not be four, he cannot make that which is intrinsically bad
not to be bad.” Grotius insists upon the social and rational
nature of man. Natural Law is founded upon the primitive
altruistic instinct and also the rational nature of man. By
implication, Grotius holds that certain things are right and
others wrong in their own nature, that is, apart from the
will of God. The doctrine of Natural Law has always been
based on an appeal to reason; Grotius cleared the concept
of reason from all mystic and transcendental connotation,
and defined it as a property of the human mind. Thus, the
old notion of Natural Law as elaborated by him provided a
rational method for the making of positive laws for the
guidance of the political organisation of society.
Man's age-long struggle for freedom at last brought about
an eclipse of theology and a quiet disregard for eccles-
stical authority. Aspiration for political liberty became the
25
Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacts.
 153

THE NATURAL LAW 153

Jiew incentive of the struggle. There must be a mighty
revolt against “Voluntary Servitude”. A book bearing this
title was published by Montaigne, its author, La Boetie,
having died at the age of thirty-two. The following passage
quoted from that book breathes the spirit of the age:
“Wretched and insensate people, enamoured of your misery
and blind to your interests, you suffer your property to be
pillaged, your fields devastated, and your houses stripped
of their goods, and all this by one whom you yourselves
raised to power, and whose dignity you maintain with your
lives! Yours arc the many eyes that spy your acts, the many
hands that strike you, the many feet that trample you in
dust; all the power with which he injures you is your own.
From indignities that the beasts themselves would not
endure, you can free yourselves by simply willing it.
Resolve to serve no more, and you are free. Think of the
battles of Miltiades. of Leonidas and of Themistocles,
which after two-thousand years are as freshly in the minds
of men as though they were of yesterday. They were
triumphs not so much of Greece as of liberty..... All other
goods men will labour to obtain, but to liberty alone they
are indifferent. Yet, we were all moulded in the same dye,
all born in freedom as brother?, born too with a love of
liberty which nothing but our vices has effaced.”
That spirit of revolt was not compatible with Christianity,
Catholic or Protestant; indeed, with any religion. It
proclaimed that man was the master of his destiny. There
was no supernatural power presiding over his fate.
Recognition of the right of resistance to despotic power
became a condition for further human advance. Therefore,
Grotius and others came to the conclusion that a Christian
had to choose between liberty and faith; all hopes of liberty
must be sacrificed by the faithful. The corollary to the
conclusion was obvious: In quest of freedom, rrfan had left
behind the age of faith; further advance towards the goal
was condi-
 154

154 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

tional upon rejection of the religious mode of thought in
favour of reason and scientific knowledge.
By that time, science had come of age; speculative thought
could be replaced by a philosophy based on positive
knowledge. Descartes was the architect of the edifice of the
new philosophy. He developed the method of “Rightly
Conducting the Reason and Seeking the Truth in the
Sciences.” This full title of his famous treatise on Method
clearly indicates the nature of the new philosophy founded
by Descartes. At last a mathematically sound hypothesis of
a mechanistic cosmology was set up. The inductive method
of reasoning—from experience, from the particulars—was
Francis Bacon's contribution to the new philosophy. He
also declared that the object of philosophy was to enable
man to acquire mastery over the forces of nature by means
of scientific discoveries. He was the first to use the now
familiar expression “knowledge is power.” Respectfully
bowing Aristotle out of the place of honour conceded to
him by orthodox tradition, Bacon held up Democritos, the
father of Materialism, as the greatest of ancient
philosophers. Modern thought, was to take up the threads
of ancient Materialism, relegating the long enough religious
interlude to the museum of history.
The philosophy of Hobbes was purely secular. He had no
use even for metaphysical rationalism. He was an out -and-
out Materialist. Natural Law, for him, was not an abstract
philosophical concept. The founders of human society were
not philosophers full of wisdom; they were beast-like
bipeds with no culture, moved only by the instinct of self-
preservation; that urge eventually welded them together,
and thus laid the foundation of society. That was not man's
fall from Grace; that was how Natural Law began
moulding human life and to dominate the development of
society—from- savagery to civilisation.
Brushing aside the whole period of history during which
 155

THE NATURAL LAW 155

all thinking was more or less mixed up with religion and
theology, Hobbes went all the way back to the Epicurean
tradition, to discover the stable basis for a really secular
philosophy. While an exile in Paris, he met Gassendi who
had revived the latest and the most positive achievement of
the ancient Greek civilisation. While Christian theology
appropriated the philosophy of Aristotle, Epicures was
practically forgotten. Gassendi was a physicist, and was
fully equipped with a knowledge of all the systems of
naturalist philosophy which had been developed in ancient
Greece. Therefore, he could “embrace with a sure glance
exactly what was best suited to modern times and to the
empirical tendency of his age.”26
Gassendi not only rescued ancient atomism, but showed
that, though a pagan (so also was Aristotle), Epicuros was
the purest moralist of all ancient philosophers. To revive
the Epicurean tradition was an extremely difficult task.
Practically all the works of Epicuros were destsroyed, and
lie had for centuries been the object of gross
misrepresentation and shameless calumny. His entire
philosophy had to be reconstructed from one reliable
source—the famous poem De Rerum Naturae by Lucretius,
written in the last century before Christ. Gassendi
introduced Lucretius to the scholars of his time. Born
during the period of the civil war in Rome, when
everything was in the most unstable and chaotic condition,
the poet sought for some meaning of life and found it only
in the philosophy of Epicuros. The essence of the
Epicurean philosophy is set forth in the very beginning of
the poem.
“When human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth,
crushed down under the weight of religion, who showed
her head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect
lowering upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to
lift up his mortal eyes to her face, and first with-
26
A. Lange, History of Materialism.
 156

156 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

stand her to her face. Him neither story of gods, nor
thunderbolts, nor heaven with threatening roar, could quell,
but only stirred up the more—the eager courage of his soul,
filling him with desire to be the first to burst the fast bars of
Nature's portals.”27
Beginning as the naturalism of the early physicists, Greek
philosophy, having gone through several stages of
metaphysical development, culminated in the Materialism
of Epicures, who held that deliverance from the degrading
influence of religion was the aim of philosophy. Therefore,
when in quest of freedom man ultimately revolted against
God, he found inspiration only in the liberating tradition of
the Epicurean philosophy, which had improved upon
ancient naturalism by showing that the law-governed
Universe made room for individual freedom, and by
incorporating in it a system of ethics which required no
metaphysical sanction. Lucretius describes the Epicurean
view of the evolution of man from his primitive state:
“Hardened against frost and heat, they lived, like the
animals, without any agricultural arts. The fruitful soil
offered them spontaneously streams and springs. They
dwelt in forests and caves without morality or law. The use
of fire and even a clothing of skins were unknown. In their
contests with the wild animals, they generally conquered,
and were pursued by few only. Gradually, they learned to
build huts, to prepare the soil for crops and the use of fire;
the ties of family life were formed and men began to grow
more gentle. Friendship grew up between neighbours,
mercy to women and children was introduced, and though
^perfect harmony might not yet reign, yet, for the most
part, men lived in peace with one another.”
Here is undoubtedly the picture of the origin of human
society, which became the foundation of the political
philosophy of Hobbes. Philosophically an avowed
Materialist,
27
Lucretius, De Rerum Naturae (Monro's translation).
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THE NATURAL LAW 157

Hobbes reaches his idea of the origin of the State with the
following remarkable arguments:
“Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the
world, is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in
this also, imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For
seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof
is in some principal part within; why may we not say that
all automata have an artificial life? What is the heart but a
spring, and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints,
but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such
as was intended by the artificer? Art goes yet further,
imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature,
man. For by art is created that great Leviathan called a
Commonwealth or State, in Latin, civiias, which is but an
artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than
the natural, for whose protection and defence it was
intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul,
as giving life and motion to the whole body.”28
The description of the natural “state of man led to a
contradiction. Nature has made men equal in faculties of
the body and mind.” From this equality of ability ariseth
equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. If two men
desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both
enjoy, they become enemies; and, in the way to their end,
which is principally their own conservation and sometimes
their delectation only, endeavour to destroy and subdue one
another. “These pessimistic conclusions are wrongly,
drawn from a realistic analysis of the equality of men in the
state of nature. It is done to explain the necessity of laws,
and political organisation of society. Hobbes finds the
solution of an artificially created problem in the operation
of the Natural Law.” The passions that incline men to peace
are fear and death, desire of such things as are necessary to
28
Hobbes, Leviathan.
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158 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

commodious living, and a hope, by their industry, to obtain
them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace
upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These
articles are they which otherwise are called the Laws of
Nature.”
Then Hobbes proceeds to explain terms: Natural right
means the liberty of each man to use his own power for the
preservation of his life. Liberty is the absence of external
impediments which often deprive man of the power to do
what he would. And “a law of nature is a precept or general
rule found out by reason by which a man is forbidden to do
that which is destructive of his life.” But the otherwise
logically consistent philosophy of Hobbes remained
vitiated by a fallacy. It was the inability to reconcile
freedom of will with the mechanistic view of life. Once it is
shown, as Hobbes did following Epicures, that society was
the creation of man, that man was not created by God to
fulfil any divine design, man's creativeness logically
follows; and creativeness presupposes will. But scientific
knowledge was not yet advanced enough. Astronomy and
physics had established a plausible hypothesis of
mechanistic cosmology, which could embrace man as an
“automaton”. But the science of man was still to rise to
explain the structure and the function of the highest
organism. The potentialities of man as the embodiment of a
sovereign power were not understood until biology
developed to the extent of annexing psychology to its
domain. Only then was the relation between will and
reason revealed, and a flawless materialist phiolsophy
became possible.
In the seventeenth century, when the ideological
foundation of the modern civilisation and culture were
laid, a harmony of Humanism and a materialist cosmology
(naturalism) could be found in the Epicurean tradition. By
freeing atomism of its original naivety, Epicuros made
room for individual freedom in a law-governed Universe,
in a
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THE NATURAL LAW 159

world obeying the laws of nature. The Epicurean view as
described by Lucretius was an anticipation of the doctrine
of natural selection in the physical world.
“For verily not by design did the first beginnings of things
station themselves each in its right place, guided by keen-
sighted intelligence, nor did they bargain, sooth to say,
what motions each should assume, but because many in
number, and shifting about in many ways throughout the
Universe, they are driven and tormented by blows during
infinite time past; after trying motions and unions of every
kind, at length they fall into arrangements such as those out
of which this our sum of things has formed, and by which
too it is preserved through many great years, when once it
has been thrown into the appropriate motions, and causes
the streams to replenish the greedy sea with copious river
waters, and the earth, fostered by the heat of the sun, to
renew its produce, and the race of living things to come up
and flourish, and the gliding fires of either to live.”29
On the threshold of the modern times, man was again
confronted with the same problems as of old—the
problems of his own being and becoming in the context of
his surroundings, physical as well as social. Without
understanding the natural phenomena which provided the
background of his physical being, he could not harness
them for his benefit and thus succeed in the struggle for
existence. How to acquire the knowledge of nature so as to
have the power to master it? The society and State, created
by man for carrying on the struggle for existence more
successfully, should not deprive him of his natural
freedom. How should social and political relations be
regulated so that they might serve the purpose of helping
man attain greater and greater freedom instead of making
an automaton out of him?
The intellectual life of the classical antiquity culmi-
——————————
29
Lucretius, Ibid.
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160 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

nated in the Epicurean revolt against natural religion. The
subsequent revolt of man known as the Renaissance drew
inspiration from that spiritual tradition. Then began a new
stage of intellectual development, a new adventure of ideas.
Ultimately, institutionalised Christianity, Catholic as well
as Protestant, was eclipsed by the revival of naturalism,
reinforced by the newly acquired scientific knowledge. The
incentive for that new achievement of human creativeness
was provided by the idea of the Natural Law, which
replaced the religious belief in a creator or the mystic
notion of a teleological order ordained by a divine
Providence. The laws of the order of nature could be
discovered and understood. They need no longer be
ascribed to any supernatural agency beyond the control of
man; and society, being also a creation of man, could be so
administered as to serve the purpose of man, the purpose
being attainment of freedom.
 161

CHAPTER VII
BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY
EVER since the intellectual Renaissance of the twelfth
century, theology had been steadily undermined by
scholastic rationalism. But its imposing structure did not
begin to crumble until the rise of a mechanistic cosmology.
Metaphysical rationalism had been completely absorbed in
the science of God by the genius of Albertus Magnus and
his greater disciple Thomas Aquinas. In the early thirteenth
century, the University of Paris was the breeding ground of
free thought, which threatened to pass beyond the limits of
theology. Peter Abelard, the earliest harbinger of the
Renaissance, had presumed to explain the mystery of the
Trinity, and dared to submit all things in heaven and earth
to the test of human reason. Subsequently, scholastic
rationalism moved farther away from theology and tended
towards philosophy under the impact of “new Aristotle”
introduced in Western Europe by the secular Arab thinkers.
Averroes' interpretation of “the philosopher”, which
dominated the schools of the West for two centuries,
emphasised and developed the most anti-Christian elements
in his teachings, such as the eternity of matter, the unity of
active intellect and the negation of individual immortality.
The traditional study of Logic was superceded by that of
Physics, De Anima and parts of Metaphysic. Natural
philosophy penetrated the strongholds of super-naturalism,
and challenged the supremacy of theology.
Orthodox schoolmen unsuccessfully struggled against the
Arabian Aristotle until Albertus Magnus smuggled in
“Averroeist heresy” on the authority of Aristotle dressed in
Christian garb. European intellect had been so very deeply
influenced by the Arab rationalist thought that even
11
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162 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Thomas Aquinas was compelled to differentiate philosophy
from theology, thus vindicating the earlier heretic, Abelard.
Finally, on the authority of the two greatest Christian
scholars and thinkers of the Middle-Age, scholastic
rationalism received the stamp of orthodoxy. A clear line
was drawn between natural and revealed religion, between
truth which could be established by human reason and the
transcendental truth which was to be revealed only by the
grace of God. Significantly enough, even that region of
super-naturalism was thrown open to reason, to the extent
of examining the self-consistency of authority. That was a
veritable revolution in the realm of human thought.
“Hitherto philosophy had been either an avowed foe or a
dangerous and suspected ally. By the genius of the great
Dominicans (Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas), all
that was (potentially) Christian or not un-Christian in
Aristotle was woven into the very substance and texture of
what was henceforth more and more to grow into the
accredited theology of the Catholic Church. The content of
the whole philosophy of the pagan philosopher, including
even his great treatise on ethics, are embodied in the
Summa Theologiae. The grand conviction that religion is
rational and that reason is divine, that all knowledge and all
truth, from whatever source derived, must be capable of
harmonious adjustment—of that conviction the Summa
remains a magnificent monument, still, on some points, not
wholly useless as a help to the rationalisation of Christian
belief.”1
Modern philosophy thus was not born on a particular date,
or even in a clearly demarcated short period, as the
1
Dean Hastings Rashdall. The Universities of Mediaeval
Europe Vol. 1. pp. 368-9.
As for example, the neo-Thomism of our time. “Philosophy
is the highest of human sciences, that is, of the sciences
which know things by the natural licht of reasons. But there
is a science above it; it is theology. The word theology
means the science of God.” (Jacques Maritain, An
Introduction to Philosophy)
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 163

ideology of a rising class. Its growth, indeed, was a
dialectic process; but it was a process of dynamics, not of
mechanics—of internal motion, not of any external impact.
It was a continuous process of intellectual unfoldment;
there were interruptions, but no break. Rationalism as well
as naturalism, born of the adolescence of human spirit, did
not die out even in the dark age of Christian bigotry;
thereafter, matured in the Schools of mediaeval learning,
under the terrifying tutelage of theology, they blossomed
forth, one in the springtide of the intellectual Renaissance
of the twelfth century, and the other in the great humanist
resurgence. Ultimately, the two apparently divergent
currents of man's spiritual energy merged into the modern
philosophy.
Throughout the Middle-Ages, the study of cosmology,
astronomy, physics and mathematics was pursued by
obscure scholars.2 The intellectual life of that time was not
“an age-long weary orgy of barren chatter interrupted by
the orderly arguments of a few men of genius who are as
isolated as they are great, but a process of incessant
wisdom and folly with distinguishable lines of development
in it, a process which did not come to a sudden close on the
appearance of Erasmus and Luther, nor linger fruitlessly in
obsolete schools, but threw up ideas and ways of thought
and speech which have profoundly influenced science and
philosophy of the modern world. The change which began
to pass over the schools of France in the eleventh century,
and culminated in the great intellectual Renaissance of the
following age, was but an effort of that general
revivification of the human spirit which should be
recognised as constituting an epoch in the history of
European civilisation not less momentous than the
Reformation or the French Revolution.”3
2
See Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and
Experimental Science;
Charles H. Hoskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval
Science; and William C. D. Dampier, A History of Science.
3
Rashdall, The Universities of Mediaeval Europe.
 164

164 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

On the other hand, having grown out of that background of
a continuous intellectual unfoldment, under so very
different conditions, modern philosophy naturally carried
the ballast of mediaeval tradition in the metaphysical
rationalism of its founder. At the same time, the success of
Descartes' mission of liberating philosophy from the
tutelage of theology4 was possible only thanks to the
epoch-making discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler and
Galileo. With the appearance of those pioneers of scientific
(mechanistic) naturalism, the Renaissance assumed an
independent character. The fifteenth century was a period
of transition. The great Humanists of that period heralded
the coming, of a new era on the authority of ancient
traditions. With the rise of modern science, the Renaissance
outgrew its revivalist character. The new era was to be
really new, inspired by a new philosophy which combined
rationalist tradition with naturalism reinvigorated by
modern science; “The sixteenth century marks its place in
history as the century of revolutions; it not only broke the
chain which bound Europe to Rome; it also broke the chain
which bound philosophy to scholasticism. It set human
reason free; it proclaimed the liberty of thought and
action.”5
***
The doctrine of Natural Law liberated human spirit from
the fetters of the venerable dogmas of religion and the
awe-inspiring authority of theology. The law-governed
Universe of Christian teleology was ruled by super-natural
laws given by God who had originally created a cosmos
out of chaos. At the close of the Middle-Ages Nature
replaced God; but at the same time the Natural Law
deprived man of the limited degree of freedom conceded
to him by
4
“In the seventeenth century, the Cartesian reform
resulted in the severence of philosophy from theology, the
refusal to recognise the rightful control of theology and its
function as a negative rule in respect of philosophy.”
(Maritain, Introduction to Philosophy).
5
Lewes, History of Philosophy.
 165

BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 163

religion. Man's soul, after all, was a spark of the divine
light. Christianity granted a free will to man, though it was
freedom only to commit sin so that his soul could be
redeemed by Grace. Modern philosophy, as it crystallised
with Bacon, Hobbes and Descartes, was confronted with
the problem of reconciling, on the one hand, a rationalist
metaphysics with a mechanistic cosmology, human reason
with physical nature and, on the other hand, the idea of
freedom with the concept of necessity. The naturalist
Humanism of the Renaissance appeared to be in conflict
with the mechanistic naturalism of science, and the latter
with the sovereignty of human reason and freedom of
human will, although all of them united in challenging the
tyranny of theology. To put it differently, the problem was
to harmonise human reason, including will, with physical
determinism. All the traditional concepts, the old patterns
of thought, were thus in the melting pot.
The Cartesian method of doubting everything was certainly
the only way out of the apparent confusion. In that sense,
Descartes may be called the founder of modern philosophy,
although, in the last analysis, the spirit of the new «ra was
represented more truly by Bacon's empiricism (inductive
logic) and Hobbes' determinism than by Descartes'
rationalist metaphysics. However, the genius of all the
three taken together raised philosophy to the independent
status of a system of human knowledge, of nature and
man's relation with it. Breaking away from super-
naturalism, modern philosophy set human spirit free; an
exhilarating perspective of newer and greater adventures of
ideas was opened up before the daring vision of the
spiritually free man.6
6
In the modest disguise of the faithful, Bacon went to the
extent of suggesting that venerable superstitions should be
subjected to the test of human reason. “I have always
thought that the two questions of the” existence of God and
the nature of the soul were the chief of those (questions)
which ought to be demonstrated rather by philosophy than
by
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166 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

The fundamental problem which faced modern philosophy
at its birth, the problem of the relation between thought and
being, is as old as philosophy itself. Even before the
resurgence of humanist naturalism, the old question of
philosophy was revived by the schoolmen of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, who tried to reconcile theology
with rationalism. In course of time, the selfsame problem
was differently formulated; it was posed as the question of
the relation of human thought about the world with the
world itself: Can the human mind really know the world?
Do man's notions and perceptions contain a picture of the
reality? Ancient naturalism had been concerned chiefly
with the reality of the Universe. Descartes combined the
study of the physical Universe with an analysis of the
human mind; modern philosophy thus was to be reared
upon the twin-pillars of physics and psychology.
“The question regarding the relation of thought to being, of
the spirit to the nature, the highest question of philosophy,
has its roots, no less than religion, in the ignorant notions
of man in the state of barbarism. But this question can be
put in the sharpest form, and in all its significance, only
after the European people has emerged from the long
winter slumber of the Christian Middles-Ages.”8 That
would be a very correct appreciation of the genesis of the
dualist fallacy, and a sound observation about the birth of
modern philosophy, if the last phrase was re-writeen as
follows: after the resurrection of science or the rise of
modern science.
As a matter of fact, the modern philosophy of the Cartesian
school suffered from the dualist fallacy, because the
science of life and mind still lagged behind, while

theology, for, although it is sufficient for us, the faithful, to

believe in God, and that the soul does not perish with the
body, it certainly does not seem possible ever to persuade
the infidel unless we first prove to them, these two things
by natural reason.”
8
Frederick Engels, Feuerbach.
 167

BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 167

mathematics, physics and astronomy forged ahead. The
problem of dualism, which baffled philosophy in the
seventeenth century, resulted from the uneven development
of science. In the last analysis, it was the old dichotomy of
matter and mind, which was finally resolved in Spinoza's
unitary system, but still on the basis of metaphysical
rationalism.
Reason was not humanised; it was not placed in the context
of physical nature accessible to human understanding until
modern philosophy was reinforced by psychological
doctrines deduced from the physiological and generally
biological enquiries of Hartley, Erasmus Darwin, de Tracy
and Cabanis. Then, the anomaly which had faced human
intellect just when modern philosophy liberated it from the
authority of super-naturalism and tyranny of theology—the
anomaly of Nature replacing God, but Natural Law
depriving man of all freedom—disappeared like mist on
the rising of the sun. The mathematical rigour of Spinoza's
rationalism (deductive method) placed man, with his mind,
theoretically in the unitary scheme of nature. In his
monistic system, the apparent contradiction between
Natural Law and human will disappeared; because both
could be referred back to a common origin, reduced to a
common denominator.
Before long, the rationally conceived theory of man's
relation to nature was empirically verified by psychological
enquiries and physiological researches. Man being an
integral part of nature, his will to freedom is a natural urge
—a manifestation of the Natural Law. There is no
contradiction between reason and will; on the other hand, a
rationalist metaphysics and a mechanistic cosmology can
be harmonised in a monistic philosophical system. Human
reason is a continuation of the reason in nature—the
Natural Law, which is not a transcendental metaphysical
concept, but an abstraction from the experience that
physical pro-
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168 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

cesses are determined. The corollary is a reconciliation of
the concept of necessity and urge for freedom, the latter
being a specific expression of the Natural Law in the
animate world. Ultimately, absolved of the original sin of
ignorance, and freed from the mediaeval ballast of
superstition, the native rationality of human nature realised
itself in romanticism—the belief in man's unlimited
creativeness, man's belief in himself.
The Cartesian system, notwithstanding all its defects,
particularly its dualist fallacy, orientated human spirit to
that direction of the liberty of thought and action.9
Therefore, Descartes has gone down in history as the
founder of modern philosophy, which ushered in the new
era heralded by the naturalist Humanism of the
Renaissance. “Rene' Descartes is usually considered the
founder of modern philo-isophy, and, I think, rightly. He is
the first man of high philosophic capacity whose outlook is
profoundly affected by the new physics and astronomy.
While it is true that he retains much of scholasticism, he
does not accept foundations laid by predecessors, but
endeavours to construct the complete philosophic edifice de
novo. This had not happened since Aristotle, and is a sign
of the new self-confidence that resulted from the progress
of science. There is a freshness about his work that is not to
be found in any eminent previous philosopher since
Plato.”10
Descartes has been described as “a partaker of the modern
spirit” in the full sense of the term, because he was a
product of the Reformation as well as of the Renaissance,
having combined the conflicting tendencies represented by
such diverse personalities as Erasmus, Bacon and Luther.11
9
“It was reserved for the first half of the seventeenth
century to reap in the sphere of philosophy the ripe fruits
of the great emancipation which the Renaissance had
secured in turn for the most various departments of man's
intellectual life.” (A. Lange, History of Materialism).
10
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy.
11
See Encyclopedia Britannica, 13th Edition.
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 169

That view of Descartes' historical heritage and cultural
background is based on the still prevailing error as regards
the respective movements of thought. Erasmus and Luther
did not leave a joint legacy for Descartes to inherit; nor
could he be true to the tradition of one as well as of the
other, and yet be the founder of modern philosophy entirely
independent of theology.12
Descartes was the embodiment par excellence of the
modern spirit, because not only did he completely break
with the wrong notions of the past,13 but his genius
penetrated deeper into the future than he himself realised or
his conventional interpreters have done even to-day.
Descartes conceived philosophy as the universal science,
and, in his opinion, physics was the foundation of all
sciences. The Cartesian philosophy co-ordinated physics
with mathematics, and applied physics to physiology. Thus,
it was a promising approach to the fundamental problem of
the relation of man to nature, and also to the more difficult
problem of man knowing himself. Descartes' scientific
thinking, as distinct from his rationalist metaphysical
speculations which could not quite outgrow an atavistic
tendency, contained the bold suggestion that man is an
integral part of the physical nature, and only as such can he
have the
12
“In the seventeenth century, the Cartesian reform resulted in the
severence of philosophy from theology, the refusal to recognise the
rightful control of theology and its function as a negative rule in
respect of philosophy. This was tantamount to denying that theology is
a science, or anything more than a mere practical discipline, and to
claiming that philosophy, or human wisdom, is the absolutely
sovereign science which admits no other superior to itself. Thus, in
spite of the religious beliefs of Descartes himself, Cartesianism
introduced the principle of rationalist philosophy which denies God the
right to make known by revelation truths which excede the natural
scope of reason.” (Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy).
13
“Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I
had accepted even from my youth many false opinions for true, and
that consequently what I afterwards based on such principles, was
highly doubtful. And from that time, I was convinced of the necessity
of understanding once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had
adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the
foundation.” (Meditations).
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170 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

knowledge of the truth of his being and becoming. If the
laws of physics, that is to say, of the inanimate world, were
applicable to the internal functions of biological organisms,
then there could be no hiatus between the living and the
non-living. The Cartesian psycho-physical parallelism
resulted from the arbitrary postulate of a “rational soul”
superimposed on the fully mechanistic biological organism
of man. To that extent, the ghost of scholasticism was still
haunting the founder of modern philosophy. Nevertheless,
in the Cartesian philosophy, soul is even less immaterial
than in Aristotle's naturalism. The adjective rational is of
supreme importance. Yet, precisely that would be the
source of ambiguity, so long as the concept of reason
remained veiled in mystery. But on that point also,
Descartes' ideas contained the light to penetrate the veil.
In the Cartesian system, the abstract concept of the Natural
Law is concretised as the coherence and expression of the
invariant relations of the physical world; and, on the other
hand, the metaphysical concept of rationality also received
a human content. By coordinating a rationalist metaphysics
with a physically deterministic naturalism, Descartes
prepared the ground for the rise of a really new-philosophy.
It was like a mutation in the evolution o£ thought. It
changed the outlook of man fundamentally: the world is a
cosmos, but not a teleological order serving an inscrutable
divine purpose; on the other hand, man is a rational being
possessed of the capacity to acquire knowledge of the
mechanism of nature, of his relation with it, and, thanks to
that ever growing knowledge, gain power14 to mould the
world according to his will and consequently hold his
destiny in his own hand. That is the romantic view of life,
which places man, himself a process of becoming,
imbedded in the self-contained and self-governed scheme
of
14
The co-founder of modern philosophy, Francis Bacon,
for the first time used the phrase “knowledge is power.”
 171

BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 17l

Nature, in the centre of the world, to create new worlds,
social as well as conceptual, out of the available material
provided by Nature. It is romanticism, not mystic and
dreamy, but naturalist in the scientific sense.
In order to formulate a philosophy as the universal science,
Descartes had to revolutionise the conception of science
prevailing in his time. Science was as yet too undeveloped
to be so universalised as to be identical with philosophy;
nor could it even build up an abstract theoretical system
mathematically deduced from empirical propositions. The
pioneering efforts to acquire knowledge of the various
aspects of nature had to be made empirically, by the
humdrum method of observation and experiment, by the
patience of modest men. Descartes' impetuosity, therefore,
was premature; it preferred mathematical reasoning to
empiricism15 which was essential for laying down a solid
and reliable foundation of objective knowledge for a
scientific theoretical structure of profound philosophical
significance. Nevertheless, Descartes' impetuousity placed
before man's intellect an inspiring vision. He compared
science to a tree; metaphysics is the root; physics, the
trunk; and mechanics, medicine and morals are the three
main branches, being the respective application of man's
knowledge to nature, the human body and human
behaviour.
The Principles of Philosophy, which contains Descartes'
scientific ideas, was the last to be published of his three
main works. But it was the first to be written, substantially,
and an outline of it was published in 1637 (before the
publication of Discourse and Meditations) with the object
of making “some general observations which, under an
appearance of simplicity, might sow the good seed of more
adequate ideas
15
Descartes did not altogether neglect the method of
observation and experiment. He worked hard on refraction
and carried on anatomical research to prove that
imagination and memory were physical processes. Proudly
he used to show to his visitors dissected animal heads and
called them more important than books.
 172

172 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

on the world and man”. The book was anonymously
published under the title Philosophical Essays. But it
carried a sub-title describing its contents: “Project of a
Universal Science capable of raising our nature to its
highest perfection, wherein the most curious matters which
the author select as a proof of the universal science, which
he proposes, are explained in such a way that even the
unlearned may understand them.”
The desire to democratise science and philosophy was
inherent in the spirit of modernism, which ushered in the
era of democracy.16 But during the following centuries of
phenomenal expansion of scientific knowledge and the
consequent enrichment of philosophy, Descartes' admirable
democratic desire was forgotten. Empirical research and
elaboration of theories necessarily led to extreme
specialisation, excluding general participation in scientific
knowledge. To philosophise also became the privilege of
an e'lite. To an extent, that line of intellectual progress,
contradictory to the democratic desire of Descartes, could
not be avoided. Nevertheless, had all the scientists and
philosophers of the centuries of enlightenment and great
scientific achievements felt it keenly enough, Descartes'
ambition to democratise intellectual life could be realised.
The widest possible dissemination of scientific knowledge
and philosophical thought might have made a reality of
democracy. Fulfilment of the desire of Descartes still
remains a fundamental necessity of an all-round social
development. Except on the basis of a democratisation of
knowledge and rational thought, democracy is not possible.
16
“Descartes, in addition to the vast intrinsic value of his
works, had the immense merit of doing more than any
previous writer to divorce philosophy from erudition, and
to make it an appeal to the reasoning power of ordinary
men........ Descartes more than any one else was the author
of what may be called the democratic character of
philosophy, and 'this is not the least of his merits.” (W. E.
R. Lecky, The Rise of Rationalism in Europe).
 173

BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 175

Descartes' method answers the question: How is
intelligence, as distinct from erudition, possible? He was
constantly trying to fight down his scholastic atavism.
“There is no question more important to solve than that of
knowing what human knowledge is and how far it extends.
The first thing to know is intellect, because on it depends
knowledge of all other things.”17 Imagination and memory
are the other two or three sources of knowledge. Descartes
often identified sense perceptions (sensual data) with
memory. But the knowledge acquired only from these
sources is obscure, fragmentary and incoherent; therefore,
they are likely to lead astray unless the data provided by
them were subjected to the judgment of intellect, which
alone is capable of discriminating between truth and error.
Cartesian intellect is evidently identical with rationality.
Descartes' extreme scepticism was very useful in liberating
human intelligence from the paralysing bondage of
tradition and authority. But the fallacious dictum: Cogito,
ergo sum made for subjective Idealism, which clouded
man's vision, opened up at the birth of the modern
philosophy, and prepared a psychological atmosphere
congenial for the religious revivalism of Berkeley, which
confused philosophy for a long time to come. The
confusion still persists, to be cleared so that the grand
vision of man's freedom and human creativeness may be
restored to dissipate the mist heavily hanging over the
present, and to penetrate the darkness of the future.
The motto—Cogito, ergo sum—at the same time could be
interpreted as a humanist dictum. Attaching the supreme
importance to human reason and human judgment, it
placed man at the centre of the world. Man's being was
made dependent on himself. The corollary was his power
to mould and control his becoming. Man became the
master
17
Discourse.
 174

174 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

of his destiny. Cartesian rationalism was developed by the
more illustrious of his immediate followers (Spinoza and
the French Encyclopedists) and later on by a whole
succession of philosophers.
Descartes' analytical geometry and the theory of vortices
established the mechanistic cosmology. It was a hypothesis
freed from the fallacy of action at a distance, which had
been solved in ancient atomism in a childishly arbitrary
manner. While the philosophical implications of the
hypotheses of Cartesian physics were very far-reaching, in
the field of scientific enquiry they were equally pregnant
with great possibilities. They anticipated, perhaps
Descartes himself not realising it, the basic concepts of
twentieth century physics, namely, multi-dimensional
space and all-pervasive substance. Descartes conceived
weight and velocity as dimensions of matter, like length,
breadth and depth. “By dimensions I understand not
precisely the mode and aspect according to which a subject
is considered to be measurable. Thus, it is not merely the
case that length, breadth and depth are dimensions, but
weight also is a dimension in terms of which the heaviness
of an object is estimated. So too velocity is a dimension of
motion, and there are infinite numbers of similar
instances.”18
Cartesian analytical geometry tended towards the concept
of non-Euclidean space, and clearly realised the relativity
of motion. Descartes rejected “the vulgar conception of
motion as the action by which anybody passes from one
place to another”, and defined motion as “the transference
of one part of matter or one body from the vicinity of those
bodies that are in immediate contact with it, and which we
regard as in repose, into the vicinity of others.”19
This definition of motion anticipates in an embryonic form
Einstein's Physical Principle of Relativity. Descartes
18
Principles of Philosophy. .
19
Ibid.
 175

BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 175

went even further and rejected the notion that fixed location
is a categorical imperative of physics. Only in relation to a
system of arbitrarily chosen co-ordinates can any point be
called fixed. Together with motion, place was also a
relative concept. Read time and space instead of motion
and place, to realise how far Descartes' geometrical and
physical ideas approximated those of our time. He
declared: “I deny the movement of the earth more carefully
than Copernicus and more truthfully than Ticho.”20 If he
really disagreed with the pioneers of modern physics and
astronomy, that was because he agreed with Einstein, in
anticipation. Perhaps the enigmatic statement was dictated
by caution—to escape the long arm of militant sacerdotal
authority. But it contained a very large grain of truth, which
was not discovered until the beginning of the twentieth
century: that no body is ever at rest, except in relation to
other moving bodies. In relation to the sun, the earth is
moving; but with reference to a system of coordinates in
the space surrounding it, the earth can be regarded as
stationary.
Descartes' “first matter” is all-pervasive, like the later
concept of ether. This bold hypothesis enabled him to do
away with metaphysical devices for making things
happen, such as Galileo's “force” or “attraction”, and
Kepler's “active power”. And the hypothesis was borne
out by the empirical concept of the relativity of motion.
For the insoluble fallacy of action at a distance, Descartes
rejects atomism, and conceives space as absolutely full.
The traditional concept of space as an ultimate category
quietly disappears, and physical space, the space of
analytical geometry, becomes coincident with the all-
pervasive “first matter”, as a measurable function of the
latter. Descartes rejects the notion of void space with the
argument that the essence of substance being extension,
wherever there is exten-
20
Principles.
 176

176 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

sion, there is substance. The problem of action at a distance
is solved by one stroke of ingenuity and bold thinking.
The substance which fills the space is composed of angular
particles. The mass of matter is in motion. The angular
particles are ground into spherical shapes. The particles
rubbed off in the process constitute a more subtle kind of
matter. The first kind goes into the constitution of
luminous bodies like the sun and stars. There is still a third
kind of coarser matter, less fitted for motion; it constitutes
the opaque bodies—earths and planets. The second
category of matter is the transparent substance of the sky.
The motion of matter takes the form of revolving circular
currents. Thus originate the famous vortices of Descartes.
The coarser matter collects at the centre of a vortex, while
the finer kinds surround it. The emission of light is their
centrifugal motion; and the planets are carried round the
suns by the motion of the vortices.
That is Descartes' theory of vortices which, in his
mechanistic cosmology, supplants atomism. Full of naive
and ad hoc suppositions, the theory nevertheless contains
significant pointers of far-reaching implications. For
instance, the formation of vortices, and their marking the
stage at which the amorphous mass of the primordial stuff
is differentiated, bears a striking resemblance to the “wave-
packets” of the New Quantum Theory—electrons
appearing out of the background of the field of vibratory
motion, as groups of concentric waves. Then the all-
pervasive substance being self-moving, indeed it being
virtually identical with motion, the necessity of postulating
an impulse coming from outside, or a prime mover, is
eliminated. The conception of an all-pervading substance is
free from the obvious fallacies of atomism, one of them
being incompatibility with the idea of infinity, and any
compromise of that idea makes room for the unknown and
unknowable; consequently, mysticism creeps back into
cosmology; natural philosophy becomes
 177

BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 177

mystic and metaphysical, if not out and out religious. A
self-moving, all-pervasive substance, on the contrary, can
be infinitely extended, because it does not require any
beyond or outside as the source of the original impulse or
the seat of the prime mover.
Therefore, Descartes' mentioning God as the final cause of
all movement is entirely gratuitous. While Newton's deus
ex machina was superfluous, Descartes' God was
inadmissible by the logic of his physical theory. He
“expressly explained the movement of the particles as well
as those of bodies out of mere conduction, according to the
law of mechanical impact. He named, indeed, the universal
cause of all movements, God; but all bodies, according to
him, are subject to a particular motion, and every natural
phenomenon consists without distinction of the organic or
inorganic, merely of the conduction of motion of one body
to another; and then all mystical explanations of nature
were set aside at once.”21
Though fully convinced that his cosmological hypothesis
would be pragmatically confirmed, distrust for empiricism
nevertheless induced Descartes to attach greater
importance to the rational solution of metaphysical
problems. There again, his scholastic atavism made itself
felt. Eager to combat scholasticism successfully, he
presumably believed that the most effective method would
be to meet the foe on his ground and fight him with his
weapons, pay him in his own coin, so to say. But it was
not altogether a practical consideration which influenced
Descartes' thinking. Primarily a rationalist, he believed
that the foundation of his new philosophy must be a sound
metaphysics. His attempt revealed the fallacy of
metaphysical rationalism. He did start with the intention
of founding a materialist metaphysics. Even after laying
special emphasis on the priority of mind, he merged it into
the body.22 The mind “has
21
A Lange, History of Materialism.
22
“It was of the utmost importance for the whole
subsequent develop-
12
 178

178 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

no relation to extension nor dimension; it does not occupy
any space; yet it is really joined to the whole body, and we
cannot say that it exists in any one of its parts to the
exclusion of others. It radiates forth through all the
remainder of the body by means of animal spirits, nerves
and even the blood.”23 As against such a clear tendency
towards a materialist metaphysics, Descartes' final appeal
to God was out of tune with the spirit of the time which he
embodied so largely. It was generally regarded as a
concession to prejudice. This weak aspect of the Cartesian
system was developed, by his scholastically minded
disciples, notably Malebranche, as the starting point of
modern Idealism.
The fact that he withheld the publication of the work setting
forth his scientific views creates the impression that
Descartes did desire to avoid martyrdom, and that desire
induced him to introduce superfluities and irrelevancies in
his metaphysics, which destroyed the coherence and
harmony of his entire system. Having started as a scientist,
he completed the work of his predecessors, and logically
established a mechanistic cosmology, which was the sine
qua -non for dealing the coup de grace to decrepit
theology. His first important book, the World, contained his
scientific views. But he withheld its publication when the
news of Galileo's tragic fate reached him. This important
fact is recorded in his letter to Mersenne, who was to have
arranged for the publication of the book in Paris. Portions
of that first work were posthumously published. But its full
implications and significance were brought out by De la
Mettrie in his notorious book, Man—A Machine. A
Cartesian of the materialist school, De La Mettrie freely
acknowledged his indebtedness to the master, and made the
cynical remark “that the wily
ment of science and philosophy that the place thus
reluctantly admitted to mind was pitifully meagre.” (E. A.
Burtt, The Metaphysical foundations of Modern Science).
23
Principles.
 179

BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 179

philosopher, purely for the sake of the parsons, has patched
on to his theory a soul which is in reality superfluous.”
One may not share De la Mettrie's cynicism; but the fact is
that even the Principles of Philosophy, published after
Descartes had won the reputation of a rationalist
metaphysi-.cian, was prefaced with a cautious declaration.
The world was created by God in all its perfections. “But
yet, as it is test, if we wish to understand the nature of
plants or of men, to consider how they may by degrees
proceed from seeds, rather than how they were created by
God in the beginning of the world, so, if we can excogitate
some extremely simple and comprehensible principles, out
of which, as if they were seeds, we can prove that stars and
the earth and all this visible scene could have originated,
although we know fully well that they never did originate
in such a way, we shall in that way expound their nature far
better than if we merely described them as they exist at
present.” The caution with which the enigmatic declaration
begins is thrown to the winds before it is concluded. Firstly,
science is not concerned with the vain and sterile search for
a transcendental teleological final cause; secondly, at the
same time, it is not enough for science only to describe
phenomena; it must trace their cause in nature; and thirdly,
science must have a metaphysical foundation so as to be
universal and to support a philosophy conceived as the
universal science.
Descartes' cautious statement in the preface of the
Principles was further counter-acted by a categorical
declaration in the text of the book itself: “It is impossible
for us to know God's purpose.” And on another occasion
he remarked: “Give me matter and motion, and I will
construct the Universe.” In his cosmology, matter and
motion are given. What God could do with them, can be
done also by a man.
What is the use of having such a God, no more powerful
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180 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

than the mortal man? When the utterly unnecessary
introduction of God, whatever might have been his reason
to do so, is set aside, Descartes' metaphysics turns out to be
a discovery of the rational foundation of the objective
physical Universe.
Plato was the first to attempt such a metaphysics. la the
meantime, the concept of reason was taken over by
scholastic theology, and the rationalist metaphysics became
rationalisation of theology. Reason had to be rehabilitated,
humanised, so to say, before a rationalist metaphysics could
be constructed without prejudicing the objective reality of
the physical world. In the time of Descartes, that could not
as yet be done empirically; therefore, he did it theoretically,
with the aid of mathematics. During the following
centuries, science made much progress in the direction of
de-mystifying the concept of reason, and placing it in the
context of the scheme of the physical Universe. It was
discovered empirically that human reason is a continuation
of reason in nature; that it represents the operation of the
Natural Law on the highest level of the biological world \
that the origin of human rationality can be traced to the
rational foundation of the objective physical world. This
has now become such a generally admitted article of
scientific faith that a front rank philosophically sceptic
physicist of our time is compelled to concede that “light
may perhaps be thrown upon this darkness (the
epistemological confusion created by a tendencious
philosophical interpretation of the twentieth century
physical theories) when we consider that not only is our
reason a part of nature, but that nature must also in some
way be concerned with reason.”24
While heralding a new era of the spiritual development of
man, Descartes at the same time lived in a period of
transition. Therefore, his philosophy jis a whole contained
two distinct tendencies which often got mixed up. Yet, the
24
J. Winternitz, The Theory of Relativity and Epistemology.
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 181

.-subsequent development of the two tendencies can be
roughly traced in the history of philosophy of the
eighteenth ,and nineteenth centuries. The naturalist
humanist scientific tendency again, for a time, bifurcated in
two directions: (1) The French Enlightenment, and (2)
German romanticism of Herder, Goethe, Schiller etc.,
through Spinoza. Rousseau's romanticism, which
subsequently inspired the French Revolution, also resulted
from the Cartesian humanist rationalism. The metaphysical
tendency of Descartes' philosophy, his dualism, having
passed through various stages of a not consistent uniform
development, culminated in the monistic Idealism of Hegel.
Thus, it is no exaggeration to say that Descartes' ideas,
directly or indirectly, influenced all the currents of modern
philosophical thought until the “baffling problem of
psycho-physical parallelism was solved” by the logical
unfolding of his original ideas.
“After all, the metaphysical theology of Descartes, however
essential in his own eyes, serves chiefly as the ground for
constructing his theory of man and of the Universe. His
fundamental hypothesis relegates to God all forces in their
ultimate origin. Hence the world is left open for the free
play of mechanics and geometry. He starts with the clear
and distinct idea of extension, figured and moved, and
thence by mathematical laws he gives a hypothetical
explanation of all things. Such explanation of physical
phenomena is the main problem of Descartes, and it goes
on encroaching upon the territories once supposed proper to
the mind. Descartes began with the certainty that we are
thinking beings; that region remains untouched; but up to
its very borders, the mechanical explanation of nature
reigns unchecked.”25
Descartes' differentiation between men and animals was
indeed arbitrary. Not only all animals other than man are
automata; as a biological organism, man also is a machine
25
Encyclopedia Britannica, 13th Edition.
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182 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

as De la Mettrie deduced from Descartes' view that there is
no distinction between organic and inorganic nature. “It
was due to Descartes that all the functions as well of
intellectual as of physical life were finally regarded as
products of mechanical changes.”20 Yet, he stuck to the
idea o£ soul. At the same time, he hailed Harvey's
discovery of the circulation of the blood even when it was
generally deprecated. Harvey's discovery exploded the
notion of the “vital spirits”, which had dominated
psychology ever since the days of Aristotle and Galen.
Having accepted Harvey's revolutionary theory, Descartes
could still retain the idea of soul only as a make-believe.
Researches in animal psychology during Descartes' life
time compelled him to realise that animals are machines,
yet they think.27 Man's supposed superiority disappeared.
Montaigne, who was dominating, the intellectual life of the
time, clinched the issue by declaring in his
characteristically paradoxical style, that animals displayed
as much, and often more, reason than man. Even the
qualified Cartesian concept of a “rational soul”, therefore,
became untenable. Animals can not only think, but are
rational also. If they are biological machines, what is there
in man to claim for him a higher status?
Descartes wanted to free human spirit from the sacrosanct
bondage of traditional notions, and place man at the centre
of the Universe. With that purpose, he endowed man with
souls, which guaranteed his exalted position by anchoring
it to the rational foundation of the objective Universe.
When it was discovered that human reason was empirically
connected with the rational scheme of nature, the
imaginary anchorage was no longer necessary. Man
occupies the centre
26
Lange, History of Materialism.
27
“The sharp line Descartes tried to draw between the
body and soul explains his doctrine of animals. Thought,
he contended, is the essence of soul, and all that is not
thought (as life and sensibility) is of the body. In denying
that brutes had souls, he denied them the power of
thought.” (Lecky, The Rise of Rationalism).
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 183

of the world as the highest product of the rational process
of becoming.
****
Another current of thought contributing to the rise of
modern philosophy originated with Francis Bacon, an elder
contemporary of Descartes. Both took up a critical attitude
to scholastic philosophy; an all-round scepticism was their
common point of departure. But there the similarity ends.
In expounding their ideas, they adopted entirely different
methods, which ultimately produced the self-same result—
a philosophy for the modern man. Descartes' mathematical
rationalism relied entirely on deducing knowledge from
self-consciousness, which alone stood the test of his
scepticism. Bacon, on the contrary, was the prophet of
empiricism, which contributed perhaps more to the
development of modern philosophy than abstract
rationalism. In any case, the inductive method became the
instrument of natural science, the great achievements of
which bore out Bacon's contention that truth will be
discovered only with the help of external experience.
“Through all these ages, the smallest part of human
industry has been spent upon natural philosophy, though
this ought to be esteemed as the great mother of the
sciences. Let none expect any great promotion of the
sciences unless natural philosophy be drawn out to
particular sciences; and again, unless particular sciences
brought back to natural philosophy.”28
It is clear that Bacon's empiricism did not preclude a
metaphysics. But he insisted upon metaphysics being a
generalisation of the positive knowledge of nature
acquired empirically. He was against pure speculation.
Referring to the vagueness of earlier Naturalism, he
refused to accept the view that it was due to anything in
nature, and pointed out that “the steadiness and regularity
of natural phenomena are remarkable; and therefore are
objects of certain and
28
Meditations.
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184 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

precise knowledge.” He therefore came to the conclusion
that the vagueness of knowledge, or mystic Naturalism,
was due to “the perverseness and inadequacy of speculative
thought. Men have sought to make a world from their own
conception, and to draw from their own minds all the
materials they employed; but if, instead of doing so, they
had consulted experience and observation, they would have
had facts and not opinion, to reason about, and might have
ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which
govern the material world.”
Descartes brought physiology under the jurisdiction of the
laws of physics; but he stopped there, on the brink of an
imaginary gulf beyond which he placed the mind and soul
of man. On this point, his revolt against scholastic
philosophy amounted to throwing out the baby with the
bath water. Thomas Aquinas had taken over the essentially
correct Aristotelian doctrine that life and mind are
manifestations of an identical thing. In the Thomist
theology, life became “the breath of God”, and
consequently, mind also was regarded as an immaterial
spiritual category—the seat of Reason. The naturalist
philosophers of the Renaissance wanted to liberate life
from the tyranny of the supernatural. Theirs however was
an one-sided revolt, which resulted in the dualism of
Descartes. Bacon's was a total revolt. He declared: “I
propose to establish progressive stages of certainty. The
evidence of sense, helped and guarded by a certain process
of correction, I retain, but the mental operation which
follows the acts of sense, I, for the most part, reject, and,
instead of it, I open and lay out anew a certain path for the
mind to proceed in, starting directly from the simple
serisuous perceptions.”29
There is a degree of extravagance of language. Actually,
Bacon did not propose total rejection of mental operations.
What he did, was to deny that there was a gulf between
29
Meditations.
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 185

the senses and the mind. He rescued the Aristotelian
doctrine of the identity of life and mind, which had been
perverted in the Thomist theology, with the qualification
that the former was the foundation of mind. The relation
between psychology and physiology thus discovered
empirically, the psyche ceases to be a transcendental
mystic entity. The mind, marooned beyond the imaginary
gulf which separates it from the world of life, can never be
informed; “pure reason” can never yield positive
knowledge. To be informed, mind must come out of the
ivory tower to receive the sense perceptions as the raw
material of knowledge. Bacon's empiricism and materialist
metaphysics indicated the way out of the vicious circle of
Cartesian dualism. Rationalism informed by empiricism,
and empiricism corrected by
informed rationalism, are the components of a true
philosophy.
# ***
Thomas Hobbes, a disciple of Bacon and a critic of
Descartes, made a substantial contribution to the
development of modern philosophy by co-ordinating their
divergent currents of thought. An uncompromising
empiricist, he defined philosophy so as to identify it with
natural science. While touring Europe, early in the
seventeenth century, Hobbes made the important discovery
that the scholastic philosophy which he had learned in
Oxford was discredited in intellectual circles, replaced by
scientific and critical thought. Vehemently criticising
Descartes' metaphysics, which he characterised as a relapse
into scholastic obscurantism, Hobbes, however, did not
follow Bacon to the extent of rejecting “mental operations
which follow the acts of sense.” In method, he rather sided
with Descartes, who, as a scientist, admitted that the real
demonstrative power of any proposition lies in
experience.30 In other words, Hobbes
30
In his earlier works, Descartes himself attached greater
importance to his physical theories than to his metaphysical
speculations, claiming objective validity for the former, but
not for the latter.
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186 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

adopted and developed the Cartesian method of enquiry as
far as it was scientific. Science is not all empiricism;
mental operations deprecated by Bacon play a decisive role
in the process of acquiring knowledge of objective realities.
The failure to grasp this inter-relation of the subject and
object gave birth in the past to the dualist fallacy, and has
been creating imaginary epistemological problems even in
our time. Yet, that grasp is the essence of scientific method;
and Descartes was the founder of the scientific method,
although he himself might not have fully realised the
implication of his attempt at a harmony of rationalism and
empiricism. Hobbes detected that intrinsic merit of the
Cartesian method and improved upon it. He demanded that
philosophy must be based upon natural reason. Thus, he
detached rationalism from its traditional metaphysical
setting, and placed it in the context of the physical nature.
Though conventionally not counted among great
philosophers of the rank of Descartes and Spinoza, Hobbes
was the only thinker of his time to have developed in his
mind a system of a universal philosophy embracing the
phenomena of Body (physical nature), Man and State.31
Apparently, metaphysics was excluded from the scheme;
in reality, that was not so. Only, Hobbes as an empiricist
felt very strongly against the method of starting with
metaphysics; but metaphysical questions relevant to
natural philosophy were treated in his system empirically.
Scientific enquiry into the worlds of physics and
psychology opened up an empirical approach to the
problems of reason, consciousness and morality,
generally conceived as metaphysical. Hobbes was the har-
————————————————
31
Even more than external nature, Hobbes was interested
in the phenomena of social life, presenting themselves so
impressively in an age of political revolution; he
attempted a task which no other adherent of the new
mechanistic philosophy conceived—nothing less than
such a universal construction of human knowledge as
would bring society and man (at once the matter and
maker of society) within the same principles of scientific
explanation as were found applicable to the world of
nature. (See Encyclopedia Britannica, 13th Edition).
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 187

binger of modern psychology, which was developed by the
Sensationalist Locke and his followers.32 When it is
remembered that, through Condillac, Locke greatly
influenced the intellectual life of France in the eighteenth
century, Hobbes' place in the history of philosophy is
properly appreciated.
Although he had conceived the scheme of his ail-
embracing philosophy independently, Hobbes came into
prominence first as a critic of Descartes' quasi scholastic
metaphysics and absolute dualism. He rejected the doctrine
of “innate ideas” with the argument which turned the table
on Descartes: Any activity or change is motion; thinking is
a form of activity; therefore, it is a mode of motion. Mind
simply is the sum total of one's thinking activities; ergo, it
is a system of motion in an animal organism. He drove the
thrust home by asserting that to conceive mind as made of
a substance fundamentally different from the corporeal
substance was a relic of scholastic occultism. He carried
the crusade against dualism further and attacked
metaphysical rationalism by including reason in the mental
process.
This new theory of human mind is set forth in the Treatise
on Human Nature, wherein human rationality is traced to
reason in nature. Hobbes thus humanised the concept of
Natural Law which, having replaced the Providence of
Christian teleology, threatened to reduce man to an
automaton. While combatting the quasi scholastic
metaphysics of Descartes, Hobbes' Treatise on Human
Nature laid down the foundation of the mathematical
metaphysics of Newton, known as the Natural Philosophy
which guided the intel-
32
“He was not able to develop a psychology in terms of
mathematical atoms, but he strayed no farther from this
method than was necessary; he described the mind as a
compound of the elementary parts, produced in the vital
organs by the clash of inrushing and outpushing motions,
and combined according to simple laws of association.
Purpose and reason are admitted, but they appear not as
ultimate principles of explanation, which had been their
significance for the scholastic psychologists; they represent
merely a certain type of phantasm or group of phantasms
within the total compound. This treatment set the fashion
for almost the whole modern development of psychology.
Locke, the next great psychologist, followed
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188 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Jectual life of Europe during the two hundred years of great
scientific achievements and material progress. In the realm
of natural science, Hobbes' empiricism was more in tune
with the general intellectual atmosphere of the time; he did
not say actually anything more than Galileo. But his
psychology provoked a fierce storm of opposition, which
was further inflamed by his apparently cynical social
doctrines. Truth however tells; and in the seventeenth
century, the European intellect was passionately in search
of truth. Therefore, before long, the very opposition to his
empirical analysis of mind and reason led to a serious
enquiry into the question of the natural springs and rational
ground of human action. Sensationalist psychology ushered
in a period of ethical speculation, which had been an
abeyance since the days of Socrates and the Stoics. At the
same time, the new philosophy as expounded by Bacon,
Hobbes and the materialist wing of the Cartesian school
tended to disown the spirit of the Renaissance. Had man
revolted against God to be a slave of nature? Rousseau's
romanticism replied passionately in the negative.
****
Though only quasi materialist, sensationalism was also a
reaction to metaphysical rationalism. Reason could not
claim to be the source of the knowledge of absolute truth
without restoring God, who was to be deposed by
rationalism. That was proved by Descartes' relapse into
theology. Therefore, its pretensions should be curbed.
Sensationalism undertook the task. Locke argued: Know
the limits of your -understanding; it is madness to attempt
to go beyond those limits; on the other hand, it is folly to let
in darkness and mystery within those limits, to be
incessantly wondering and always assuming that matters
can be so plain as they
Hobbes' method still more explicitly and in greater detail,
with the result that after him only an occasional idealist
ventured to write a psychology in terms of different main
assumptions.” (Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of
Modem Science).
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 189

appear, and that something lying deeper courts our
attention.33 That is clear enough. The concepts ,of pure
reason or metaphysical categories are rejected as mere
assumptions. Locke denied the priority of idea, although he
stopped short of formally endorsing the out-and-out
Materialism of Hobbes. The psychological aspect of
Descartes' philosophy elaborated by Hobbes and Locke
returned to France to be worked up into a philosophy which
inspired the great French Revolution. It was a philosophy
which merged empiricism in a materialist metaphysics,
reconciled the latter with rationalism detached from
theology, and proclaimed the sovereignty of man gifted by
nature with unlimited power. The revolt of man against
God had not been in vain. The successful rebel against
super-naturalism was bound to realise that he could
conquer nature also. Rationalism gave birth to
romanticism—the philosophy of a time when great
scientific achievements changed the face of the earth, and
fired man with hitherto inconceivable revolutionary ideas
and ideals.
The purely rationalist (speculative) aspect of Descartes’
philosophy developed in two directions: Neo-scholasticism
of Malebranche, and the pantheistic ethical universalism of
Spinoza. Through the latter channel, Cartesian rationalism
influenced both the main branches of European philosophy-
idealist as well as materialist, and also inspired the belated
German Renaissance—the romanticism of Herder, Goethe,
Schiller and others.34
The most fantastic part of Descartes' metaphysics is the
doctrine of human soul—how it comes in contact with the
“vital spirits”, and how the interaction between soul and
33
Human Understanding.
34
Modern philosophy founded by Bacon, Descartes and
Locke, thus, was not the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie.
The absurdity of this schematic historicism becomes further
evident when it is remembered that through Spinoza
Cartesian Idealism flowed into Hegel's philosophy of
Prussianism and also fed Marxist Materialism. It is no
wonder that Mars has been characterised as the “Red
Prussian.”
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190 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

body takes place. Seated in the pineal gland, the soul can
alter the direction of the motion of the vital spirits, and
through them indirectly guide the movements of the body
without itself being affected by them. The speculative
structure of Cartesian psychology collapsed when
physicists discovered that the amount of motion in any
given direction was also constant, and therefore could not
be changed. Cartesian dualism became obsolete; the soul
could not possibly influence corporeal behaviour. It was
thus a a utterly unnecessary assumption in psychology.
Both Male-branche and Spinoza discarded the Cartesian
fantasy, the former maintaining dualism on theological
grounds of the scholastic tradition, the latter abandoning
dualism to develop v a monistic philosophy, which could be
interpreted materialistically as well as pantheistically.
Like Descartes, Spinoza also proposed to start from clearly
defined and accurately known principles. His method was
equally of mathematical reasoning; his whole system was
cast in a geometrical form—a perfectly logical pattern, an
ideal creation of pure reason. But Spinoza's first principles
were not a priori, given in consciousness. They resulted
from the reason in nature, and could be conceived by
human intelligence because it was a manifestation of the
universal rationality. The understanding of any
phenomenon presupposes understanding of its cause;
nothing appears except of necessity. The clear ideas of
Spinoza are not sui generis; they are clear and true,
because they represent objective reality. Being in harmony
with reason in nature, human reason is capable of grasping
the fundamental truths of existence. S'pinoza was a
rationalist in the sense that his method was deductive. But
in his system, reason ceases to be a metaphysical category,
in the transcendental sense; it becomes an ontological
entity.
The cardinal principles of Spinoza's philosophy are: (1)
Unity of all that exists; (2) Regularity of all happiness;
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 191

and (3) Identity of nature and spirit. The gordian knot of
dualism is cut by postulating a synthesis which Spinoza
called God. But in Spinoza's philosophy, God is devoid of
all the properties of the traditional God. The ambiguity of
the idea of God in Spinoza's philosophy was demonstrated
by some condemning him as an atheist and others seeing in
him the personification of the purest religion. By the
former he was expelled from the Synagogue, whereas,
speaking for the German romanticists, Novalis admired
him as “a god-intoxicated man”. It has been remarked that
the Jewish rabbis understood Spinoza's philosophy much
better than his romantic admirers. Spinoza's God is
identical with the rational Universe,35 and as such the ideal
of human reason. He regarded the scriptures of religion as
creations of primitive human reason, to be appreciated by
civilised man as poetry and not as revealed wisdom. He
backed up his interpretation of the scriptures by pointing
out the fact that the traditional view was confronted with
the irreconcilable conflict with science. His contention was
that all the centuries long attempt to establish harmony
between rational knowledge and revealed wisdom was
futile. Thus, the significance of Spinoza's philosophy was
that it proclaimed the independence of human reason.
The synthesis is the one primal principle, extension and
thought being its two eternal and infinite attributes; and
together they constitute its essence. Spinoza goes a step
further, because the dualist fallacy is not resolved by the
synthesis; the final state of simplicity is not yet reached; the
synthesis is a composite entity. Extension is the basic
existence, out of which arise the duplicate manifestations—
of matter and mind. Creation is not calling into existence
that which had no being out of that which also has no
being. Nor is it an inexplicable conjunction of two things
existing
33
Einstein has also been called a religious mystic because
of his poetic attitude to nature, very much similar to
Spinoza's.
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192 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

independent of each other, namely, mind and matter. These
arguments flow from the axiom: “No two things can
influence and affect each other which have not some
property in common.” If creation resulted from the spirit
acting upon matter, there must be something common in
them; they must be essentially the same. Thus, Spinoza
reaches the unitary concept of substance.
Creation is the outflowing of primal energy; it is activity
necessary to a self-caused and self-causing existence.
Everything is a form of Substance. The corollary to this
cosmological conception is the abolition of the Cartesian
psycho-physical parallelism in man. Spinoza maintains that
body and soul (matter and spirit) are both real. They are
not independent entities, but correlative attributes, which
constitute the Substance. God and Nature, mind and
matter, soul and body, can all be traced to a common
denominator— a simple, primal Substance. That supreme
principle cannot be the Absolute Spirit; because, then,
there could be no creation. Therefore, it could only be a
substance having extension, the property of motion being
inherent in it. It is a material substance capable of
developing mind.
Not only were cosmology and metaphysics freed from, the
problem of dualism, which logically merged philosophy
into a mystic theology, if not a fundamentalist religion.
With the disappearance of the psycho-physical parallelism
in man, his relation with nature was clearly traced. Man's
body and mind (soul) are respectively con-substantial with
the infinite attributes of Nature—extension and motion.
Man as a whole, his body and mind, is a part of nature, the
essence of which is the simple primal unitary Substance.
Nothing super-natural intervenes in the rise of man out of
the background of physical nature, just as cosmic creations
need no divine creativeness. A part of nature, man's being
and becoming are governed by the Natural Law. But just as
the operation of the law in external nature can be
mathematically
 193

BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 193

traced, the physiology and psychology of man, being
subject also to the same law, are equally amenable to a
similar treatment. Man's inner life is thus divested of all
mysteries. A clear view of man's relation with nature
helped the understanding of man, and the understanding
further clarified the relation between man and nature.
Spinoza's philosophy is rigorously determinist, as any non-
metaphysical naturalism should be. Having explored the
ideological view of nature, it freed man from the whims of
an inscrutable Providence. But man is a part of nature, and
there is no purpose in or will behind the scheme of nature.
Does not the corollary rob man also of purposefulness and
will? As a matter of fact, Spinoza accepted Hobbes' view of
social evolution in which man is reduced to an automaton.
Man is deprived of an independent individuality. Human
being is a mere mode of the Infinite Existence—a bubble in
the eternally flowing stream. The disappearance of a
responsible personality renders all set codes of morality
pointless. All independence is dissolved by the acid of a
stern causality36. There is none even for God, who is
without intelligence and will. So, there can be no cosmic
purpose or Divine Will. The concept of a free will in man is
founded on the assumption of a universal will. Spinoza thus
rejects the Christian idea of free will—the freedom to
commit sin, or the will which is believed to be an echo of
the Divine Will of teleology. That was not a charter of
freedom but a voluntary bondage. Human will is desire,
and every act of desire has a cause; therefore, no human act
is the result of free will in the sense of not having a cause.
If an absolute, undetermined, will is abstracted from the
various particular acts of desire, then the concept of free
will is entirely imaginary,
36
Hejrel seized upon this half-truth, and on that basis set
up the preposterous doctrine that freedom is the realisation
of necessity. Marx applied the Hegelian interpretation of a
metaphysical half-truth of Spinoza to the process of social
evolution, and expounded his Historical Determinism,
according to which moral cynicism is a revolutionary
virtue.
13
 194

194 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

removed from all reality; just as a stone falling through the
air may imagine, if it could, that it is doing so out of free
will.
Spinoza's determinism thus is far from being fatalistic. The
objections to teleological predestination are not valid
against rational and scientific determinism. The former
fixes the end of existence independently of nature. Rational
determinism is naturalistic; the ends of man's life are
consonant with his nature, and therefore determined by it.
Man's intelligence, desire, will, are in his nature. Natural
determinism, as distinct from teleological predetermination,
therefore, includes the operation of will as well as the other
faculties of man. Spinoza repeatedly points out that, sines
the ends of human existence are the ends of its nature, man
is free. In that sense, determinism is self-determination.
Man is in bondage to the extent that his life is determined
by external causes; he is free to the extent that his life is
self-determined.
Spinoza's Ethics, which is the most significant part of his
philosophy, is based upon the harmony of the concepts of
necessity and freedom. “All things whereof a man is the
efficient cause are necessarily good; no evil can befall a
man except through external causes.” Morality is
volitional; in ethics, freedom of will is unrestricted, and it
is there that freedom really counts. At the same time,
Spinoza traces the roots of morality to the determined
processes of the operation of biological faculties. The
instinct of self-preservation governs all human behaviour.
“No virtue can be conceived as prior to this endeavour to
preserve our own being,” Spinoza thus laid the stable
foundation of a secular ethics by tracing the roots of
morality in the evolutionary process. But his doctrine was
subjected to an utilitarian interpretation, which discredited
the very idea of a secular morality. Ethical relativity of the
Utilitarians became moral nihilism in the materialist
philosophy of Marx. Meanwhile, the
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BIRTH OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 195

humanist ethics of Spinoza inspired the romantic revolt
(German Renaissance) against the rationalised Materialism
of modern philosophy.
All the great spiritual leaders of Germany in the eighteenth
century—Herder, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller—were
followers of Spinoza. Had Spinoza's philosophy really
reduced man to an automaton, it could not be so
enthusiastically welcomed by those great individualists.
They felt that naturalist romanticism was threatening the
sovereignty of man proclaimed by the Renaissance.
Nevertheless, great humanists themselves, they could not
disown the revolutionary achievements of man in the field
of natural science. Goethe himself had contributed much to
those achievements. Therefore, philosophically, they were
all more or less inclined towards Materialism. Yet, they
wanted a “living religion” to satisfy man's emotions.
Spinoza's “Synthesis” provided them with a God who did
not interfere in human affairs. The pantheistic interpretation
of Spinoza's “Soulful Substance” was fully developed in
the poetry of Goethe and Schiller. The intellectual life of
Europe appeared to be involved in a new internal conflict—
between the French Enlightenment and the German
Renaissance. The former constructed a thorough-going
materialist philosophy on the basis of Cartesian cosmology,
and Spinoza's monism. It was set forth brilliantly in
Holbach's System of Nature, which represented the
eighteenth century high-water mark of modern philosophy.
But at the same time, it provoked Goethe, a classical man
of the Renaissance, to exclaim:
“If after all this book did us any harm, it was that we took
a hearty dislike for philosophy and particularly
metaphvsics; on the other hand, we threw ourselves into
living knowledge—experience, action and poetry.”
That was the spirit of romanticism, which grew not in
opposition to rationalism, but because of it. The bible of
rationalist naturalism did no harm; it only forced the
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196 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

German Renaissance to cast off its classicist tendency, and
assert with a poetic passion man's creativeness in all the
departments of life—science, society and culture. The
“living knowledge” advocated by Goethe destroyed
whatever was still left of religion in Germany; Spinoza's
philosophy survived the attack of the scientific theology of
Leibniz. The cardinal principle of the “living knowledge”
was rejection of the scholastic dogma resurrected by
Leibniz, that “matter cannot think”. Kant dealt the final
blow to theology and scholastic metaphysics. Goethe called
for a complete break with the habit of looking back for
inspiration by making Mephis to preach: “Everything has
worth because it disappears.”
The trail of scientific Humanism blazed by Spinoza with
the torch of modern philosophy lighted by Bacon, Hobbes
and Descartes, was not to be lost in his own pantheism, nor
in the quicksand of transcendental Idealism (Leibniz, Kant,
Fichte, Schelling). It broadened, to strike out in three
directions: (1) Classicist Romanticism of the German
Renaissance; (2) French Enlightenment; and (3) Dialectic
Materialism of Marx through Hegel and Feuerbach.
Modern philosophy is the ideology of no particular class; it
is a human creation and therefore a human heritage.
 197

CHAPTER VIII
THE NEW SCIENCE
THE hope of salvation by the Grace of God of Christianity
helped the Graeco-Roman world survive the breakdown of
the pagan civilisation. The new religion further reassured
that, pending ultimate redemption, man's soul, even during
its sojourn in this world, was constantly in the keeping of
the benevolent Father in Heaven. With the spread of
Christianity, the belief in man's relation with God became
the sheet-anchor of the cultural life of Europe. The
Christian faith largely outgrew its original pessimism, when
the end of the world predicted in the Bible did not come at
the appointed time. Europe came out of the dark ages with
an optimistic view of life derived from the faith in man's
living relation with God. The Kingdom of Heaven did not
come, according to the original faith, because it is in every
Christian who through prayer realises his relation with God
at every moment of his life. Imperceptibly, the conception
of God changed; the corollary was the mysticism of
scholastic theology as against the anthropomorphism of the
patristic age.
But the logic of human thought does not always obey the
dictates of faith, however much rationalised or mystified
may the latter be. Rationalisation of the scholastic theology
undermined the fundamentalist faith of the full-blooded
Christianity, and thus proved to be the solvent of super-
naturalism, the corner-stone of the entire structure of the
religious mode of thought. Absolved from the original sin
of natural ignorance, human reason outgrew the limitations
of its primitive manifestation (religion), and reasserted
itself in the rebirth of science and philosophy.
In consequence of the struggle of several hundred years,
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198 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

the intellectual life of Europe succeeded in casting off the
illusion of man's relation with God. Naturalism replaced
super-naturalism as the fundamental principle of
metaphysical speculation. Nature having taken the place of
Godr intellectual efforts to penetrate her secrets deposed
theology from the proud position of the supreme science
which it had occupied for a whole age. Metaphysical
thought reared on the basis of an expanding knowledge of
nature resulted in the elaboration of a natural philosophy
indicating a promising approach to the problem which
confronted European-intellect on the threshold of the
modern time, namely, the problem of man's being and
becoming in the context of the-physical world. And there
was an allied problem, that of discovering the principle
which regulates the relation of man-to man—the problem
of man's being and becoming in the' context of the social
world. How did the Natural Law operate so as to provide
sanction for secular authority? In the last analysis, they
were not two problems, but two aspects of the self-same
problem—of man's being and becoming free from the
illusion of his relation with God. Natural philosophy must
be supplemented by a social philosophy, both co-ordinated
and harmonised in a system of thought trying to understand
and explain existence as a whole.
Man's vision and imagination liberated from the tyranny of
theology and the prejudices of super-naturalism, there-was
an exuberance of intellectual efforts. The new philosophy
flourished in various systems built by individual thinkers
of genius—Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, to mention only
the most outstanding. Individualism asserted itself first in
the field of philosophical thought.
Geometrical precision and mathematical reasoning
guarded the new systems of universal philosophy against
the possibility of truth being obscured by superfluous
assumptions and irrelevant considerations. But they
committed the
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THE NEW SCIENCE 199

common error of ignoring factors which defied
measurement by the geometrical yardstick, nor could be
covered by mathematical equations. Those were human
factors constituting the warp and woof of society; and no
social philosophy was possible except on the basis of an
understanding of the mechanics and dynamics of human
relations—of psychology and anthropology.
Descartes tried to establish a relation between physics and
psychology. His was an effort to interpret physiological
processes in terms of analytical geometry. Eventually, upon
the attainment of more accurate knowledge about the vital
processes, that method, divested of its naivity, might be
fruitful as far as it went. But by its very nature, it could not
be applied to mind proper, to the opertion of thoughts and
emotions. The laws of physics stated in terms of analytical
geometry could not be applied to the metaphysics of
psychology. Psycho-physical parallelism resulted from that
failure. Until natural philosophy was freed from the fallacy
of Cartesian dualism, its validity for living nature, and
particularly for human relations, remained doubtful. Sheer
dogmatism was the only way out of the impasse.
Mathematics placed natural philosophy on a sound
foundation; but the exponents of naturalism failed to realise
that, as a science of numbers, a method of stating
propositions quantitatively, mathematics had obvious
limitations. Descartes' distinction between the primary and
secondary qualities 'was a bit of sophistry which glossed
over the truth that certain aspects of the obiective reality
could not be described in numerical terms. But for that
reason they were not secondary; they belonged as much to
the primal substance as the primary qualities. Subsequent
development of physics, however, did bring some of the
secondary qualities of matter within the scope of
mathematical treatment. But a residue remained to make
manifest the truth that mathematics is not omniscient.
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200 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

In the first place, mathematics itself had to keep pace with
the penetration of man's mind into the deeper secrets of
nature. Secondly, in the process of that growth,
mathematics reaches a point where it merges itself in logic;
then, the degree of accuracy and exactitude demanded by it
is no longer to be measured numerically, but by logical
consistency; symbols of mathematical logic do not
necessarily have any quantitative value. In the seventeenth
century, and for a considerable time to come, mathematics
had not yet reached that level of a method of abstract
reasoning. It was still a science of numbers, and as such
could not be the instrument for describing all the aspects of
existence. Consequently, the natural philosophy of that
time did not necessarily embrace the whole of nature. A
different approach had to be found to the problems of
human relations. A new science had still to be born; and the
genius of man ushering in a new phase of human
development proved equal to the task.
The Aristotelian concept of “natural justice” being ideally
valid under all circumstances as the guiding principle of a
harmonious social existence, provided the point of
departure of the enquiry into the anatomy and physiology
of social relations as well as their genesis. Bodin's Republic
was the first significant attempt; it was the most systematic
and complete treatise on politics composed after Aristotle.
The City of God was a milestone on the long dreary way,
because its author was a learned pagan before he became a
devout Christian. But it lost its force when the
fundamentalist religion with its faith in an anthropomorphic
God gave way to theology. Thomas Aquinas' religious
philo-sonhy was an all-embracing system, but in it the
problem of human relations was simply non-existent, they
being pre-detprmined by teleological rationalism.
Nevertheless, the ancient notion of natural justice was
retained in the tradition of the Roman Law, which shared
with the Cannon
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THE NEW SCIENCE 201

Law of the Church the governance of mediaeval society.
On the authority of that tradition, Renaissance jurists
revived the twin concept of “natural right”, which
constituted the foundation of the political thought at the
close of the Middle-Ages. The formative process
culminated In the crystallisation of a set of principles of
political government and civil jurisprudence derived from
the metaphysical concept of Natural Law.
In the transition period, thinking was necessarily confused
by convention, prejudice and fear of orthodoxy. The search
for a secular authority was obsessed with conventional
notions. Grotius was the first to set aside the scriptural
authority and go outside the jurisdiction of the Church in
search of a principle of civil rights and a legal basis of
society and government. Yet, the distinction between
religion, on the one hand, and law and public morality, on
the other, was not quite clear in his epoch-making work.
Nevertheless, he did enunciate propositions which implied
the distinction, to be more clearly grasped by other thinkers
who followed him. The law of nature is immutable; God
himself cannot alter it any more than he can alter a
mathematical axiom. The law is embedded in the nature of
man as a social being; therefore, it would be valid in the
government of the world according to natural justice, even
if there was no God or God did not look after the well-
being of his creation.
That was clear enough. But there still remained the
question: How did Natural Law operate through men so as
to bring them together in a social organisation and
thereafter to provide sanction for a secular authority. The
question was about the origin of society and State. The
autonomy of a secular authority conld not be established
conclusivelv, its sanction could not be humanised, unless it
was proved that society originated in human action. The
required formulation of sound principles for a harmonious
regulation of human relations and an equitable political
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202 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

administration evidently presupposed an
evolutionary view of society and a new method of
historical research.
Rousseau said: “If one could behold the human race
in its embryonic state, one could know something
significant about its adult form.” He had borrowed
the idea from Giambattista Vico, who was the first to
approach the problems of historical research from the
anthropological and philological point of view. The
suggestion that knowledge about the primitive state
of the human species would throw light on the
problems of civilised society implied an evolutionary
view of human history.
The study of history received a strong impetus from
the Renaissance. The relation between history and
philosophy was a lively topic of the humanist
educational theory. It was a generally held opinion
that, as against the precepts of philosophy, history
taught by examples and experience. Bacon's
Advancement of Learning clearly evidenced the shift of
emphasis from philosophy to history in the field of
education and culture. “Knowledge are as pyramids
whereof history is the base.” Bolingbroke's famous
formula, “History is philosophy teaching by
example”, was an echo of the humanist educational
theory. The next impetus to historical research came
from the Reformation, which contributed to the rise of
historiography. Luther “was enforced to awake all
antiquity, and to call former times to his succour to
make a party against the present time; so that the
ancient authors, both in divinity and humanity, which
had long time slept in libraries, began generally to be
read and revolved.”1 To fight the Reformers with
their own weapon, the Jesuit Fathers engaged
themselves in historical research with their
characteristic thoroughness and profundity. Vico was
born,
1 Bacon, Advancement of Learning.
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THE NEW SCIENCE 203

educated, and developed his New Science2 in the
kingdom of Naples, an active centre of the Counter-
Reformation.
****
In the seventeenth century, France and England stood
at the vanguard of the movement of European
intellect. In material progress and political grandeur
also, they were ahead of all other nations. Italy, the
cradle of the Renaissance, the birthplace of the
bourgeoisie, the land of Lionardo, Galileo,
Campanella, Bruno, had drifted into the backwaters
of history. Papacy had regained supremacy; the
Counter-Reformation was rampant. Yet, it was in that
atmosphere of triumphant reaction that the New
Science of humanity was born, to proclaim the most
stirring idea of all times— History is Humanity
Creating Itself. That is the basic idea of Vice's New
Science.3
Bossuet, who has been bracketed with Vico and
Herder as “the historian of humanity”, was an older
contemporary of the former. He also was steeped in
the tradition of Catholicism, and drew inspiration
from the anthropomorphism of St. Augustin as
against the religious philosophy of the rationalist
Thomas Aquinas. Yet, he was the author of one of the
very earliest works on the philosophical
interpretation of history. His was the first significant
attempt to interpret history as a process determined
by causes inherent in itself. He held that God
operated “through secondary causes. It is His will
that every great change should have its roots in the
ages that went before.”4 Bossuet's work records the
highly instructive fact that the determinist view of
history
2Principles of A New Science of the Nature of Nations, from which art
derived New Principles of the Natural Law of Peoples, by
Giambattista Vico, published at Naples in 1725.
3 The signal achievement of Vico was not only brilliant
imagination and the conception of history as man-made, the
expression of the human spirit shaping environment in a pattern
of development and decline, but to apprehend the role of the
masses and the unconscious wisdom of the race. (Ses Emery
Neff, The Poetry of History).
4 Discourse Sur L'Histoire Universale.
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204 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

logically resulted from the teleological conception,
just as the mechanistic view of the physical processes
of nature also flowed from the theological doctrine of
a law-governed Universe.
The separation of the philosophy of history from
religious tradition began with Montesquieu, who was
a younger contemporary of Vico. A clearly secular,
though metaphysical, conception of the Natural Law
was expounded in Esprit de Loi. But Montesquieu's
earlier book, Grandeur et Decadence des Remains, was
the first important treatise on the philosophy of
history.
These and numerous other minor contributions to
historical research and to the development of an
evolutionary view of history went in the making of
the New Science.
The most baffling problem of dogmatic historicism
(the Marxist materialist conception of history or
Historical Materialism) is to explain its own origin
and originator. The anthropological and philological
approach to the problems of historical research
enabled Vico not only to expound a determinist,
evolutionary view of history; but he was the first to
interpret epoch-making historical events in terms of
class struggle.5 Yet, the herald of the “revolutionary
ideology of the proletariat” was a sincerely religious
man, enjoying the patronage of high dignitaries of the
Roman Church and also of the rank reactionary
Spanish monarchy. Nor could any connection be
traced between the undoubtedly revolutionary New
Science and the rise of the bourgeoisie in revolt against
mediaevalism. It was the creation of a typically
mediaeval mind.
Like Bossuet, Vico also drew inspiration from the
learned
5 “The vindication of the rational nature of man as
man was an historical process, the same process by
which the rationality was achieved; and the main
spring of the process was the dialectical opposition of
classes.” (Intro-duction to the Autobiography of
Giambattista Vico, translated by M. H. Fisch and T. G.
Bergin).
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THE NEW SCIENCE 205

pagan who became the tallest personality of the
patristic age. He admits that a passage in the City of
God enable him to resolve the conflict between his
Catholic faith and his philosophy of law which was
evidently secular, if not heretical. His object was to
establish a “rational civil theology of divine
providence” in the place of the “natural theology”
founded upon a radically deficient philosophy
preached by a succession of thinkers from Epicures to
Hobbes, and reinforced by the revival of the physical
sciences. Having studied St. Augustin's famous book,
Vico saw that “a reinterpretation of the action of
Providence in history” would serve his purpose. The
reinterpretation was a veritable tour de force of the
fundamentalist religious mentality; it was a new
exegis of the doctrine of creation: the Biblical doctrine
was applicable, in the pre-historic time, only to the
Hebrews; the rest of the race, the gentile peoples,
were subject to the “general Providence” (as against
the special Grace reserved for the chosen people),
which operated through nature and Bossuet's
“secondary causes.” Thus, Vico arrived at his
“rational civil theology of divine Providence.” It is
rational and civil to the extent that a wide latitude of
freedom and choice is conceded to mankind,
including the Hebrews, after their emergence from
the Biblical antiquity. And the New Science, tracing the
origin of society in primitive human creativeness, is a
theology because the self-operating process of social
evolution is nonetheless “providential”; therefore,
individual efforts with freedom to choose serve a
collective purpose, and society as a whole moves
towards civilisation. The religious obsessions of a
mediaeval mentality led Vico to believe that his New
Science was based upon a new exegis, the inspiration
for which came from St. Augustin. In reality, it was
founded upon the pioneering efforts of precisely
those great thinkers whose supposed errors Vico
proposed to rectify, namely, Grotius, Hobbes and
other Natural Law theorists, like Selden and
Pufendorf. It was from
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206 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Grotius that Vico learned the very important lesson
that philosophy and philology could be combined
into a system of universal law; and the humanist
theory of knowledge, which constituted the
foundation of the New Science, had been outlined by
Hobbes. “Of arts, some are demonstrable, others
undemonstrable; and demonstrable are those the
construction of the subjects whereof is in the power of
the artist himself who, in his demonstration, does no
more but deduce the consequence of his own
operation. The reason whereof is this, that the science
of every subject is derived from a prerecognition of
the causes, generation and construction of the same;
and consequently, where the causes are known, there
is place for demonstration. Geometry is
demonstrable, for the lines and figures, from which
we reason, are drawn and described by ourselves;
and civil philosophy is demonstrable, because we
make the commonwealth.”6
The fundamental principle of Vico's New Science—
history is humanity creating itself—was thus
conceived in Hobbes' civil philosophy, which he
deduced from the mechanistic natural philosophy of
the seventeenth century. Vico's contribution was to
demonstrate its operation in history from the very
beginning of human society. Bacon had held up
ancient Greece and Rome as “exemplar States”,
presumably founded by recondite philosophers and
wise legislators—the archetypal men. Vico showed
that “the history of the exemplar States extant in good
perfection” was woven by poets with tissues of
legends, fables and myths. He further proved that the
anthropological and philological approach to the
problems of comparative mythology and the
“metaphysic of human mind” enabled one to
reconstruct the actual history not only of the
poetically described (in the epics) Graeco-Roman
antiquity, but also of the prehistoric age.
“In the night of thick darkness which envelops the
earliest antiquity, there shines the eternal and never
fading
6 Hobbes, De Cive.
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THE NEW SCIENCE 207

light of truth: that the world of human society has
certainly been made by man, and its principles are
therefore to be found within the modifications of our
own human mind.”7
The painstaking search that led the lonesome scholar
in a mediaeval school of law to the discovery of the
master-key to the problems of human history was
inspired by a lesson learned from Grotius, Pufendorf
and, above all, Hobbes, “that the first founders of civil
society were not philosophers filled with recondite
wisdom, as he had hitherto thought, but man— beasts
devoid of culture or humanity, yet guided by an
obscure instinct of self-preservation that in time
would draw them into social compact and thus lay
the foundation stone of civilisation.”8
The inspiring lesson learned from his predecessors
who had revived the ancient concept of Natural Law
as the sanction for the revolt against the agelong
domination of theology and the teleological view of
life, reminded Vico of what he had read in the great
poem of Lucretius—about the origin of society. In his
youth, Vico came under the influence of the “new
philosophy” which flourished in certain secret circles
of the Neapolitan society, as a whole haunted by the
shadow of the Inquisition. In the olden days, Naples
was the main centre of Epicureanism in Italy.
Drawing upon that tradition as well as the more
recent of Bruno and Campanella, “the new
philosophy” was “Epicurean and atheist”. Some of
Vico's friends of that time were actually hauled before
the Inquisition for having held the view that “before
Adam, there were men who were composed of atoms,
as all animals were; and the shrewder among them
began to build houses, farms, forts and cities”, so on
and so forth.9 In his Epicurean mood, Vico wrote a
poem10 on
7 New Science.
8Fisch and Bergin, Introduction to Vico's
Autobiography.
9 Ibid.
10Quoted from the records at the National Library of
Naples by H. P. Adams in The Life and Writings of
Giambattista Vico.
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208 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

the Lucretian style, most unbecoming for a devout
Christian, although later in his life, having found
inspiration in St. Augustin, he betrayed the bad taste
of disparaging Lucretius. Nor did his religious
atavism allow him to stop at that; he claimed to have
developed his New Science independently of all the
philosophers from Epicures to Hobbes. But that was
an excusable vanity on the part of a lonesome scholar,
who was frustrated in his academic ambition.
However, the sequence of historical facts is that
Gassendi revived the Epicurean tradition in Western
Europe; Hobbes incorporated it in modern
philosophy; and Vico took up the threads from
Hobbes as also from Grotius, to weave them into the
outline of a new science—of history and society.
Vico's critique of the concept of Natural Law was not
corrective; it brought out the implication of the
doctrine. So long as it remained a philosophical
abstraction, it was impossible to demonstrate how
Natural Law affected human life. Vico opposed his
doctrine of the “Natural Law of the peoples” to the
“Natural Law of the philosophers”, and showed, in
the revealing light of his new method of enquiry into
historic and prehistoric antiquity, that the universal
law of the peoples grew naturally with the growth of
society; and therefore it was the only natural law as
far as human life, individual and collective, was
concerned. Human society, regarded as an organism,
was placed in the context of the mechanistic processes
of physical nature.
Vico traced the origin of law in the human mind, and
explained historical changes in terms of the evolution
of man's mind, which was itself a natural process.
Therefore, he came to the conclusion that, if physicists
sought to discover laws of nature by the study of
natural phenomena, philosophers must seek the laws
of historical change and social evolution in the events
of human life and in an understanding of the
operation of the human mind. Laws are born in the
conscience of mankind. In the earlier stages of
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THE NEW SCIENCE 209

social evolution, they are conceived as codes and
rituals of religion, because the primitive man is
incapable of thinking in terms of abstract ideas. The
original obscure idea of law becomes clearer and
better defined in course of time, in proportion with
the growth of the human mind. Finally, the
conception of law is abstracted from concrete
religious forms which are thus replaced by rational
philosophical principles. The critique of the
metaphysical doctrine of Natural Law thus leads Vico
to the position of Grotius. The difference is that he
reaches there analytically. With Grotius, Natural Law
is an hypothesis; for Vico, it is an empirkal fact. And
that was certainly a great advance—but in the same
direction. According to Vico, the concept of law
passes through three successive stages—the divine
(religious), the heroic (of the epics) and the human
(civil). The last stage in substance is merely the
abstract philosophical expression of the sense of
justice, co-operation and harmony felt vaguely by the
progenitors of the human race. Thus, Vico discovers
an enduring principle of universal law, revealed in
his New Science— “concerning the nature (genesis) of
nations, from which has issued their humanity
(civilisation), which in every case began with religion
and was completed by sciences.”11 In the same place,
Vico indicates the link between the conclusions of his
predecessors and his own discovery: “The gentile
nations have arisen from the ferine wanderings of
Hobbes' licentious and violent men, of Grotius'
solitary, weak and needy simpletons, of Pufendorf's
vagrants cast away into this world without divine
care or help.”
The New Science solved the difficulty of establishing
the relation between the two stages of human
existence—between the primitive and the civilised.
That was indeed a great achievement; only, Vico did
that not by going ahead of his predecessors, but by a
recoil from his original Epicurean
11 Synopsis of the work prefixed to it.
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210 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

position, from which the New Science could be
logically deduced, by setting up the anachronistic
doctrine of a “civil theology of divine providence”.
The gratuitous introduction of a rationalised
teleology, however, does not minimise the historical
significance of Vico's philosophy of law and history. It
logically compelled him to make irrelevant
interpolations, which lent the New Science to the most
reactionary interpretations directly contrary to its
native spirit.
The defect of the system of Grotius was to hold on to
the Roman idea of a parallel development of the
Natural and Positive Law. The latter was man-made;
but what was its sanction? Having disputed the
divine origin of mankind and society, he left Positive
Law hanging in the air. There remained a hiatus
between the rationally conceived Natural Law and
the man-made Positive Law. Vico bridged the gulf.
“The Positive Law of all nations, throughout history,
is a continual advance, keeping pace with the
progress of civilisation, towards the philosophic
conception of a Natural Law founded upon the
principles of human reason and nature.” The concept
of a universal Natural Law thus was an abstraction
from the experiences of human life; it was a creation
of human nature and reason. That is why Vico started
from the proposition that the idea of law originated in
man's conscience.
The basic discovery of the New Science, that history is
humanity creating itself, and Vico's unfounded claim
that his discovery represented a break with the
tradition of the philosophical concept of Natural Law,
were hailed by the nineteenth century post-
revolutionary romanticists as a revolt against
rationalism, and the scientific justification of their
mystic nee-catholic doctrines. This tendencious
interpretation of Vico's philosophy is backed up by
the far-fetched argument that his reconstruction of the
development of society and civilisation was made
possible by the discovery that “the first gentile
peoples were poets who spoke in
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THE NEW SCIENCE 211

poetic characters”, and that he called this discovery
“the master-key “. On this thin evidence, a sweeping
judgment is pronounced. “It is at this point that we
can observe most clearly that transition from
rationalism to historicism, in Vico's own mind, which
took place in the thought of Europe generally in the
century after his death.”12
The superficiality of the judgment is evident.
Historicism is to interpret social evolution as a
determined process; it is application of rationalism to
the study of history. Vico exactly did that. Yet, he is
hailed as a mighty rebel against rationalism!
“From Lucretius, Bacon and the Natural Law
theorists, Vico derived suggestions which had an
irresistible appeal to a mind struggling to free itself
from the last remaining shackles of intellectualism.
Certainly, to posit as the founders of civilisation not
sages but brutes; to posit as the primitive and
therefore basic forms of apprehension not reason but
instinct, feeling, intuition; to posit as the primitive
and basic modes of generalisation not the universals
of science and philosophy, but those of poetry—was
to emancipate oneself at last from Descartes, and give
a new dignity to those philological and historical
disciplines which he had despised as resting on
inferior cognitive faculties.”13
At the time of Vico, one might differentiate reason
from instinct, feeling and intuition, regarding the
former as a metaphysical category and the latter as
concrete human attributes. To-day, such a distinction
is scientifically untenable, although there are
philosophers who insist on living in the ivory tower
of their obscurantism. Vico was a critic of
metaphysical rationalism, and as such humanised
reason; thereafter, the entire course of his New Science,
barring the irrelevant second-hand interference of
Providence, is strictly
12 Fisch and Bergin, introduction to Vico's Autobiography.
13 Ibid.
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212 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

rationalist; it interprets the origin of society and its
subsequent development as causally determined.
Therefore, he must be recognised as the founder of
historicism, which was elaborated, in a grossly one-
sided manner, by Karl Marx more than a hundred
years after Vico's death, as the dialectics of history or
Historical Materialism.
“Vico dared attempt to ford the quagmire of
metaphysics, and although he was bogged down, he
gave footing to a more fortunate thinker
(Montesquieu) on the spirit of the laws of the
nations.” (Diderot). Vico was the first to interpret
history so as to show that heroes and great men are
the products of their time, which can be understood
properly only by referring it back to the events of
preceding epochs. “He interpreted the heroic and
divine figures of primitive history as ideas and
symbols.” (Michelet). Hailing Vico as one of the
“historians of humanity” (with Bossuet and Herder),
Victor Cousin said: “The fundamental character of the
New Science is the introduction into history of a point
of view purely human.”14
Those authoritative pronouncements, to which many
more could be added, summarise the correct
appraisal of Vico's philosophy and his place in the
intellectual history of modern Europe. He reconciled
rationalism with Humanism, and therefore could be
called the harbinger of an intellectual movement
which tempered rationalist metaphysics and
mechanistic naturalism with faith in the creativeness
of man. He promoted the humanist resurgence in the
revolutionary romanticism of Rousseau and also in
the aesthetic exuberance of the German Renaissance.
At the same time, it was only natural that the
mediaeval mentality of Vico should riddle his New
Science with irrelevant and atavistic interpolations
which could be picked up and given undue
importance by tendentious interpreters.
14 Lectures on the History of Philosophy, at the
Sorbonne in 1828.
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THE NEW SCIENCE 213

Having lived all his life in a place which at that time
happened to be outside the main currents of
European progress,15 social as well as intellectual,
Vico and his epoch-making work remained
practically unknown outside his native country.
Towards the end of the eighteenth country, Goethe
and Herder visited Italy and got some general idea of
Vico's work. At the same time, Niebuhr and Savigny
during their Roman visits also came to know of Vico.
Thereafter, Vico's ideas spread in Germany, and their
doubtful aspects influenced the post-Kantian
philosophy, not excluding Hegel's philosophy of law
and history. Through Hegel, Vico's organic view of
history went into the making of the Marxist
materialist conception of history, and later on
provided a scientific sanction for fascist
totalitarianism.16 It has been maintained that Vico was
“the true precursor of all German thought”, from
Kant, and that Hegelianism became popular in Italy
because it was but an elaboration of Vico's ideas.17
But it was thanks to Victor Cousin and his brilliant
pupil, Michelet, that Vico and his work gained
European recognition. “Nowhere out of Italy has Vico
been studied with so much sympathy as in France.
What of European reputation he possesses, is very
largely due to Michelet's Oeuvres Choisies de Vico.”18
While, on the one hand, Vico's philosophy was hailed
by revolutionary thinkers like Michelet and Marx, his
Christian piety and supposed anti-rationalism com-
15Voltaire first broke the Jewish-Christian framework of history.
He inaugurated the history of ideas, drew into general history
the arts and literature, and made gestures in the direction of
social and economic history. By obliterating the distinction
between the socred and the profane, he brought a new kind of
unity into the study of the past. Like many historians, he felt the
precariousness of civilisation. Vico had already carried this
emancipation farther, but his surroundings were unpropitious.
(Emery Neff, The Poetry of History).
16Vico and Mazzini are “the two greatest forerunners
of Fascism.” (Mario Palmieri, The philosophy of
Fascism).
17 Bertrando Spavento, Italian Philosophy in Its Relation
to European Philosophy.
18 Robert Flinta, Vico.
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214 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

mended it also to the neo-catholicism of Joseph de
Maistre— the prophet of post-revolutionary
romanticism, just as later on it was annexed by
Fascism, the post-revolutionary reaction-of the
twentieth century.
“But neither Duni nor anyone else who borrowed
this-or that from Vico in the pre-revolutionary period
was able to free himself altogether from the prevailing
rationalist temper, to grasp Vico's thought as an
integral whole, or even to place himself at its living
centre. Not until the Enlightenment had run its full
course, not until a social movement arose for which
Vico's historical vision was a vital necessity, was there
wide-spread serious study and adequate
comprehension of it. This movement was the post-
revolutionary” reaction whose foremost
representatives were the Federalists-in America,
Burke in England, De Maistre in France and Vincenzo
Cuoco in Italy.”19
Duni and Cuoco were among the principal
interpreters-of Vico in Italy. Vico's philosophy, of
course, was a much discussed topic in his native land
before it gained continental reputation. The
controversy over the ferine origin of the gentile
humanity began during Vico's lifetime. Duni was the
leader of the opinion which defended Vico's doctrine.
The opposing school was led by Finetti, a Dominican
monk. He successfully exposed that, despite Vico's
scholastic attempt to buttress his New Science on an
arbitrary exegis, it was essentially irreligious. He very
correctly argued that to hold that society originated in
a feral state of the human species, and that internal
dialectics governed its subsequent evolution, was to
repudiate the authority of the Bible and to pull down
the entire structure of catholic thought. He also
pointed out that the New Science was imbued with
Epicureanism as expounded by Lucretius.
Nevertheless, Cuoco, who came to be recognised as
the ablest interpreter
19 Fisch and Bergin, Introduction to Vico's Autobigraphy.
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THE NEW SCIENCE 215

of Vico, opposed the Neapolitan revolution of 1799 on
the ground that the revolutionary philosophy, which
resulted from the New Science had no roots in the
Italian soil, the national philosophy expounded by
Machiavelli and Vico having in advance rejected the
abstract rationalism of the Enlightenment. And Croce,
mainly responsible for the neo-Hegelian
interpretation of Vico, calls Cuoco's work as “the first
vigorous manifestation of Vichean thought”, which
he describes as “anti-abstract and historical, the
beginning of the new historiography founded on the
conception of the organic development of peoples,
and of the new politics of national liberalism, at once
revolutionary and moderate.”20
Inspite of his having anticipated Marx by more than a
century as the founder of dialectic historicism, in our
time, Vico was monopolised by the opposite brand of
totalitarianism. The over-riding conception of the
universal law of nations did not preclude Vico from
endowing particular nations with “eternal properties
which determine that the nature of each shall be such
and not otherwise.”21 The chauvinistic cult of national
genious can be easily deduced from this doctrine.
Vico's cyclical theory of history associated with
reactionary social ideas could logically lead to
Spenglerism—the Downfall of the West; its similarity
with Sorokin's revivalist doctrine of culture cycles is
also remarkable.
The three recurring cycles of history are “the age of
gods”, “the age of heroes “and “the age of man “.
Having described the age of man as “the vindication
of the rational nature of man”, Vico gives vent to
amazingly reactionary social ideas which rule out the
possibility of democracy, to justify the cyclical theory.
By declaring that the natural
20 Benedetto Croce, Philosophy of Giambattista Vico.
21 Autobiography.
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216 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

law of the peoples of the seventeenth century was the
product of the second “age of man”, Vico anticipated
Spengler's gloomy oracle.22
Croce interpreted the New Science as a sanction for
nationalism, and dedicated his book on the
philosophy of Vico to the would-be Nazi philosopher
Windelband. Lecturing at Heidelberg on philosophy
of history during the first world war, the latter
contrasted Vico as the historian of national culture
with the cosmopolitan Herder. “Specially interesting
in Vico is his cyclical theory of historical process, with
its corsi and recorsi, and very acute and just is his
observation that once a people has risen from
barbarism to civilisation, it falls back into a new
barbarism which is worse than the first. We are to-day
in an excellent position to confirm his observation by
the comparative method, since we have to do with the
sort of barbarism in our antagonists on the one side
(Russia) and with the second in those on the other
(France and England).”23
Vico would certainly turn in his grave if he heard his
present-day followers. With Sorel, he became the
recognised philosopher of Fascism. “National-
Socialist scholarship followed the lead of (Italian)
Fascism in deriving their common philosophy from
Vico and Sorel.”24
This irony of Vice's fate logically follows from reading
22 But the age of men ran its course too. The discipline, respect
for law, and social solidarity of the Patrician Orders gave way to
a humane and easy tolerance. Philosophy took the place of
religion. Equality led to licence. There was dispersion of private
interests and decline of public spirit. The meanest citizen could
press the public force into the service of his appetites and
whims, or sell his vote to the highest bidder among faction
leaders and demagogues. In this last phase of “the age of men”,
the humanisation and softening of customs and law continued,
until breakdown within or conquest from without brought on a
reversion to barbarism, and a new cycle of the three ages
began...... The natural law of the philosophers of the seventeenth
century was a product of the second “age of men”. (Fisch and
Bergin, Introduction to Vice's Autobiography).
23 Windelband, Kant-Studien.
24 Walter Witzenmann, Politisc/ier Atavismus und
Sozialer Mythos.
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THE NEW SCIENCE 217

in the New Science a revolt against rationalism. The
Marxists are afraid of claiming his historicism as their
heritage because it has already been captured by their
opponents. But the humanist philosophy of history
founded by Vico on the basis of the Epicurean
tradition and the pioneering works of Bacon, Hobbes,
Grotius and others, must be rescued from tendentious
misrepresentations and superficial expositions.
History is humanity creating itself; man makes his
own history—these are declarations which must be
written in letters of gold in the charter of human
freedom. They were pronounced by man's reason,
free from spiritual slavery, as reaffirmaticn of his faith
in himself. The philosophy of history as formulated
by Vico harmonises Humanism with naturalism,
freedom with determinism, will with reason,
romanticism with rationalism. Vico consciously was
not a man of the Re.naissance. Nevertheless, he made
a science of Humanism. The New Science of history
was a creation of the revolt of man. From the
declaration that “the social world is certainly the
work of man”, Vico deduced the corollary, which is
the fundamental principle of modern democracy.
“And governments must be conformable to the
nature of the governed; governments are even a result
of that nature.”
****
Vice's ideas, being in tune with the spirit of the age,
had imperceptibly flown into the main currents of
European life before he was discovered and
misrepresented by the post-revolutionary
romanticists. Through Rousseau, they inspired the
French Revolution which deified Reason. On the
other hand, Herder had come in touch with them
before he began the construction of the philosophy of
the history of humanity. But Herder had started
thinking by himself, and developed his philosophy of
history independently of Vico, rejecting the weak
points of the latter's historiography, which laid him
open to reactionary interpretations. If Bossuet,
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218 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Vico and Herder were the historians of humanity,
philosophically, Herder was the greatest of them all.
In him, the genetic or historical method of studying
the complicated structure of human culture reached a
logically consistent form.25 He traced the origin of
civilisation to primitive human impulses; but though
himself the pioneer of romanticism in Germany,
Herder did not share Rousseau's idealisation of the
simplicity and spontaneity of the primitive. On the
other hand, he rejected the “civil theology of divine
providence” invented by Vice's mediaeval mentality
and religious atavism. In his search for the genesis of
human society, Vico did not penetrate deep enough
into the origin of languages; he only stated the fact
that the primitive spoke in poetic characters. Herder
discovered the great truth that the origin of articulate
speech marks the rise of the homo sapiens, and,
rejecting the venerable belief that it was a divine gift,
traced it to the mental evolution which differentiates
the human from earlier biological species. “Without
discovering language, human mind could not be what
it is.”
Romanticism did not blind Herder to another great
truth of human history; rejecting the theory of fear,
popularised by Hume, he held that religion was the
creation of primitive rationalism; it was the first
attempt of mankind to explain natural phenomena.
The deep-seated moral feelings of mankind provided
the vitality to the higher forms of
25 “It is this deep conviction that changing phenomena have
unchanging laws which, in the seventeenth century, guided in a
limited field Bacon,. Descartes and Newton; which, in the
eighteenth century, was applied to every part of the material
Universe; and which it is the business of the nineteenth century
to extend to the history of the human intellect. This last
department of enquiry we owe chiefly to Germany; for, with the
single exception of Vico, no one even suspected the possibility of
arriving at complete generalisations respecting the progress of
man, until shortly before the French Revolution, when the great
German thinkers began to cultivate this, the highest and most
difficult of all studies.” (Buckle, Introduction tot the History of
Civilisation.
 219

THE NEW SCIENCE 219

religion. The success of Christianity, according to
Herder, was due to the fact that it was essentially
humanist. He interpreted it as a system of morality.
Of course, all great religions, Islam for example,
cannot be explained so very simply. But the central
idea of Herder's philosophy of religion is that it is
associated with human mind in certain stages of
evolution; and that is a correct idea, historically a&
well as psychologically.
As regards the process of human evolution as a
wholer Herder's view was rigorously naturalistic, free
from Vico's postulate of Biblical exegis and civil
theology. He regarded man as a part of nature, and all
the variegated forms of his-development, mental,
spiritual, physical, as natural processes, On the other
hand, he disagreed with Kant's view that human
development was the gradual manifestation of the
growing faculty of rational free will revolting against
the operations of nature. Thus, Herder was opposed
to metaphysical rationalism. He rejected the mystic
notion that there is an antagonism between human
reason and physical nature, and held that, a part of
nature, man, derived his reason as well as the
freedom to will, from nature. “Human history is a
pure natural history of human powers, actions-and
propensities, modified by time and place.”
The scientific thought of the nineteenth century was
deeply influenced on the one hand by the rationalism,
(mechanistic naturalism) of the Enlightenment and,
on the other hand, by the no less rational romanticism
as developed by Herder. Both the thought-currents
carried the positive aspects of Vico's New Science,
which was thus integrated in the general pattern of
modern democratic culture.28 Its
26 “Turgot made an admirable application of the idea
of humanity to history in his Discourses at the
Sorbonne. The same idea is implied through, out in
Lessing's Essay on The Education of the Human Race.
Herder'? genial and eloquent Ideen Zur Philosophic der
GeschicKte der Menschheif made its significance
popularly appreciated and definitely gave it its
rightful position in historical science.” (Flint, History
of the Philosophy of History),
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220 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

doubtful and clearly reactionary features also flowed
into parallel channels, one to be bogged in the
backwaters of the post-revolutionary neo-Catholic
romanticism, and the other, through Hegel, to feed
the mutually antagonistic cults of totalitarianism,
communist and fascist.
Having survived the post-revolutionary reaction in
France, and the Sturn and Drang of the German
Renaissance, the truths discovered by Vico were not
left to be perverted by Marxist dogmatism and
subsequently to be vulgarised by the regimented
fascist scholarship. In Germany, it succombed to the
anti-intellectual reaction to Hegelian fever fantasies.
But the “very small school of historical writings,
which began in the eighteenth century with Vico, was
continued by Condorcet, Herder, Hegel and Comte,
and which found its last great representative in
Buckle.”27
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the
conservative academic circles in England abandoned
the time-honoured doctrine that history was a branch
of literature. Robert Flint's History of the Philosophy of
History was an epoch-making book. He never wrote
the second volume “to trace with fulness and in detail
the effects of Vico's historical speculations”. Instead,
he wrote a small treatise specially on Vico, which for
the first time introduced the New Science directly to
the English intellectual world. The Darwinian
doctrine having revealed the animal origin of the
human species, the evolutionary view of history was
empirically established. As a matter of fact, the theory
that the foundation of society was laid not by wise
law-givers, but man-beasts living in a feral state,
logically implied the Darwinian doctrine of descent.
“The evolutionary theory in science and the historical
method (historicism) are twin developments of the
same fundamental movement in thought
27Leckey, History of Rationalism.
 221

THE NEW SCIENCE 221

which characterised the mental climate of the
nineteenth century.”28
Hallam and Gibbon were not philosophers of history;
but they were among the first who wrote history
according to the new philosophy. Gibbon judged
civilisation and progress by the criterion of the
happiness of man, and held that political freedom
was the essential condition of human happiness.
Hallam's conception of history embraced the whole
movement of society. Academic historians like Bury,
Myres, Powell, Firth, walked in the footsteps of their
illustrious predecessors when they applied to their
subject the evolutionary view of science in general.
“The growth of historical study in the nineteenth
century has been determined and characterised by the
same general principle which has underlain the
simultaneous developments of the study of nature,
namely, the genetic idea. The historical conception of
nature, which has produced the history of the solar
system, the story of the earth, the genealogies of
telluric organisms, and has revolutionised natural
science, belongs to the same order of thought as the
conception of human history as a continuous genetic
causal process—a conception which has
revolutionised historical research and made it
scientific. The present condition of the human race is
simply and strictly the result of a causal series— a
continuous succession of changes where each stage
arises causally out of the preceding; and the business
of historians is to trace this genetic process, to explain
each change, and ultimately to grasp the complete
development of humanity.”291
“History, in its common and more popular sense, is
the study of man's dealings with other men, and the
adjustment of working relations between human
groups. But there is a large sense in which human
history merges in natural history,
28A. L. Rowse, The Use of History—Introduction to,the
“Teach Yourself History” series published by the
English Universities Press.
29 J. B. Bury, Selected Essays.
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222 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

and studies the dealings of man with nature. Man's
prehistory merges in the pageant of the animal
world.”30
History “deals with the condition of masses of
mankind living in a social state. It seeks to discover
the laws that govern this condition and bring about
changes we call progress and decay, and
development and degeneracy—to understand the
process that gradually or suddenly make up or break
up those political and economic agglomerations we
call States—to find out the circumstances affecting the
various tendencies that show their power at different
times.”31
“History is not easy to define; but to me, it seems the
record of the life of societies of men, of the changes
which those societies have gone through, of the ideas
which have determined the actions of those societies,
and of the material conditions which have helped or
hindered their development.”32
Those are opinions of “bourgeois historians” as the
Marxists would call them. But none of them “finds
the birthplace of history in the misty cloud formations
of heaven” (Marx), nor can they be placed among the
gentlemen whom Marx ridiculed for trying to
understand history out of the context of the relations
of man to nature. This general acceptance of the
evolutionary view of history proves, in the teeth of
Marxist intolerance, that science has no class
affiliation; that the dynamics of ideas, being
manifestation of the Natural Law through human
intelligence, unfolds itself independently of the
sequence of the physical events of history. This
autonomy of the world of thought is the foundation
of the spiritual (in the secular sense) freedom—the
highest ideal of human existence.
The movement of thought initiated by Grotius and
Hobbes, given a wider sweep by Vico, and raised on a
higher
30 Sir John Myers, The Dawn of History.
31 York Powell, quoted by A. L. Rowse.
32 Sir Charles Firth, quoted by A. L. Rowse.
 223

THE NEW SCIENCE 223

philosophical level by Herder, indicated the
theoretical approach to the problems of social
relations which challenged human ingenuity at the
dawn of modern times. The experience of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries demonstrated the
creativeness of man in his relation to nature as well as
in the social and political field. That was an epoch of
revolutions—scientific, social and political; and the
very idea of revolution is romantic; it claims for man
the right to change the conditions of life. It is also
rational to the extent that social changes take place of
necessity. Therefore, the revolutions of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries were heralded by the “Age
of Reason.”
 224

CHAPTER IX
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
THE eighteenth century is known in history as the
Age of Reason; at the same time, during that period of
great significance, rationalism definitely broke away
from its metaphysical tradition, and assumed a
meaning almost identical with romanticism, which
was the other characteristic feature of the intellectual
life of that epoch of decisive events. While a rapidly
increasing expansion of scientific knowledge
reinforced the belief in the unvarying laws of nature,
it also became a prevailing belief that reason was
equally applicable to human affairs, and that,
rationally regulated, they would lead to universal
good. Not only was man capable of solving all the
riddles of the Universe, of penetrating deeper and
deeper into the secrets of nature; freed from
ignorance, prejudices and superstitions, human
intelligence could also find the ways and means for a
rational, and therefore harmonious, regulation of
social relations. Reason was no longer only .1 subject
of philosophical discussions; it was to become the
regulating factor of practical life.
It was a period of great intellectual activity; the
freedom of thought, naturally amongst those capable
of thinking, practically knew no bounds. Scientific
investigation was breaking up new grounds; daring
ideas were conceiving new possibilities of moral and
material progress; bolder imagination was opening
up new vistas of freedom to be enjoyed in all the
aspects of human life. The outstanding figures of that
period of intellectual ferment and emotional
exuberance all believed in the unlimited possibility of
science and relied on human reason as the only
reliable guide in life. On the one hand, Voltaire's
ecclecticism never transgressed the common ground
of agreement; and on the other, the prophet of
 225

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 225

irrationalism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, believed that in
his doctrine of social contract he had found a rational
sanction for politics. As a matter of fact, those two
utterly discordant personalities, between themselves,
represented the spirit of the Age of Reason; the almost
classicist rationalism of the one and the unbridled
romanticism of the other were the two poles of the
axis on which the world of eighteenth century Europe
revolved.
The triumphal march of science, however, was the
inexhaustible source of inspiration for the intellectual
life of the eighteenth century. Newton's law of
gravitation seemed to solve all the problems of
celestial mechanics. Not only in physics, a good deal
of knowledge about the life of plants and animals was
derived from the researches of Linne' and Buffon;
Lavoisier and Priestley laid the foundation of modern
chemistry. Descartes' theory of the vortices failed to
stand the test of mathematics as further developed by
Maupertuis, d'Alembert and many others. The
reconsideration of Cartesian cosmology, compelled
by the subsequent expansion of physical knowledge
and improvement of mathematical technique, led to a
progressive development of the mechanistic view
until Laplace dispensed with the hypothesis of a
prime mover.
The powerful influence of Piere Bayle was another
factor which helped eighteenth century rationalism
transcend the limitations of Descartes' metaphysics.
Bayle was a Cartesian, but bolder than the master.
With Descartes, science and religion were not
inconsistent; reason and faith went hand in hand.
Bayle pointed out the inconsistency. He wielded the
Cartesian weapon of scepticism with a greater skill,
and mercilessly. In the Critical and Historical
Dictionary, there is indeed no open attack upon
religion; but every line was intended to awaken
doubt. Bayle was the first to maintain that morality
could be entirely independent of religion. Even
Voltaire's corrosiveness would not go that far,
although
15
 226

226 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

he was profoundly influenced by “the master of
doubt”, as Bayle was called. The campaign for the
freedom of thought initiated by Bayle was fought out
“under the generalship of Voltaire...... The revolution
was prepared in the seventeenth century by the
European publicity of the writings of Bayle.”1
By the eighteenth century, naturalism could call itself
a scientific system of thought. It was possible to
generalise the empirical knowledge of nature,
acquired by the different branches of science, into a
philosophy. Until then, natural philosophy was one-
sided, based only on physics. In the eighteenth
century, it was greatly reinforced by a growing
volume of knowledge of the animate world including
the anatomy and physiology of the human body.
With the broadened basis of scientific knowledge,
Sensationalism became the generally accepted form of
natural philosophy. Condillac went beyond Locke
and rejected reflexion as a source of knowledge. He
traced the root of all knowledge to a single origin. The
object of his system—improved and amplified
Sensationalism —was “to show how all our
knowledge and all our faculties are derived from
sensations.” Locke had doubted the Cartesian
doctrine of innate ideas; but his own theory of
knowledge was not quite clearly differentiated, since
it recognised reflexion as a source of knowledge.
Condillac freed Sensationalism from that ambiguity.
He discarded the doctrine of the immateriality of
mind, and held that mind was nothing but a faculty
of sensation, out of which all faculties evolved as the
result of the impact of external objects on the senses.
Following Gassendi and Hobbes, he identified
knowledge with sensation, and maintained that
inferences drawn from the examination of animal
organisms were applicable in the observation of
human mind.2 The other
1 Paul Souquet, La Revolution Francaise.
2 Traite des Animaux.
 227

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 227

cardinal feature of Condillac's scientific naturalism
was to deny that there was any innate faculty. He
wrote: Locke “has certainly thrown a good deal of
light on the subject (cognition) but he has left some
obscurity. All the faculties of the soul appeared to him
as innate qualities; he never suspected that they might
be derived from sensation itself.”3 Condillac thus
suggested that the enquiry regarding the nature and
function of mind or soul should be conducted not as
previously on the plane of metaphysical speculation,
but as a physiological study; in other words,
psychology must be regarded as a part of physiology.
That was a very bold suggestion to make even in the
iconoclastic Age of Reason. The English physician,
David Hartley followed up .the pointer, and made the
first attempt to explain psychological phenomena as
processes of the physiological mechanism. Newton's
opinion that the cause of sensation was vibration of
ether added to the impetus of the enquiry.
Postulating that “man consists of two parts, the body
and mind”, Hartley tried to find the relation between
them; his investigations led to the conclusion that
mental phenomena were produced by the vibration of
ether (pervading the nerve-pores) caused by the
impact of external objects. Impinging on the senses,
the latter cause vibrations of the infinitesimally small
particles of the medullary substance which constitutes
the brain, spinal marrow and the nerves. Hartley
identified the medullary substance as “the immediate
instrument of sensation”. Sensations aije produced by
its vibrations; ideas and actions are transformations of
the sensations which are processes in the
physiological mechanism. On the basis of this
analysis, Hartley maintained: “If that species of
motion we term vibration, can be shown by probable
argument to attend upon all sensations, ideas and
motions, then we are at liberty to make
*lbid.
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228 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

vibrations the exponent of sensations, ideas and
motions,, however impossible it may be to discover in
what way vibrations cause sensations and ideas, that
is, though vibrations be of a corporeal, and sensations
and ideas of a mental nature. It is sufficient for me
that there is a certain connection of one kind or other
between sensations of the soul and the motions
excited in the medullary substance of the brain.”1
The enquiry was continued by Erasmus Darwin, who
defined idea as “contraction or motion or
configuration of the fibres which constitute the
immediate organs of sense, synonimous with sensual
motion in contradiction to muscular motion.”5 He
made the first attempt to clear away the confusion
created by the sensationalist doctrine of images. “If
our recollection or imagination be not a repetition of
animal movements, I ask, in my turn, what is it? You
tell me it consists of images or pictures of things.
Where is this extensive canvas hung up—or where
are the numerous receptacles in which these are
deposited? Or to what els£-in the animal system have
they any similitude? That pleasing picture of objects
represented in miniature on the retina of the eyes
seems to have given rise to this illusive oratory! It was
forgot that this representation belongs rather to the
laws of light than to those of life; and may with equal
elegance be seen in the camera obscura as in the eye;
and that the picture vanishes for ever when the object
is withdrawn.”6
This bold approach to the problem of cognition
discarded the notion that there was some sort of a
spiritual agency in man to receive impressions and
transform them into sensations. The implication of
Darwin's challenging
4David Hartley, Observations on Man, His Frame, His
Duty and His Expectations.
5 Laws of Organic Life.
6 Ibid.
 229

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 229

argument is that ideas are produced in a long
complicated physiological process, which is initiated
in the mechanism of the nervous system by external
objects impinging on the sense organs.
In Condillac, the sensationalist philosophy reached its
high-water mark. But even then, it was not free from
its basic defect, namely, the limited significance (of
immediate-ness and directness) of the very term
sensation. The result of the defect was the failure to
take into account previously stored impressions
(instincts) transmitted through heredity. The defect
compelled Sensationalism to admit the existence of a
priori properties or spiritual entities, contradicting its
premises and making concession to the doctrine of
innate ideas. Psychological approach to the problem
of cognition enabled Cabanis, a pupil of Condillac, to
cure the basic defect of Sensationalism and make of it
a logically consistent and empirically verifiable
scientific naturalism, which came to be known as the
eighteenth century Materialism.
Having realised the basic necessity of ascertaining
what was sensibility, Cabanis began his enquiry with
the questions: “Does it always presuppose
consciousness and distinct perception? And must we
refer to some other property of the living body all
those unperceived impressions and movements in
which volition has no part?” The enquiry led Cabanis
to the conclusion that, in addition to direct and
immediate sensations, “connate instincts” must be
recognised as the source of mental phenomena. They
.are “images or ideas” which are formed in the brain
not immediately and directly by the impressions to
which they react. They are anterior, having been
stored up in the train-and other nerve-centres as the
totality of the product of earlier experiences.7 Thus,
Cabanis abolished the invidi-
7 Cabanis, Rapport du Physique et du Morale de
I'Homme.
 230

230 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

ous distinction between life and mind, showing that
the latter is a function of the former.
“Subject to the action of external bodies, man finds in
the impressions these bodies make on his organs, at
once hi& knowledge and the cause of his continued
existence; for, to live is to feel; and in that admirable
chain of phenomena, which constitutes his existence,
every one depends upon the development of some
faculty, every faculty by its very development
satisfies some one, and the faculties grow by exercise
as the wants extend with the faculty of satisfying
them. By the continual action of external bodies on
the senses of man, results the most remarkable part of
his existence.”8 That is to say, intelligence and desire,
reason and will are manifestations of the self-same
vital force.
In the tradition of the Renaissance, Descartes had
insisted upon the independence of mind. Reason as a
property of the mind thus remained isolated from life,
on the other side of the unbridgeable gulf of psycho-
physical parallelism. Metaphysical rationalism was a
mere variation of teleology. Cartesian rationalism
vigorously combatted all suggestions, which denied a
super-material character to intelligence and reason,
and identified the mental with the vital. “To doubt
this truth (independence of mind) was to overthrow
all morality, to reduce man to the level of the brute, to
make religion a mockery. To doubt this truth was, in
fact, to incur the most incriminating of charges—
Materialism.”9
By merging psychology into physiology, Cabanis
successfully overthrew the authority of Descartes, and
brought reason down to the earth as a function of
higher biological organisms. Scientific naturalism of
the eighteenth century, therefore, also pleaded guilty
to the charge of Materialism. It also mocked at
religion, revealed it as based on supersti-
8 Ibid.
9 Lewes, History of Philosophy.
 231

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 231

tion. But it did not overthrow morality; on the
contrary, it placed morality on a sounder foundation
by giving man the conviction that he could find the
sanction of morality in his own conscience—a part of
his physical being. And de la Mettrie showed that
man was a machine just like any other animal. Only,
man was not reduced to the level of a brute, but his
being and becoming were placed in the context of the
physical nature, thus freeing him from the venerable
prejudices of super-naturalism.
De la Mettrie was preceded by Robinet who, in his
book on Nature attributed life to the smallest particles
of matter: Even the constituents of inorganic nature
bear within themselves, only without any self-
consciousness, the principles of sensation. The two
principles of matter—corporeal and spiritual—act
upon each other.
Finally, de la Mettrie made the bold declaration that
'the entire world, including man, was a machine: the
soul is material and matter soulful. The way the
two—body and soul—grow and decay together, act
upon each other, leaves no room for doubt about their
essential similarity and interdependence. All
organisms evolve out of one original germ; they grow
by reacting upon the environment. Animals have
intelligence, but plants have none; that is because,
thanks to their ability to move about, animals can
react upon the environments in a greater variety of
ways, with the result that they feel more wants and
develop the ability to satisfy them. Man has the
highest intelligence, because he feels more wants than
other animals, and has the greatest mobility. Beings
without wants have no mind.10
The expounder of these sensational ideas was not an
ignorant man; nor did he make merely dogmatic
assertions. De la Mettrie was a medical man of rich
experience and vast learning. He evolved his ideas
over a period of a quarter of a century. While under a
violent attack of fever, he
10 L'Homme Machine.
 232

232 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

experienced that quickened circulation of the blood
influenced thought. Having carried initial
experiments on himself, he observed the phenomena
in a large number of cases in hospitals. From those
experiments and observations, he reached the
conclusion that thought was nothing but a
consequence of the organisation of the mechanism of
the human body. The result of his initial enquiry was
set forth in the earlier work, Natural History of Soul.
The beginning is cautious. It is shown that no
philosopher, from Aristotle to Malebranche, has been
able to explain the nature of the soul; disembodied
soul is like matter without form; it cannot be
conceived. Therefore, the enquiry about the nature of
the soul must begin with the study of the body. The
study led to the conclusion that man is a machine.
The conclusion was backed up by a great wealth of
facts, collected from the observation of the sick and
convalescent. Deprecating the attempts of great
philosophers like Descartes, Leibniz and others, to
form an a priori idea of man, de la Mettrie declared
that “only a posteriori, starting from experience and
from the study of the bodily organs, can we attain, if
not a certainty, at least a high degree of probability.”
So, there was no dogmatism even in the enfant terrible
of eighteenth century Materialism. There is nothing
outside nature. That was the basic proposition. The
imperfection of the knowledge of nature was freely
admitted; but the belief in its unlimitedness was
unbounded. The potentiality of human intelligence
was inexhaustible; the corollary to that belief was that
the measure of man's creativeness was incalculable.
The motto of the eighteenth century was: “Let human
reason be free, and in a few generations it will build
Utopia” (Diderot). The Age of Reason thus gave birth
to Romanticism: Reason was to be reinforced by
“creative imagination”.
** * *
 233

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 233

The eighteenth century was the Age of Reason in the
sense that demand for the application of reason to the
affairs of this mortal world was the most outstanding
feature of the intellectual life of the time. Rationalism
came down from the rarefied atmosphere of
metaphysical speculation, and claimed to be the
criterion of political and social judgment.
Previously, the struggle for human freedom had been
conducted largely in the realm of ideas. That was a
necessary stage of the history of humanity.
Anachronistic social relations and political
institutions stood on the way of human progress; but
they could not be removed unless their ideological
foundation was undermined. They derived their
moral sanction from a super-human, super-natural,
divine authority, which was generally accepted.
Man's mind had to be freed before he could feel the
urge for freedom on this
earth; spiritual freedom was the condition for man's
being conscious of his capacity to reshape the world
so as to promote the welfare and happiness of the
race. The venerable belief in Providence had to be
shaken before man could have faith in himself as the
maker of his own destiny. In brief, a philosophical
revolution created the atmosphere for great political
and social changes brought about by human will and
human efforts. The success in the revolt against God
emboldened man to rise against kings who claimed to
rule with divine right.
Locke was the first political philosopher. He was the
first to demand secularisation of politics, not only in
theory, but also in practice. He pointed out that the
oppressiveness of the mediaeval social order was due
to the confusion of religion and politics, making the
one an instrument of the other, reciprocally. On the
one hand, political power was used for the
suppression of spiritual freedom; and, on the other,
religion provided authority to despotic rulers and
oppressive political institutions.
 234

234 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

England was the scene of the first political revolution,
of modern times. But during the Cromwellian period,
religious and political issues were confused. The
Puritans did not demand secularisation of politics;
they were religious fanatics themselves. The Puritan
revolution, indeed,, belonged to the age of religious
wars, which had preceded the dawn of the Age of
Reason. Locke seized upon and elaborated the ideas
of toleration and civil liberty which grew out of the
experience of the revolution in England. Those
liberating ideas were enthusiastically hailed in France
where a philosophical revolution had created an
explosive atmosphere admirably suitable for a
dramatic unfoldment of their dynamics.
“A leading feature of the movement of thought so
inaugurated in France was its active concern for the
regeneration of society. The niceties of metaphysical
speculation did not appeal to the clear practical mind
of Voltaire or, indeed, to any of the French thinkers of
the Voltairean age. The metaphysics of Locke and his
French disciple Condillac was a sufficient instrument
for their purpose, which was to apply the human
reason coolly and dispassionately, without theological
predilections and restraints, to the removal of the
intellectual detritus of the Middle-Ages and to the
amendment of man's state.”11
** * *
Historical research had revealed the origin of society
as a creation of man, and civilisation as an
evolutionary process. The new understanding of the
past lighted up the future. The conditions of life could
be changed, and a new world of freedom, happiness
and harmony created by the efforts of man. Only a
general will to bring about the desired changes must
be kindled. For that purpose, the popular
11H. A. L. Fisher, The History of Europe.
 235

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 235

mind must be freed from prejudices and
superstitions-fostered by religion. A passionate
appeal to reason was the method; but it presupposed
the conviction that reason is not a metaphysical
category, but a human attribute; that man is
essentially a rational being. The conviction was
created by the new philosophy of scientific naturalism
as well as by the new understanding of past history.
Abiding faith in the creativeness of man, and a
fervent belief in the possibility of social progress were
the key-notes of the intellectual life of the eighteenth
century. “Energetic faith in the possibilities of social
progress has been first reached through the
philosophy of sensation and experience.”12
Religion gave a meaning to man's life; there was a
goal to attain, be it the blissful life in heaven or the
mystic dream of salvation. The new philosophy
destroyed the faith in a goal of life; it visualised life as
a continuous process, of becoming. Was the idea of
progress consistent with a non-teleological view of
life? Progress means advance in a certain direction,
and the measure of the advance is the approximation
to the journey's end. If life has no goal, if it is not a
journey towards a definite end, how could one speak
of progress? This argument my sound plausible, if not
quite convincing, and with it, sceptics doubted the
possibility of progress and even ridiculed the very
idea. But there is another test for the idea of progress;
it is the distance between the, primitive and the
civilised. The fact that mankind has been moving
further and further away from the primitive state, and
the movement has been evolutionary, warrants the
belief in the possibility of future progress. And when
it is further known that in the past it has not been a
teleological process, but a result of human efforts, the
optimistic view of the future finds an empirical
justification, and the possibility or the logical
expectation of
12 John Morley, Life of Diderot.
 236

236 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

progress increases in proportion to the will for it. The
picture of a possible future is conceived in
imagination. “Creative imagination” came to be the
antidote of rationalist teleology.
The idea of progress was conceived by the intellectual
leaders of the eighteenth century France in this sense.
The fatalist mood of the classical rationalism, the cult
of a secular teleos, was entirely incompatible with this
temperament and conviction. Convinced by the still
inadequate scientific knowledge of their time, that
man being a part of nature, human will was a
manifestation of the sovereign laws of nature, they
were full of the burning faith that, given the chance,
man could be the maker of his destiny. The chance
comes neither in the fulness of time as a matter of
natural justice nor as a gift of God. It is to be
conquered by man; but he is debarred from doing so
by superstitions and prejudices born of the traditional
religious mode of thought, as well as by the
oppressive use of secular power. Therefore, the
intellectual leaders of the eighteenth century felt the
need for a crusade in the first place against religion;
they believed that, freed from superstitions and
prejudices fostered by religion, man would regain
confidence in themselves and take up the task
shaping the future according to enlightened self-
interest. Guided by reason, illuminated by creative
imagination, spiritually free men would alter the
conditions of the world for the better. That is how the
belief in social progress manifested itself in the
eighteenth century. That view of life came to be
known as Romanticism, which certainly did not rule
out the use of reason in the guidance of human
affairs.
Evidently, a new philosophy was required to usher in
the Age of Man. It must be a philosophy concerned
primarily with human life, which would set human
spirit free —a philosophy which would explain all the
phenomena of nature and all the experiences of
human life without postu-
 237

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 237

lating a Providence or assuming any transcendental
divine intervention. Such a view of nature and human
life could not claim absolute certainty without the
absurd pretention of omniscience—of possessing
perfect and absolute knowledge of all the aspects of
existence. It must necessarily be rested on hypotheses
such as were logically permissible and appeared
plausible in the light of the scientific knowledge of the
time.
Scepticism is not a stable position; it is a negative
attitude which is bound to paralyse action. Scepticism
is the mental attitude of a period of transition—from
the rejection of antiquated ideas and false ideals to
new convictions. Therefore, it cannot have a
permanent place in a philosophy with a social
purpose. It is not dogmatic to have a conviction as
long as absolute certainty is not claimed. Dogmatism
or finality has no place in a philosophy which
disowns transcendental sanction, and seeks it only in
a generalisation of the ever increasing body of
positive knowledge acquired in the various fields of
scientific investigation. The intellectual life of the
eighteenth century, specially of France, was guided
by such a philosophy with a social purpose.13
13It (18th century French philosophy) was a much more radical,
aggressive and revolutionary philosophy than the species of
English philosophy to which it was most allied, and of which it
was, in a sense, the development. It was in particular more
decided and sweeping in its rejection of authority, recognising
none save diat of reason, and excepting nothing from the
criticism of reason. Ancient tradition, common consent, faith of
the Church, scriptures, were held to be worthless except in so far
as conformed to, and vouched for by, reason. Specially Christian
doctrines were treated by all the adherents of the new
philosophy as absurd and pernicious superstitions; and although
the principles of theism were accepted by a class of them as
rationally warranted, a class not less numerous assailed all
religious beliefs as delusion. The new philosophy was eminently
rationalistic; it was not, however, calmly and temperately, but
keenly and passionately, so. The philosophy was empirical as
well as rationalistic, and largely also materialistic. Its eyes were
not turned inwards or upwards, but they were keenly observant
of 'the surrounding physical and social phenomena. In France,
during the eighteenth century, a remarkable progress was made
in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, natural history,
 238

238 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

At the dawn of the Age of Reason, scepticism was the
prevalent philosophy in France. The pious Christian
Charron shared with Montaigne the honour of
ushering in that period of transition. While Pascal's
scepticism led him back to an “honest but narrow and
fanatical” reverence for faith demonstrating the
instability of a purely negative mood, La Mothe le
Vayer, with the fundamentalist believer's distrust for
theology, acted as an auxiliary to Bayle. Through his
intermediary, scepticism penetrated the court of the
Catholic Sun King, and his writings helped the cause
of the Enlightenment generally. The tremendous
influence of Bayle's scepticism is well known. Diderot
himself began his. struggle against the Church also
under, the standard of scepticism, and even de la
Mettrie called himself a Pyrrhonist, walking in the
footsteps of “the first Frenchman who ventured to
think”, namely, Montaigne. Voltaire, of course, never
abandoned the sceptic pose, because he stood with
one foot in the camp of classicism, and
temperamentally preferred the Dyonisian role to that
of the Evangelist.
“With the death of Louis XIV came that remarkable
turning point in modern history which was as
important for the philosophic mode of thought of the
educated, as for the social and political fortunes of the
nations: The intellectual intercourse between England
and France which developed so suddenly and in such
intensity. ...... In the sphere of politics, the French took
from England the idea of civil freedom and of the
rights of the individual; but these ideas.

geography and medicine; and the causes of their progress were

to a considerable extent the same to which were due the
prevalence of the philosophy of the epoch. There were many
who found in Holbach's conclusions only their own opinions,
and firmly believed dial science showed that there could be no
God, soul or immortality. It was militant, aggressive, ethically,
politically and religiously. It aimed not only at displacing, but
replacing, the powers which had hitherto ruled the world. Its
chief strength was drawn from its positive ethical and political
convictions; from its faith in justice, toleration, liberty, fraternity,
the sovereignty of the people, the Rights of Man.” (Flint, History
of the Philosophy of History).
 239

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 239

were combined with the democratic tendency which
awoke in France with irresistible strength. Similarly,
in the sphere of speculation, English Materialism
combined with French scepticism, and the product of
this combination was the radical rejection of
Christianity and the Church which in England since
Newton and Boyle had made such excellent terms
with the mechanical conception of nature. Singular
and yet quite capable of explanation is it that the
philosophy of Newton should in France be made to
further atheism, while it had been introduced into
France with the certificate that it was less injurious to
faith than Cartesianism!”14
Eighteenth century France was crowded with deists,
sceptics, atheists and materialists. But there was one
passion common to all of them; they were all anti-
clericals, determined to free political life from the
domination of religious orthodoxy and the influence
of the Church. The light of knowledge should be
taken to the people at large, if the power of
superstition and tradition was to be broken. With that
purpose, was the famous Encyclopedia published.
There was no open attack on the Church or faith; nor
was atheism preached openly. “Tolerance, suspension
of judgment, the application of reason to all the facts
of human life were joined with the fullest explanation
of natural phenomena and the natural sciences that
had yet been made.”15
The Encyclopedists pleaded for religious toleration
and freedom of thought, and proclaimed the
democratic doctrine that the lot of the common man
was the main concern of the government. Propagation
of knowledge was their fundamental purpose;
knowledge will give people the power to break their
bondage. The underlying purpose of the publication
was hinted in d'Alembert's Discourse Preliminaire,
wherein “Superstition and Magic” were listed under
the “heading” “The Science of God”.
14Lange, History of Materialism,
15 Lynn Thorndike, The Encyclopedia and History of
Science.
 240

240 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

The government, however, made no mistake about
the danger of the covert assault upon its secular
power and the divine sanction thereof. On the
publication of two volumes, the Encyclopedia was
suppressed as “injurious to the King's authority and
religion”. But the philosophes—Hevetius, de la Mettrie,
d'Alembert, Maupertuis, Lagrange, Condillac,
Condorcet, Buffon, de Tracy, Cabanis, Turgot,
Grimm, Holbach, Diderot, Voltaire—a gallaxy of
intellectual giants unparallelled since the golden age
of Pericles, represented the spirit of the time. Their
effort could not be easily suppressed; it found access
everywhere, penetrated even the Court of Versailles.
Thanks to the good offices of Madame Pompadour,
and the savant Malesherbes, then Director-General of
the National Library, the government allowed
resumption of “a work honourable to the nation”. But
the Church and other powerful forces of reaction
gained the upperhand; the official ban was
reimposed, and organised rowdyism made printing
impossible. Finally, Diderot obtained private
permission to proceed with the printing on condition
that no volume would be published before the whole
work was completed. The books, however, found
wide circulation in the provinces of France as well as
in countries abroad. In Paris, they were read secretly,
and Madame Pompadour managed to have them
presented at a royal dinner party.
“No Encyclopedia perhaps has been of such political
importance, or has occupied so conspicuous a place in
the civil and literary history of its century.”18 “Theistic
but heretical, it was opposed to the Church, then all-
powerful in France; and it treated dogmas
historically.”17 The Encyclopedia has been described
as “a war machine”; ns it progressed, its attacks, on
the Church and still more on
16 Encyclopedia Eritannica, 13th Ed.
17 Rosenkranz, Life and Worths of Diderot.
 241

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 241

the despotic political regime as well as on Christianity
itself, became bolder and more undisguised.
The great popularity and far-reaching influence of the
Encyclopedia were the measure of the Enlightenment.
The light of the new philosophy of human freedom,
secular as well as spiritual, flashed over Europe like
the lightning before the thunder—of the coming
revolution. Napoleon appreciated the full value of the
Enlightenment when he said: “The Bourbons might
have preserved themselves if they had controlled
writing materials. The advent of the cannon killed the
feudal system; ink will kill the modern social
organisation.” The shrewd Corsican had the
premonition that his new Empire might follow the
ancien regime of the Bourbons. And he had reason to
be anxious. Because, “books rule the world. Nothing
enfranchises like education. When once a nation
begins to think, it is impossible to stop it.”18
Diderot spoke for the entire fraternity of the Philo-
sofhes, when in 1771 he wrote in a letter to a friend:
“The first attack against religion has been violent and
unmeasured. Once that men have in some manner
assaulted the barriers of religion, they cannot be
stopped. After they have turned their menacing looks
against the sovereigns of the skies, they will next
direct them against the sovereigns of the earth. The
cable which depressed humanity is of two strands:
the one cannot give way without the other soon
snapping.”
Yet, Diderot himself had travelled a long way before
he reached that point. He had opposed Materialism,
even as expressed cautiously in de la Mettrie's earlier
book, Natural History of the Soul. At that time, he
shared the pious romanticism of Shaftsbury who
described Christianity as “a cheerful and good-
tempered religion”, while declaring
18 Tallentyre, Voltaire.
16
 242

242 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

that “there lies in every human breast natural germ of
enthusiasm for virtue”. Shaftsbury's exuberant
optimism, hailed by the heralds of the revolution in
France, marked a clear departure from the classical
rationalism of his teacher, Locke, who distrusted
enthusiasm as the source of extravagance and self-
exaltation, as a noxious product of the over-heated
brain and as utterly opposed to all rational thought.19
Social purpose, however, drove Diderot to assume the
leadership of the crusade against God and religion;
and raising his voice against the intolerance, tyranny
and brutality of the established order, he exclaimed:
“What wrongs have these unhappy souls committed?
Who has condemned them to these torments? The
God whom they have offended. Who is then this
God? A God of infinite goodness? What! Can a God
of infinite goodness find any pleasure in bathing
himself in tears? These are people of whom we must
not say that they fear God, but that they are
frightened of him. Considering the picture that is
drawn for us of the Supreme Being, of his readiness to
anger, of the fury of his vengeance, of the
comparatively great number of those whom he allows
to perish, as compared with the few to whom he is
pleased to stretch forth a saving hand, the most
righteous soul must be tempted to wish that he did
not exist.”20
Enraged by the callous atmosphere in which cruel
injustice was committed, the calculating Voltaire also
finally abandoned the “polite persiflage of
agnosticism”, and joined the crusade against God and
religion with the thundering motto, Ecrasez l'lnfame
(Crush the Infamy). The cool critic and hardened
cynic gave way to a passionately partisan outburst of
righteous indignation. “This is not a time for jesting;
wit does not harmonise with massacres. Is this the
country of philosophy and pleasure? It is rather the
19Treatise
on Human Understanding. Chapter, “On
Enthusiasm.”
20 Rosenkranz, Life and Works of Diderot.
 243

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 243

country of the massacre of St. Bartholomew..... Come,
brave Diderot, intrepid d'Alembert, ally yourselves,
overwhelm the fanatics and the knaves, destroy the
insipid declamations, the miserable sophistries, the
lying history, the absurdities without number; do not
let those who have sense be subjected to those who
have none, and the generation which is being iorn
will owe to us its reason and liberty.”21 .
Rejecting the offer of a Cardinal's hat, an outraged old
man threw all his caution and calculations to the
winds and wrote the formidable Treatise on Toleration;
it was quickly followed up by a vast mass of anti-
clerical and anti-religious literature which flew in all
directions like a veritable fusillade from the “war
machine” charging ahead at a top speed. Declaring
that “big books are out of fashion”, enraged Voltaire
took to pamphleteering with the purpose of
popularising the new philosophy, and he was fully
successful as Napoleon testified subsequently. His
“little soldiers” were sold 'by hundreds of thousands
when literacy was very limited. The light reached
practically every man and woman who could read.
For the greater part of his long life, Voltaire was
rather an ecclectic, an intellectual acrobat, than a
passionate prophet, a- man with a message. Yet, with
Rousseau, he has been held responsible for the
revolution.22 The two certainly personified
respectively the two trends of thought which together
led France to the revolution—rationalism and
romanticism. Yet, Voltaire was not a classicist, which
he often pretended to be. His was the complex
personality of a highly civilised man in contrast to the
primitiveness of Rousseau. Erotic and neurotic, the
latter was also a complicated type, emotionally;
intellectually, Rousseau was naive—the archetype of
romantic revolutionary, for whom
21 Voltaire's Correspondence.
22 “Those two men have destroyed France.” (Louis XVI).
 244

244 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

thoughtless, fanatical, irrational passions were the
only human virtue. Voltaire, on the contrary, with all
his cynicism and frigidity, was a staurich believer in
man's role in history.
“His Sacred Majesty, Chance, decides everything.
True prayer lies not in asking for a violation of
natural law, but in the acceptance of natural law as
the unchangeable will of God.”23
“The Chancellor Bacon had shown the road which
science might follow. But then Descartes appeared
and did just the contrary of what he should have
done: Instead of studying nature, he wished to divine
her. This best of mathematicians made only romances
in philosophy. It is given to us to calculate, to weigh,
to measure, to observe; this is natural philosophy;
almost all the rest is chimera.”24
When Voltaire's remains were taken, from the
original modest place of burial, to the Pantheon, by
order of the Revolutionary National Assembly,
thirteen years after his death, the cortege bore the
inscription: “He gave the human mind a great
impetus; he prepared us for freedom.”
****
However, Denis Diderot, editor of the great
Encyclopedia, was the dynamo of the
Enlightenment—the most representative figure of the
“Voltairean Age”, and Holbach's System of Nature the
fullest expression of its spirit. -Published in 1770, the
System of Nature or The Laws of the Physical and Moral
Worlds in no time came to be known as the “Bible of
Materialism”. In it were set forth all the logical
consequences of the scientific knowledge
disseminated through the Encyclopedia. What was
implicit in the indifferently constructed and hurriedly
composed earlier work, was made explicit and co-
ordinated in a systematic
23 Voltaire's Correspondence.
24 Pellissier, Voltaire, Philosophe.
 245

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 245

statement of scientific naturalism. Though the
authorship of the book is attributed to Holbach, who
was certainly not a dummy, Diderot was its heart and
soul. It maintained that the Universe was nothing but
matter in spontaneous movement; that soul dies with
the body; that happiness is the end of mankind; that it
would be useless and unjust to insist upon a man's
being virtuous if he could not be so without being
unhappy; that the restraints of religion were to be
replaced by education to develop enlightened self-
interest; that the object of the study of science was to
bring human desires into line with their natural
surroundings. A whole philosophy was expounded in
detail to justify a direct attack upon the established
political regime and its social basis. It was a
philosophy which heralded the revolution.
The object of the book is stated clearly in the preface.
“Man is unhappy merely because he misunderstands
nature. His mind is so infected by prejudices that one
must almost believe him to be for ever doomed to
error; the chains of illusion in which he is so
entangled from childhood have so grown upon him
that he can only with the utmost trouble be again set
free from them. Unhappily, he struggles to rise above
the visible world, and painful experiences constantly
remind him of the futility of his attempts. Man
disdained the study of nature to pursue after
phantoms, that, like will-o'-the-wisps, dazzled him
and drew him from the plain path of truth, away from
which he cannot attain happiness. It is therefore time
to speak in nature remedies against the evils into
which fanaticism has plunged us.”
To secure the happiness of mankind being the
purpose of philosophy, “the right of people to revolt
in desperate circumstances” was declared as an
axiomatic truth. There-'fore, revolution must be
regarded as a natural and necessary event. “As
government only derives its powers from society, and
is established only for its good, it is evident that
society may revoke this power when its interests
demand, may
 246

246 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

change the form of government, extend or limit the
power intrusted to its leaders, over whom it retains
supreme authority, by the immutable law of nature
that subordinates the part to the whole.”
The criticism of the traditional notion of public
morality was very drastic; nevertheless, it was so true
that it is-equally valid even in our time. “We only see
so many crimes on earth because everything
conspires to make mea criminal and vicious. Their
religions, their governments,, their education, the
examples before their eyes, all drive them irresistibly
to evil;' in vain then does morality preaca virtue
which would only be a painful sacrifice of happines;
in societies where vice and crime are perpetually
crowned,, honoured and rewarded, and where the
most frightful disorders are only punished in those
who are too weak to have-the right to commit them
with impunity. Society chastises in the small the
excesses that it respects in the great, and often is
unjust enough to condemn to death those whom the
prejudices that it maintains have rendered criminal.”
Towards the end, the book rises to great heights of
rhetoric without leaving the solid foundation of
reason. Whoever might have written the rest, in its
conclusion the inspired and inspiring voice of Diderot
is unmistakable. The fruits of philosophical enquiry
will sooner or later benefit all, just as is already the
case with the results of the natural sciences. The new
ideas will encounter violent opposition; but men will
gradually learn from experience. We must not limit
our views to the present; the new philosophy is valid
also for the future of all mankind. The last chapter is
reminiscent of the immortal poem of Lucretius. There,
Nature is discoursing. She invites mankind to obey
her laws, to enjoy the happiness which is their
birthright, to cultivate virtue and disdain vice, but not
to hate the vicious who are to be pitied for their
misfortune. Then, the author speaks again as it were
for himself:
 247

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 247

Nature has her apostles who are tirelessly engaged in
promoting the happiness of man; those of them who
may not succeed will have the satisfaction of having
ventured to make the attempt. Finally, Nature and
her daughters, Virtue, Reason and Truth, are invoked
as the only deities to be adored and worshipped.
Diderot was the personification of the spirit of the
Age of Enlightenment, because in him were
harmonised the apparently conflicting outlooks of the
two men who between themselves are said to have
discredited the old order and invoked the forces of
the new, namely, the rationalist Voltaire and the
romanticist Rousseau. The evolution of the spirit of
the age can be traced in the biography of Diderot.
“The man of fire and genius, who is so often called
the head and leader of the Materialists, not only
needed a long course of development before he
reached what can be properly called a materialistic
standpoint, but even to the last moment remained in a
state of ferment which never allowed him to perfect
and elucidate his views. The noble nature which
comprised in itself all the virtues and all the faults of
the Idealist, specially, zeal for human welfare, self-
sacrificing friendship, and unfaltering faith in the
good, the beautiful, the true, and in the perfectibility
of the world, was driven by the tendency of the times
and against his will towards Materialism.”25
It is not true that Diderot embraced Materialism
against his will. Materialism, a philosophy of life
based on scientific knowledge, was the spirit of the
time, which produced Diderot as its most
representative spokesman. The doubt about Diderot's
materialist conviction results from the fact that he did
not fill the role cast for the Materialist by ignorance
and prejudice. A Materialist is supposed to be morally
25 Lange, History of Materialism.
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248 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

perverse, aesthetically insensitive, culturally coarse
and generally selfish. A scientific naturalist,
philosophically, and a rationalist to the core,
conceiving reason as a human faculty, Diderot
nevertheless was an archetype of Shaftsbury's
“Moralists”—an enthusiastic believer in “the ever-
lasting beauty which runs through the whole world
and combines all apparent dissonances into a deep,
full-toned, harmony.”
In other words, in Diderot, reason and romanticism
combined to produce a perfected human philosophy,
and inspire a revolutionary intellectual and social
movement which swept the whole of Europe.
Therefore, his most competent and impartial
biographer has aptly compared Diderot with Socrates.
Like the ancient Sage of Athens, the great intellectual
leader of the eighteenth century was the most
representative figure of a period of transition, and as
such reflected all the significant currents and cross-
currents of thought and emotion; and they found a
harmony in Diderot's personality. “In him, the
process of the times from the Regency to the
Revolution (the whole Age of Reason) fulfilled itself
in all the phases of its development. There was in
Diderot, as in Socrates, something demonic. He was
then only completely himself when, like Socrates, he
had raised himself up to the ideas of the True, the
Good and the Beautiful. Only in this ecstasy did he
become the real Diderot whose enraptured eloquence,
like that of Socrates, carried every listener away.”26
In the seventeenth century, when modern philosophy
was born, intellectual creativeness was highly
individualised. Complete systems were built by
individual philosophers. The Enlightenment of the
eighteenth century was the creation of a fraternity of
philosophers. Both the Encyclopedia and The System of
Nature were results of collective intellectual efforts.
The eighteenth century was swept by the
26 Rosenkranz, Life and Worlds of Diderot.
 249

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 249

springtide of an unprecedented exuberance of the
human spirit. Intellect, talent, genius, sensibility,
imagination ran riot. But there was an underlying
unity of purpose: To humanise and democratise
philosophy, so that it could be the instrument to
promote the cause of freedom, progress and
happiness.
“It lay in the nature of that seething time that all the
various revolutionary tendencies reacted upon each
other. If Diderot enthusiastically eulogised morality,
the thought of attacking the very basis of morality
might be awakened in another mind, whilst in both
minds there prevailed the same hatred of priestly
morality and of the humiliation of mankind by the
despotism of the clergy. Voltaire might arouse
atheists with an apology for the existence of God,
because he was above all things concerned to deprive
the Church of the monopoly of the theistic doctrine
which it had so misused and distorted. In this
unceasing torrent of assault upon all authority, the
tone became undoubtedly more and more radical.”27
Materialism, as it crystallised out of this background
of intellectual ferment, emotional exuberance, moral
indignation, political disaffection, economic chaos
and social discontent, was not a dogmatic system
rationally constructed by one single philosopher. It
was neither a purely rationalist system of thought
denying human will and human endeavour any
significance in its secular teleology; nor was it a
dogmatic doctrine proclaiming the fictitious
sovereignty and impotent free will of the atomised
individual. Created by man, on the basis of collective
human experience, Materialism, as it was elaborated
by Diderot and his fellow-philosophes, was a human
philosophy which took all the aspects of numan
existence into consideration, and attached equal
importance to every manifestation of human spirit
and
27 Lange. History of Materialism.
 250

250 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

every form of man's creativeness. The Renaissance
found its culmination in the Enlightenment.
“Most of the philosophers of the French Revolution
combined science with beliefs associated with
Rousseau, Helvetius and Condorcet may be regarded
as typical in their combination of rationalism and
enthusiasm.”28 De la Mettrie formulated the
metaphysics of Materialism; Helvetius provided the
ethics, and his ethical system, deduced from the
materialist metaphysics of de la Mettrie, was at the
same time deeply coloured by romanticism. An
enthusiastic believer in man's essential rationality as
well as goodness,. Helvetius held that only a perfect
education was needed to make man perfect. “Men are
born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by
education.” Helvetius profoundly influenced the
moral philosophy of the nineteenth century. “What
Bacon was to the physical world, Helvetius was to the
moral. The moral world has, therefore, had its Bacon,
but its Newton is still to come.” 9 The pious founder of
utilitarian ethics perhaps believed himself to be the
Newton of the moral world. His equally pious
colleague, James Mill, recommended the Materialist
Helvetius to be the guide of his son's education, and
the latter became the prophet of philosophical
Radicalism.
Condorcet was the youngest member of the fraternity
of philosophes. He was in the prime of life when the
revolution broke out; and he participated in it, only to
be one of its innumerable innocent victims. Though a
mathematician, the emotional strand of the
philosophy of revolution predominated in him. But at
the critical moment, rationalism prevailed, and
refusal to be swept away by the irrational
revolutionary enthusiasm cost him his life. His faith
in the liberating mission of the revolution, however,
never flagged, not even when he was martyred by the
frenzy of the callous.
28 Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy.
29 Bentham.
 251

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 251

brutality of its fanatical exuberance. On the contrary,
he wrote his main philosophical treatise while
haunted by the ferocious spectre of the guillotine, in
an atmosphere of confusion and violence, created by
the fanatical devotees of the blood-thirsty cult of
revolution. In the critical days of 1791, Condorcet was
the first to demand publicly that the monarchy should
be replaced by a republic. Thus, he broke away from
the tradition of classicist rationalism of the Girondists.
Yet, he did not join the Jacobins. Elected to the
Convention from five constituencies, Condorcet was
among those who found the King guilty of conspiring
against liberty, but he would not vote for his death.
The independence of advocating that the severity of
justice might be softened with compassion brought
him under the suspicion of Jacobin intolerance; he
was accused of conspiracy against the Republic and
declared an outlaw. With the help of friends, he
managed to escape the guillotine and lived in bidding
for the rest of his life—a little more than a year.
During that time, he wrote L'Equtsse d'nn Tableau
Htstonque des Progres de I'Esprit Humain (The Outlines
of a Picture of the History of the Progress of Human
Spirit). It was an eloquent exposition of the
evolutionary view of history and of the philosophy of
revolution deduced from it.
All the evils of life had resulted from a conspiracy of
priests and princes, who created unjust laws and
oppressive institutions to rob the freedom of their
fellow-men. But mankind was bound to vanquish its
enemies and liberate itself from all bondage.
Continuous progress in the past proves human
perfectibility, which promises endless progress in the
future. Starting from the lowest stage of barbarism,
with no superiority over other animals except that of
the structure of his body, man advances
uninterruptedly in the path of enlightenment, virtue
and happiness.
That is a brief statement of the premises on which
Condorcet built his theory of history in ten stages.
The
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252 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

ninth began with the great intellectual revolution of
the eighteenth century and culminated in the gigantic
political and social upheaval of 1789. The tenth epoch
was still to come. Its nature could be inferred from the
general laws which regulated the past. The three main
tendencies manifested in the entire history of the past
will also be the characteristic features of the future.
They are: (1) Destruction of inequality between
nations; (2) Disappearance of inequality between
classes; and (3) Improvement of individuals resulting
from the indefinite perfectibility of human nature,
intellectually, morally and physically.
That is the Utopia of rationalism; but the future
depicted by Condorcet's optimism is really not a
dreamland. There will he no absolute equality; it will
be an equality of rights and liberties. Equally free,
men and nations will be equal: they are tending
towards equality, because all are moving towards
freedom. Condorcet's historicism was not a secular
teleology; nor was his rationalism metaphysical. He
knew that human progress was conditioned by the
given circumstances of existence, political as well as
social. But he held that progress could not be checked
for ever, although it might be delayed or retarded.
There is no limit to the advancement of knowledge
and virtue; indefiniteness of progress and human
perfectibility result from the power of unbounded
knowledge and moral excellence. Therefore, Con-
dorcet, like Helvetius, attached great importance to
popular education, which would create conditions for
sure progress. That was the cardinal principle of the
great intellectual revolution, which was therefore
called the Enlightenment.
The torch of truth held high by the philosophers of
the eighteenth century, however, was not
extinguished. It blazed a luminous trail into the
darkness of an unknown future, which is still to be
travelled by mankind. The Enlightenment remains a
human heritage, itself the noblest creation of man's
genius. Voltaire eulogised Reason because
 253

THE ENLIGHTENMENT 253

Truth was her daughter. He distrusted enthusiasm
and was sceptical of Utopias. Yet, he was not quite
immune from the contagion of the general spirit of
the time. When Turgot came to power, he exclaimed:
“We are in the Golden Age up to our neck.” Perhaps
that was veiled sarcasm of the cynic. But presently he
was more explicit.
“Everything appears to be throwing broadcast the
seed of revolution, which must some day inevitably
come. Light extends so from neighbour to neighbour,
that there will be a splendid outburst, and then there
will be a rare commotion!”
That also might have been an outburst of subtle
scepticism; but it was prophetic nonetheless. Truth
after all is the daughter of Reason, and Voltaire was a
rationalist.
 254

CHAPTER X
THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I
THE closing decade of the eighteenth century was
marked by events which dealt such a smashing blow
to the social order and political institutions of Europe
that those time-honoured but dilapidated structures
crumbled during the following age of revolution. The
events took place in France, but they had a
repercussion throughout Europe. France was the focal
point of a European, indeed a worldwide, movement.
It was the eruption of a volcano of human will and
human energy which had been seething for centuries.
Worn-out monuments of mediaeval barbarism were
buried under the fiery excrescence of the eruption,
which rocked the entire continent. An unrestrained
outburst of passion and a riotous display of violent
emotions seemed to throw rationality also in the
scrap-heap of discarded ideas and discredited ideals.
The Age of Reason appeared to end in an orgy of
intolerance and irrationalism; at the same time,
revolutionary enthusiasm for the classical tradition of
the pre-Christian pagan antiquity made a carricature
of Reason.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man was followed by
the reign of terror which gave birth to the saying that
revolution consumes her own children. It seemed
that, given the chance of making history, man could
only mar it. Was it necessary for the revolution to be
so very violent and Wood-thirsty? Numerous books
have been written to condemn the callous
extravagances of men who professed to pursue the
sublime ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity; to
point out that liberty was the price demanded for a
fictitious equality; and that revolutionaries cutting
each others' throats made a mockery of the ideal of
fraternity.
 255

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 255

Alas! All that is only too true. Nevertheless, a radical
readjustment of social relations and complete
overhaul of political institutions were the crying
needs of the time. Not even the severest critic of the
revolution denies that the old regime was altogether
untenable. They only maintain that its substitution by
a new order might have taken place gradually and
peacefully. It is idle to speculate about the alternative
possibilities of past history. The purpose of historical
research is to understand why events moved as they
did.
The fundamental issue of the Great European
Revolution was the sanction for political authority;
the doctrine of popular sovereignty was opposed to
the dogma of the divine right of kings. The Great
Revolution was a sequel to the Renaissance—the
revolt of man against God. As the final act of a great
drama unfolding over several centuries, it was bound
to be a stirring and spectacular demonstration of the
pathos of human will, human energy and human
passion. In such climacterics of the drama of history,
actors are liable to lose balance. That is why
revolutions tend to be violent; and that was the case
with the French Revolution. Deplorable as some of its
features certainly were, no dispassionate historian can
justify the conditions which made it almost inevitable.
“The revolution was inevitable and indispensable. It
was the explosion and revenge of the noblest feeling
of humanity—I mean, energy.”1 That is the verdict of
a distinguished historian who is beyond the suspicion
of partiality or dogmatism.
The religious wars of the sixteenth century and the
Thirty Years' War having disintegrated the Holy
Roman Empire and also weakened the power of
Spain, by the middle of the seventeenth century
France held the proud position ,of the paramount
State of Europe. She attained that position very
largely thanks to the astuteness of
1 Louis Madelin, The French Revolution.
 256

256 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Richelieu who took full advantage of the Thirty Years
War i to increase the military power of France. The
Catholic con-S science of the Cardinal did not prevent
him from helping 'the Protestant Princes of Germany
against Rome. Finally, France reached the zenith of
her glory and grandeur during the long reign of Louis
XIV, who therefore was hailed as the “Grand
Monarch”, the “Sun King”. Not only was France the
paramount political and military power; she also
became the leader of European civilisation and
culture. The age of Louis XIV was the age of Pascal,
Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Bossuet, Fenelon, La
Fontaine, to mention only a few at random. “The age
of Louis XIV occupies in the history of France a place
analogous to that of the age o£v Pericles in the history
of Greece, and Augustus in the history of Rome.”2 It
was the apotheosis of absolute monarchy. The
magnificent structure of power, glory and apparent
prosperity was reared upon an inequitable and
oppressive social system. The nobility and the
Church, which .between themselves owned
practically all the land, were exempt from taxation.
The entire burden fell on the peasantry. The result of
that inequitable system of taxation was that public
finance, even under conditions of apparent prosperity
was threatened with bankruptcy. Great financial
experts and administrators like Colbert, Necker and
Turgot were called upon to tackle the problem. They
planned reforms, which however could not be carried
through within the framework of the established
social relations. “If the policy initiated by Richelieu
may be credited with leading to the triumphs of the
age of Louis XIV, it must equally be held to have
contributed to bring about the disasters of the
revolution.”3
The policy initiated by Richelieu and perfected by
Louis
2 Robert Flint, The History of the Philosophy of History.
3 Ibid.
 257

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 257

XIV was to curtail the powers of the feudal nobility
without encroaching upon their privileges, and to
extend royal patronage to the rising class of
merchants and bankers. The civil administration was
gradually manned by talented members of the new
class in return for the patronage, the great banking
houses lent money to the Court, so that the perennial
threat of financial bankruptcy could be headed off.
On the other hand, the feudal privileges of the
nobility were left intact on condition that they would
reside in the capital to add to the grandeur of the
Court. The motive of the policy was to free the
provincial administrative and fiscal machinery from
the interference of local powers, so that it could be
placed under the control of bourgeois officials
appointed directly by the Court. The progressive
significance of that Machiavellian policy, however,
was counter-balanced by the fact that it made the
parasitic nature of the wealthy upper classes more
evident than ever. The latter, in their turn, were
thoroughly demoralised by the idleness and frivolity
of Court life. The result of the system was general
corruption and demoralisation of the ruling class.
Nothing short of a revolution could put an end to that
state of affairs. But the victims of tyranny, despotism,
anarchy and economic exploitation did not feel that
need. If it is true that those factors were the sole and
direct cause of the revolution, that they drove the
people to revolt against intolerable conditions of life,
then the revolution should have taken place a century
earlier, on the death of the Grand Monarch, at any
rate. “The misery of the great mass of the people
foreboded a terrible reckoning. When the old king
died in 1715, a general sense of relief was felt
throughout
France. But the monarchy itself was unshaken; its
princi-
* “It was not necessary for the bourgeoisie to revolt;
they were in power since the reign of Louis XIV.”
(Madelin, The French Revolution.)
17
 258

258 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

ples had not even been assailed. The temper of the
French, people was still the reverse of revolutionary
or disloyal.”5
Under the Orleans Regency, conditions grew worse.
Inefficiency and corruption made the government an
object of lidicuie. The Court sank to the lowest depth
of demoralisation. On the whole, during the earlier
part of the eighteenth century, the ruling power was
thoroughly decayed and disintegrated; it could resist
a popular onslaught even less successfully than at the
end of the century. Tradition was its only defence,
and that proved still to be effective. But as soon as the
popular mind was freed from the paralysing grip of
tradition, the objective need for a revolution dawned
in the consciousness of the generality; the monarchy
ceased to be sacrosanct. It collapsed practically
without any resistance, and the decayed structure of
the old order crumbled into ruins like the walls of
Jericho.
The revolution presupposed a challenge to the king's
authority; his divine right to rule must be contested
before the people would dare revolt against his
despotism. That precondition was created by the
Enlightenment. A philosophy which denied the very
existence of the Divinity, logically destroyed the
traditional moral sanction of the monarchy. If divine
right was a fiction, what was the sanction of the king's
authority? That was the beginning of the end; the
Enlightenment was the effective cause of the
revolution;6 and the ^origin of the philosophy of the
Enlightenment could be traced to the intellectual
Renaissance of the twelfth century, if one did not
want to go back further into the long, long process of
the spiritual growth of man. The eighteenth century
Materialism was not the philosophy of the rising
5 Flint, The History of the Philosophy of History.
6 “The revolution was the outcome of realities; but it
cannot be denied that without the help of
Enlightenment it could not have arisen.”
(Madelin, The French Revolution).
 259

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 259

Bourgeoisie, nor was the Enlightenment a bourgeois
ideological movement.
“Every one of them (leaders of the revolution) bears
the impress of the same philosophy—a purely
destructive philosophy. The revolution, prepared and
brought about by men of intellect and writers, was
impregnated with the ideas that .had ruled the '
Republic of Letters' for fifty years: ideological
dogmatism, classicism, cosmopolitanism,
humanitarianism, .anti-Charistianism, and a
philosophism destructive of all authority. They stirred
up men's minds and sowed a ferment from within.”7
Jacobins, Cordelieres, the Society of the Equals, no
less than the Girondists, were all moved by ideas
developed from the antiquity to the Enlightenment.
Baboeuf's defence has been described as a summing
up of the unrealised ideals of the Enlightenment and a
vindication of their necessity. On that occasion, he
said: “You say that my ideas will send society back to
barbarism. The great philosophers of the century did
not think so; I am their disciple. Under the monarchy,
I could get hold of the pernicious books of Mably,
Helvetius, Diderot and Jean-Jacques.”
The Church had always been the strongest bulwark of
the monarchy. By holding the popular mind under
the sway of the superstitions and prejudices of
religion, it had kept alive the tradition of loyalty to
the monarchy. There had been scepticism even at the
time of the “most Christian King”, as Louis XIV was
called, but it was limited to high philosophical circles.
Open attacks against the Church and religion began
only under the Regency. That significant
development was traced in detail by Rocquain in a
book called The Revolutionary Spirit Previous to the
Revolution. In 1751, “an anti-monarchical wind” was
blowing over France. The influence of the ideas of
Bayle, Voltaire, Montesquieu,
7 Ibid.
 260

260 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

de la Mettrie, Helvetius, was already making itself
felt. “If. the altar trembled, would the throne sand?” 8
The Christian belief about the relation between God
and man, shaken already in the seventeenth century,
was completely overwhelmed in the earlier decades
of the eighteenth. The attack was delivered from two
sides: in addition to the atheism of the new
philosophy, based on science, Christian, faith was
opposed by the “natural religion” of the deists.
Rousseau was the prophet of the new faith. It is true
that the natural religion affected only a very small
minority of “great lords, courtiers, princes and
ministers, writers and men of learning, but .they were
the men who controlled governments and influenced
public opinion.”9
The monarchy was sustained by the twin pillars of the
nobility and the clergy. Both of them felt the impact of
the new spirit of scientific naturalism and natural
religion. “The new teaching had imprinted itself on
the minds of these men of noble birth more deeply
than on any others. Some had lost all religious belief,
and admitted the fact: others, unconsciously, had lost
all faith in monarchy: almost all had lost their faith in
their own rights. The revolution, to them,, meant a
rebellion against the despotism of kings and the
fanaticism of priests.”10 Referring to the reaction of
the lower clergy, the same critical historian writes:
“The inferior clergy viewed their disreputable
superiors with anger, jealousy and shame. For years
these 'parish priests, sons of the people, and profound
believers, had been imbibing the democratic spirit,
because they too had become imbued to-some extent
with the spirit of philosophy.”11
In a small town, twenty-four out of the forty
subscribers to the Encyclopedia were priests. That
was a typical case.
8 Ibid.
9 Seignobos, The History of the Rise of Modern
Civilisation.
10 Madelin, The French Revolution.
11 Ibid.
 261

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 261

The spiritual foundation of the old order were
irreparably undermined by the new philosophy,
assisted by the natural religion which emasculated
faith by depriving it of fanaticism.
The French philosophy of the eighteenth century
“was sweeping in its rejection of authority,
recognising none save that of reason, and exempting
nothing from the criticism of reason. Ancient
tradition, common consent, faith of the Church,
scripture, were held to be worthless except in so far as
conformed to, and vouched for by, reason. Specially
Christian doctrines were treated by all the adherents
of the new philosophy as absurd and pernicious
superstitions; and although the principles of theism
were accepted by a class of them as rationally
warranted, a class not less numerous assailed all
religious beliefs as illusions. The new philosophy was
eminently rationalistic. It was not, however, calmly
and temperately, but keenly and passionately, so.”12
In that philosophical atmosphere, Rousseau's was the
only discordant voice. His quarrel with Diderot and
others created the belief that the so-called romantic
movement was a revolt against the tyranny of reason.
If romanticism is confused with the morbid
sentimentalism of Rousseau, then it can be regarded
as antithetical to reason. In so far as Rousseau was a
rebel against reason, that is to say, against the
scientific philosophy of the eighteenth century, he
was the prophet not of the Great Revolution but of
the post-revolutionary reaction, which placed a good
deal of literary talent at the service of neo-
Catholicism. Rousseau undoubtedly was an
evangelist of the revolution; the credit of having made
the largest single contribution to its emotional aspect
belongs to him. But he played the very important Tole
neither as a preacher of the natural religion (deism)
nor as a mystic moralist, nor again as the dreaming
naturalist
12 Flint, The History of the Philosophy of History.
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262 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

that he was. Popularisation of the doctrine of social
contract was his contribution to the ideology of the
revolution; and with him it was a quasi rationalist
doctrine, deduced from the earlier social and political
philosophies of Grotius, Puffendorf, Hobbes and
Locke. There is some evidence to show that Rousseau
learned also from Vico. His doctrine was only quasi
rationalist because, in his characteristic manner, he
disowned all indebtedness, and to prove his
originality, he vehemently criticised theories which he
appropriated, placing upon a plagiarism the strong
imprint of his moving rhetoric and a superb literary
style.
In any case, no significant leader of the revolution
was inspired by Rousseau's sentimentdlism and his
animus against civilisation, science and progress.
Robespierre was the only outstanding exception; and
there was little of sentimentality in his cold
calculating craftiness. Only as a sanctimonious
moralist, he was a disciple of Rousseau. All the rest of
the outstanding leaders of the revolution were
avowed rationalists. They had read Anaxagoras and
Cicero no less avidly than Rousseau's works. Danton,
the greatest personality produced by the revolution,
was frankly not an admirer of Rousseau.
On the one side, practically all the men who had
brought about the revolution, and actually led it from
one triumph to another until it became a mad carnage
claiming those very men for its first victims—
Mirabeau, Brissot, Verghiaucl Lanjuinais, Rabaud,
Barbaroux, Condorcet, the Rollands, to-name only the
most outstanding—were saturated with the
rationalist scientific spirit of the eighteenth century.
Their attitude towards Rousseau's philosophy was
represented by Voltaire, who, having read the
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, wrote to the
author: “I have received, Sir, your new book against
the human species, and I thank you for it. No one has
ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into
brutes; to read your book makes one long to go on
 263

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 263

all fours. As, however, it is now some sixty years
since I gave up the practice, I feel that it is
unfortunately impossible for me to resume it.”
On the other extreme, the Hebertists were fascinated
neither by Rousseau's pious sentimentalism nor by
his moral cant. They were attracted by his
denunciation of private property. Those terrorists, the
early harbingers of the cult of proletarian
dictatorship, were instinctively captivated by the
totalitarian implication of Rousseau's political theory
Robespierre and the small circle of his personal
associates, were the only orthodox adherents of
Rousseau's metaphysics and moral philosophy. That
is a very important fact, revealing the sinister
significance of the concept of the collective ego which
is the essence of Rousseau's political philosophy. As
the personification of that imaginary absolute
authority, Robespierre wanted to establish a personal
dictatorship; and the other orthodox disciples of
Rousseau were the open of Thermidore who set up
the Directoire and helped NapMeon to assume
dictatorial power.
Certain facts of Rousseau's life may create the
impression that he stood outside the current of
contemporary thought as the prophet of a
philosophy, all of his own. He actually lived the
earlier part of his life as an individual isolated from
the intellectual atmosphere of the time. Subsequently,
he came in contact with the fraternity of the
philosophes who dominated the spiritual life of the
eighteenth century. But the association lasted for a
short period. Thereafter, he again played a lone hand;
and yet, he came to be recognised as one of the
inspirers of the revolution, if not its sole prophet. And
his influence, like that of Voltaire, and the
Encyclopedists, radiated beyond the frontiers of
France. It inspired the belated Renaissance of
Germany, and also the English romantic literary
movement of the early nineteenth century. Whatever
might have been the measure of Rousseau's European
influence, it was not exactly revolu-
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264 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

tionary. The post-revolutionary romantic movement
was definitely reactionary, in social and political
matters, although that does not detract from the
excellence of its literary creation. Rousseau's
European reputation was that of a master of style.
Chateaubriand imitated his style, and set the standard
of the nineteenth century romantic literature.
Rousseau can hardly be called a philosopher. He was
a sentimentalist, a dreamer, a Utopian; and even as
such he was not the product of an immaculate
conception. To build an ideal society in imagination
was the characteristic feature of the literature of the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The
dream was to be realised in a regenerated monarchy.
“This feeling as well as the discontent with which it
was associated found their earliest and clearest
expression in the political romances or Utopias which
were written in France during the latter part of the
seventeenth and the earlier part of the eighteenth
century. Hope springing immortal in the human
breast, a suffering people is naturally prophetic. It is
in their times of sorest depression that nations usually
indulge most in dreams of a better future, and that
their imaginations produce most freely social ideals
and Utopias. But all the ideals and Utopias which
appeared in France in this period had a common
character. They were only so many forms of the
prophesy of a perfect commonwealth centering in,
and depending on, a perfectly wise and irresistibly
powerful paternal ruler.”13
Rousseau belonged to that tradition; only the good
king had no place in his Utopia. He was a revivalist
nonetheless, asking mankind to turn back upon
civilisation and return to the legendary Golden Age of
Arcadia. He had not outgrown the faith in monarchy;
his idea of democracy was cast in the mould of the
City Republics of ancient Greece.
Nor was Rousseau an original thinker, either as a
moralist
13 Flint, The History of the Philosophy of History.
 265

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 265

condemning private property as the root of all social
evils, or as a preacher of natural religion. Abbe'
Morelly was the prophet of the cult of collectivism;
through Fourrier, he inspired the socialist movement
of the nineteenth century. His book, Code de la Nature,
was published ten years before the Social Contract.
The sentiments expressed therein were so very
radical, much more so than Rousseau's, that its
authorship was for a long time ascribed to Diderot.
Morelly fully accepted the view that man is a sentient
physical organism> his object being the attaintment of
pleasure. But the pursuit of happiness is not immoral,
because human nature is good and innocent.
“Morality implies no antagonism between the
passions and duty, for the former are legitimate and
sovereign, and would cause no harm if allowed free
play. The great social problem is to find a situation in
which the passions will be fully gratified, while it will
be almost impossible for men to be tempted or
depraved. It can only be solved through the
elimination of avarice, the only vice in the we. Id, the
universal pest of mankind, the slow fever or
consumptive disease of society.” The Utopia will be
achieved when private property is abolished and
wealth possessed collectively. Rousseau did not
advocate a more revolutionary reconstruction of
society.
Mably, also a catholic scholar, was another ideologist
of the revolution. He was a deist, believing in a good
God and moral law. He laid great emphasis on the
place of morality in politics, and held that without
religion morality was not possible. He also
condemned private property as the cause of social
inequalities. “If you follow the chain of your vices,
you will find that the first link is fastened to the
inequality of wealth.” Mably anticipated the
“scientific Socialism” of Marx by declaring that
communal ownership of wealth and social equality
prevailed at the dawn of history and they would be
characteristic features of the ideal society of the
future.
 266

266 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

As a Utopian moralist, as a preacher of natural
religion, in opposition to Christian orthodoxy, as a
prophet of collectivism, Rousseau thus did not stand
alone; he had predecessors as well as contemporaries.
Together with them, he gave a purely emotional
expression, to the spirit of the age, without himself
imbibing it intellectually. In fateful periods of history,
when mankind is called upon to perform acts of great
heroism, be it for good or for evil, sentimental appeals
to emotion, if they are couched in a stirring language,
find more immediate and spectacular response. That
is why, when the revolution broke out, Rousseau's
influence appeared to be greater than that of the
Enlightenment, though it was the philosophical
revolution which created the consciousness of the
need for a radical political and social reconstruction;
and it was that new consciousness which responded
to Rousseau's rhetorics. “Both were sons of their age,
but Voltaire inherited its more general characteristics,
and Rousseau, such as were less common. Hence the
latter is often erroneously regarded as having been a
man of greater independence and originality of
thought, and less imbued with the spirit of the time.
In reality, there was little substantial novelty in his
teaching, and even when he opposed certain
tendencies of the age, it was in the spirit of the age.
Had he been more original, he would have been less
influential.”14
That is an excellent description of Rousseau's place in
history and appreciation of the role he actually
played. The spirit of the age was the belief that man
could make his destiny. Rousseau's “noble savage”
appealed to that faith as Prometheus Unbound.
Therefore it was such a powerful appeal. For those
who responded to the appeal, it was not a call of the
wild; it was the tocsin for a heroic assault on the
stagnant present, to blaze the trail into the darkness of
14 Flint, The History of the Philosophy of History.
 267

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 267

the future already illuminated by science. The
revolution stimulated heroism and afforded chances
of attaining greatness. Its activities were romantic. Its
style and thought, however, were thoroughly
classical. Its doctrines were derived from the
philosophy of the eighteenth century. Its imagination
was cast in the moulds of the classical antiquity and
abstract reason. It argued on the authority of Plutarch
and it established the worship of Reason.
****
The recollection of the religious and civil wars which
had devastated Germany, England and France up to
the closing decades of the seventeenth century,
created a distrust for the emotional attitude to life,
which so very easily degenerated into strong passions
and fanaticism. Completely exhausted by the Thirty
Years War, Germany lay prostrate in a state of
spiritual coma. In England, Locke frowned upon
enthusiasm. Under Louis XIV, France came out of the
dismal age of religious wars and entered the Age of
Reason. It was long since she had experienced an
unbroken period of order, security and apparent
prosperity. From the point of view of the classes
which constituted the social basis of the monarchy, it
was a golden age; and the wisdom of Colbert shared
by the king tried to broaden the social basis of the
monarchy. The attempted policy was to establish a
direct relation between the king and the people so as
to undermine the position of the feudal aristocracy.
Instead of being the leader of his nobles, the king
posed as the benevolent protector of his people.
Paternalism reinforced the position of the monarchy,
and loyalty to the status quo became a general
sentiment. The peasants also were relieved by the end
of incessant wars, and, notwithstanding many
grievances, became attached to a regime which had
established peace and order. There was a general
distrust for any innovation. The spirit of conservatism
promoted classical learning. The idea of a law-
governed Universe as revealed in the Newtonian
cosmo-
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268 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

logy, fitted into that atmosphere of classical
conservatism. The world was destined to move
smoothly according to the laws of nature, if only the
orderly process was not disturbed by passions which
should therefore be placed under the censorship of
reason. Rationalism was identified with the defence of
the status quo. But it was not rationalism, but
classicism; the romantic movement was a revolt
against that spirit of conservatism, which rationalised
itself on the authority of classical learning. Therefore,
historically, romanticism was the harbinger of the
Great Revolution, and in that sense it was not
antithetical to the rationalism of the scientific
naturalist philosophy of the eighteenth century,
which prepared the 'ground for the revolution. The
two together constituted the revolt against the
classicism of the age of Louis XIV—a revolt which
culminated in the Great Revolution.15
The doctrine of Social Contract was Rousseau's main
contribution to revolutionary thought; the doctrine
itself is of rationalist tradition, having been postulated
first by Grotius and PufTendorf; given a definite
shape by Hobbes; and finally elaborated by Locke as
the foundation of his political philosophy.16
Montesquieu tried to establish the a priori doctrine
empirically. Politically, Rousseau was a
13 “Romanticism is not a revolt from reason, an emotional fling,
an escape from the real. It is a voyage of discovery with the
whole man as master. His reason, inseparably linked to his will,
guides his desire and conserves the fruits of his action.
Considered abstractly and separately, Reason and Will keep
pace with each other, now one leading by urging a want, now
the other by stretching the use of a means; both together
building up what in our sanguine moments we call civilisation.
In moments of dejection, we feel and see that by the test of both
reason and desire, civilisation falls short of its aim, and we are
reminded of the romantic truth that in his greatness himself man
is weak.” (Jacques Barzon, Romanticism and the Modern Ego.).
16 “Though the character and the original genius of Rousseau
were stamped upon every feature of his time, the doctrines of
the Social Contract are in all essentials borrowed from Locke and
from Sydney, and where thev diverge from their models, diey
fall speedily into absurdity.” (Lecky, The Rise of Rationalism in
Europe).
 269

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-1 269

disciple of Montesquieu; but having inherited from
him the notion of social contract, Rousseau reverted
to the earlier a priori conception. In the first draft of
the Social Contract, he wrote: “There are a thousand
ways of bringing men together; there is only one way
of truly uniting them. Therefore, in this work, I give
only one method for the formation of political
societies, though, there are perhaps no two among the
variety of associations that at present exist which
have arisen in the same way and not a single one
which was formed in the way I have indicated. But I
am seeking the rights and basis of society, and am not
quarreling about facts.”17 His doctrine is historically
false,18 although the idea of contract was very useful
for the development of the theory of political
constitutions. Not only in the eighteenth century, but
even later, the idea of social contract was believed to
be the foundation of the democratic political
philosophy. But Rousseau himself revealed the
dangerous implication of the idea, although for a long
time it escaped the notice of political thinkers and
constitutional theorists.
The revolutionaries of the eighteenth century
enthusiastically hailed the doctrine of contract as the
origin of civil society, because it provided a secular
sanction for the new political regime, to replace the
old order which drew its authority from the divine
right of kings. It served a political purpose; that was
the reason of Rousseau's popularity amongst the
revolutionaries. “The Social Contract became the bible
of most of the leaders in the French Revolution, but
no doubt, as is the fate of bibles, it was not carefully
read and was still less understood by many of its
disciples. By its doctrine of the general will, it made
17 C. E. Vaughan, The Political Writings of Rousseau.
18 The doctrine “is utterly unhistorical in character—a
product of conjecture, abstraction and argumentation,
all divorced from historical experience.” (Flint,
History of the Philosophy of History).
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270 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

possible the mystic identification of a leader with his
people, which has no need of confirmation by so
mundane an apparatus as the ballot box. Its first fruit
in practice was the reign of Robespierre; the
dictatorships of Russia and Germany (specially the
latter) are in part an outcome of Rousseau's
teachings.”19
The theory of social contract as elaborated by
Rousseau proves that democracy is not possible. He
conceived democracy only in the pattern of the city
states of ancient Greece. In the world of the
eighteenth century, when national States embraced
large territories and vast populations, direct
democracy was evidently not possible. So, Rousseau
lamented: “Were there a people of gods, their
government would be democratic. So perfect a
government is not for men.” Not only there were no
gods in the civilised world, but the “noble savage”,
full of goodness and simplicity, was also a thing of
the past. While scorching civilisation with the fire of
righteous indignation, and passionately preaching the
virtue of noble savagery, Rousseau nevertheless was
very logical in developing a political philosophy,
including a theory of the State. Since direct
democracy was not possible in the civilised world,
and the morally perverse civilised man would not
return to the purity and simplicity of the primitive
society, delegation of the sovereignty of the people to
an “elective aristocracy” is inevitable; that is the only
basis of an orderly society and stable government.
That is how social contract operates in the civilised
world.
An apparently democratic doctrine thus provides
justification for the delegation of power and its
concentration, which practice made an empty and
deceptive formality of the principle of democracy.
The social contract consists in “the total alienation of
each associate, together with all his rights, to the
whole community; as each gives himself
19 Bertrand Russell, History oj Western Philosophy.
 271

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 271

absolutely, the conditions are the same for all.”
Equality will be achieved as the cost of liberty! Since
absence of liberty is bondage, the equality established
under the social contract will be an equality of
bondage!
In Rousseau's theory of State not only is democracy a
still-born child, but totalitarianism is postulated as the
only practical principle. “If individuals retained
certain rights, as there would be no common superior
to decide between them and the public, each, being on
one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all;
the (pre-contractual) state of nature would thus
continue, and the association would necessarily
become inoperative or tyrannical.” To justify absolute
alienation of the individual, his vicarious sacrifice at
the altar of the new god of the collective ego,
Rousseau quietly discards his Utopian view of the
state of nature in which man is simple and good, and
adopt Hobbes' opinion that, when the primitive man
lived in the state of nature, it was a war of all against
all.
“Rousseau, like Hobbes, would organise society on
the basis of a compact which makes the ruling will or
sovereign authority indivisible, unlimited and
unconditioned; only whereas Hobbes would place the
absolute sovereignty in an individual will, Rousseau
would assign it to the collective will. The ideal
delineated in Leviathan is that of a monarchical
despotism, and the ideal delineated in the Social
Contract is that of a democratic despotism.”20
Robespierre tried to work out Rousseau's ideas; the
consequence was degeneration of the Great
Revolution into a reign of terror. Having seized
dictatorial power, Robespierre disowned reason and
introduced the worship of the Supreme Being.
A very significant fact of history is that, while the
monarchist reaction would have nothing to do with
Hobbes' monarchist political theory, Rousseau's idea
went into the
20 Flint, History of the Philosophy of History.
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272 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

making of the metaphysical conception of the State,
and through Fichte, became a patrimony of the anti-
democratic crusaders of the twentieth century.
Hobbes' picture of man in the state of nature is much
nearer to reality than Rousseau's noble savage full of
goodness and simplicity. One is a scientific
hypothesis, defective to the extent that it was based
upon very inadequate empirical knowledge,,
.whereas the other, a sentimental imagination
coloured by a fully warranted disgust with the
corruption, frivolity and rigid conventionalism of the
age of Louis XIV, which lingered in the upper strata
of the society of the eighteenth century.
Rousseau's approach to social problems was never
scientific; his was a purely subjective reaction. The
experience of the earlier part of his life embittered
him, and out of a morbid psychological state grew his
pessimistic view of history, denial of progress and
condemnation of civilisation as a curse.21 Disgusted
with the present, he could not be hopeful about the
future, because of his censorious attitude towards the
historical past. If there was no moral progress in the
past, a better future could not follow from the
immoral present.
Rousseau's picture of the future—of a romantic
21 In his maturer years, Rousseau appeared to have thought
differently. Describing the passage from an imaginary pre-social
condition to the civil state, he wrote: “It produces a very
remarkable change in man by substituting justice for instinct in
his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had
formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice of duty takes the
place of physical impulses and the right of appetite, does man,
who so far had considered only himself, find that he is forced to
act on different principles, and to consult his reason before
listening to his inclinations. Although in this state he deprives
himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains
in return others so great that, did not the abuses of this new
condition often degrade him below which he left, he would be
bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him
from it for ever, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal,
made him an intelligent being and a man.” (Social Contract). But
again Rousseau contradicted himself by setting up the doctrine
of the general will as the basic principle of his political
philosophy.
 273

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 273

Leviathan—could not be very inspiring for those
rationally pursuing the ideal of human freedom. He
condemned mankind to “democratic despotism”,
because he believed that, given the immorality and
perversity of the civilised man, he could not escape
that fate; nothing better was possible. The noble
savage—living blissfully in the simple state of nature
was the consolation prize Rousseau awarded himself.
His doctrine of social contract was reared upon a
legend created by his imagination: “Man is born free,
and everywhere he is in chains.” The first part of this
rhetorical flourish, with which Rousseau begins his
treatise on political science, is simply not true;22 at
best it is a dogmatic assertion; and the second part
implies that man is not capable of freedom. The two
cancel each other, and civilised mankind is
confronted with the choice between a return to the
imaginary blissful state of nature and the deceptive
Utopia of equality without liberty. The chains which
bind man everywhere result from civilisation; man is
responsible for , his own bondage, because civilisation
is his own creation. The logical deduction from these
rhetorics of Rousseau is that man can create only evil.
What then happens to his original goodness?
Rousseau's facile eloquence skips over such
embarrassing questions.23 But no critical student,
while fully appreciating his merits, can grant him the
credit of having founded the romantic movement
which reinforced reason with creative imagination.
Rousseau was simply irrational, and his morbid
imagination was destructive, not creative. ' But nature
takes her revenge; Rousseau's pers-
22“Man is not born free, but he becomes free in the measure in
which he becomes man, as he becomes man in the measure in
which he becomes free. And only as he becomes himself, can he
learn, to know himself.” (Flint, History of the Philosophy of
History).
23 Rousseau “was one of those writers who are eminently
destitute of the judgment .that enables men without
exaggeration to discriminate between truth and falsehood, and
yet eminently endowed with that logical faculty which enables
them to defend the opinions they have embraced. No one
plunged more recklessly into paradox, or supported those
paradoxes with more consummate skill.” (Lecky, The Rise of
Rationalism in Europe).

18
J
 274

274 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

pective of democratic despotism logically follows
from his inability to regard history as an evolutionary
process.
Though the notion of a contract as the foundation of
civil society had been a hypothesis of political science
before it was dogmatically elaborated by Rousseau,
he introduced in it an original concept of
sovereignty—that of the General Will. It was no
longer the imaginary contradiction between
rationalism and freedom; the conflict between
Rousseau and the philosophers of the eighteenth
century was the old conflict between faith and reason,
science and superstition.24 It was on this perennial
issue of the entire human history that Rousseau
disagreed with the Encyclopedists. “That moral
justice which seems to the philosophers a
presumption against Providence, is to me a proof of
its existence.”25 Notwithstanding his extravagant
romanticism, Rousseau could never get out of the
Calvinist tradition. His thoroughly unhistorical
judgment of civilisation was a Calvinist prejudice:
Human life is sinful, notwithstanding its goodness in
the state of nature. Again it was the influence of
Calvinist dogmatism which made him believe in the
emergence of an ordered system of human society:
Man is sinful, and left to himself can do only evil; but
God uses man and nations for the unfolding of his
will to create an orderly society. With the
metaphysical concept of the General Will, Rousseau
reintroduced teleology into
24“Rousseau was the first to discover, beneath the varying forms
human nature assumes, the deeply concealed essence of man
and the hidden law in accordance with which Providence is
justified by his observations. After Newton and Rousseau, the
ways of God are justified—and Pope's thesis is henceforth true.”
(Kant, Fragments).
“The eighteenth century held to its faith in reason and science
and saw in them 'des Menschen allerhoechste Kraft', man's
supreme power. It was convinced that it would take only the
complete development of man's understanding, only the
cultivation of all his intellectual powers, to transform man
spiritually and to produce a new and happier humanity. But
Rousseau had broken widi this faith; to it he had opposed that
passionate indictment against the arts and sciences contained in
his first Discourse.” (Ernst Cassirer, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe).
23 Rousseau, Entile.
 275

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 275

politics, even when he appeared to be discovering a
secular sanction for it. The General Will is the
instrument through which the divine will functions.
Rousseau evidently was not a man of the Renaissance,
which reached its climax in the scientific naturalism
and secular culture of the eighteenth century. He
belonged to the tradition of the Reformation.
Objectively, he represented a reactionary tendency,
which manifested itself clearly in the post-
revolutionary romanticism of the nineteenth century.
The doctrine of the General Will is the foundation of
the metaphysical and also the organic conception of
the State. Commenting approvingly on Rousseau's
distinction 'between the General Will and the will of
all, Hegel wrote: “Rousseau would have made a
sounder contribution towards a theory of State if he
had always kept this distinction in sight.”20 With
Rousseau himself, the conception of State tended to
be anthropomorphic. Already in the essay on political
economy, written for the Encyclopedia, he personified
the State—”as an articulate body, living, and similar
to that of man.” In the Social Contract, the State
becomes “a moral and collective person.” Monarchy
eliminated, Rousseau's political theory thus clearly
indicated the way towards “People's Tribunes”
becoming dictators. The ghost of Louis XIV haunted
the “prophet of democracy”; his “democratic
despots” could also claim to be the vehicles of the
divine will and declare: L'Etat c'est moi. Rousseau
personified his theory of history; he certainly wanted
progress on the reverse gear.
Even if the teleological justification of Rousseau's
theory is discounted as his personal prejudice, the
General Will becomes the fiction of a collective ego
which is placed over and above the totality of the
wills and desires of those living a contractual life.
Kant brought out the totalitarian
26 Hegel, Logic.
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276 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

implication of Rousseau's General Will. “The act
through, which a people constitutes itself a State, or to
speak more properly, the idea of such an act, in terms
of which alone its legitimacy can be conceived, is the
original contract by which all the people surrender
their outward freedom in order to resume it at once as
members of a common entity., that is, the people
regarded as the State. Such a contract is by no means
to be necessarily assumed to be a fact—indeed, it is
not even possible as such; it is a mere idea of reason,
which has however its undoubted reality: that is, it
obligates every law-giver to promulgate his laws in
such a way that they could have arisen from the
united will of art entire people, and to regard every
subject, in so far as he desires to be a citizen, as
though he had joined in assenting, to such a will.”27
General Will is not identical with the will of all, a fact
on which Hegel laid special emphasis. Every member
of the community naturally strives for his individual
interest; but by the contract all are pledged to further
the common interest. In practice, individual interests
in a society of equals cancel each other; and there
remains only the contractual obligation to further
common interest. The sum total of individual wills
discharging that obligation is the General Will. It is
obviously a metaphysical concept which must find an
appropriate physical medium of expression. The
medium is the “elective aristocracy”, or “democratic
despotism”. The former expression is used by
Rousseau himself. Eventually, people's tribunes or
leaders appear on the scene as incorporations of the
General Will. Rousseau's democracy is realised in its
complete destruction.
Though his political theory was dubious and
dangerous, Rousseau's religious views were quite
categorical, if not always very clear. In that respect
also, he lacked consistency
27 Kant, Metaphysical Basis of the Theory of Law.
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-I 277

and stability. The natural religion of the deists may
pass as poetry. But Rousseau's undying Calvinist
conviction did not allow him to remain a tolerant
deist who found the sanction for ethical and aesthetic
values in a vaguely mystical faith. Rousseau actually
expounded a science of God, which was subsequently
acceptable to many modern protes-tant theologians.
He maintained that the faith in God must be placed
above all rational argumentation; it results from one's
mystic experience and as such is the only foundation
of ethics. “I believe in God as strongly as I believe in
any other truth, because believing and not believing
are the last things in the world that depend on me.”
In other words, one cannot help believing in God: to
believe is human nature. As the expounder of a
mystic theology, Rousseau struck at the very roots of
rationalism.28 But as a political theorist, he could not
altogether dispense with reason, and it was in the
latter capacity that he was hailed as a prophet of the
Great Revolution. But for Rousseau himself, the two
strands of his thought were integrated in one system,
in which a mystic faith, morbid imagination and
unrestrained passion prevailed. “He entertained no
principles, either to influence heart or guide his
understanding.”29 That is a very harsh judgment
pronounced by one of the most brilliant exponents of
romanticism. Burke also held that “to achieve its end
politics should be adjusted not to human reason but
to human nature, of which reason is but a part, and
by no means the greatest part.” Nor did Carlyle, yet
another romanticist, take kindly to Rousseau's
romanticism. ^Because it was not romanticism, but
sheer sentimentality. Trousseau certainly rejected the
scientific naturalism of the
28“The rejection of reason in favour of the heart was
not an advance. In fact, no one thought of this device
so long as reason appeared to be on the side of
religious belief. In Rousseau's environment, reason as
represented by Voltaire was opposed to religion.
Therefore, away with reason!” Bertrand Russell,
History of Western Philosophy).
29 Burke.
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278 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

eighteenth century, and for that reason must be
credited rather as the prophet of reaction than of
revolution. It was under his influence that the
revolution degenerated into the short-lived,
shockingly sanguinary, dictatorship of Robespierre.
Rousseau's famous paradoxes for a long time
confused opinion about him. His doctrines were
interpreted in the most contradictory senses; his place
in history was appraised very differently by different
scholars. Even after his senti-mentalism and
passionate devotion to the fashionable cult of
“sensibility” had inspired post-revolutionary reaction,
he was hailed as the pioneer of socialism. In him, “the
poor have found a powerful pleader, the dumb
millions a voice, democracy its refounder, and
humanity in the eighteenth century its typical
representative man, who gave vent to its inmost
sentiment, troubles, aspirations and audacious spirit
of revolt.”30 Having quoted this opinion, as “not
inaccurate “r Robert Flint directly proceeds to declare:
“But it is just as correct also to say that in him the
poor have found a persuasive seducer, the dumb
millions a voice which by the follies it uttered
discredited what was reasonable in their claims,
democracy a reconstructor so wise as to choose for its
corner-stone the very falsehood on which despotism
rests, and humanity in the eighteenth century the
great literary exponent of those passions and errors
which were the seeds of the guillotine, the germs of
the infamies of the reign of terror.”31
***
30 Graham, Socialism New and Old.
31 Flint, History of the Philosophy of History.
 279

CHAPTER XI
THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II
THE first triumph of the revolution was scored when
the clerical order decided to sit in the Assembly
together with the Third Estate. Expansion of franchise
introduced by Louis XVI on Necker's advice had
increased the representation of the Third Estate
(democracy) so as to command a majority in the
Assembly. Previously, the aristocratic and clerical
orders together constituted a permanent majority. The
upsetting of that unequal relation of forces by a royal
decree was itself a revolution. The two higher orders
tried to block it by refusing to sit and vote together
with the democratic majority. Thereupon, under the
leadership of Mirabeau, the latter declared itself to be
the sovereign legislative power, and to be in
permanent session. A first-class revolutionary crisis
was precipitated. The deadlock was broken when
representatives of the lower clergy, which had come
under the influence of the Enlightenment, broke away
from their order to join the democratic camp. Three of
their spokesmen appeared in the Assembly of the
Third Estate with the declaration: “Preceded by the
torch of Reason, and led by our love for the public
will, and by the cry of our conscience, we come to join
our fellow-citizens and our brothers.” The first breach
was immediately followed by a landslide. On the
same day, by an overwhelming majority, the
Chamber of the Clergy voted for union with the Third
Estate, that is, to join the revolution.
As far as the monarchy was concerned, the revolution
was complete. With the defection of the agents of God
on earth, it could no longer claim to rule by divine
right. The old regime forfeited its moral sanction.
Reason at last triumphed over time-honoured faith.
The devout army of
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280 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

God, the traditional defenders of faith, accepted the
lead of Reason. Revolution followed.
When Louis XVI consented to grant what practically
amounted to universal franchise, he most probably
relied upon the traditional monarchist sentiment of
the people. According to the famous historian of the
revolution, Aulard, it was a piece of Machiavellism;
the purpose being to pack the Assembly with
intellectually backward provincial deputies, who
would follow the clergy; the men of the
Enlightenment would be thus placed in a minority.
That might well have been the case. But the defection
of the clergy under the influence of the Enlightenment
altered the relation of forces, and upset the
Machiavellian scheme.
The news of the defection of the clerical order caused
consternation in the Court. Drastic measures must be
taken to stem the tide. All the three orders were
summoned to a Royal Audience, where they were to
sit apart as before.. Meanwhile, the rebellious orders
were not allowed to enter the Assembly Hall. What
were they to do? To obey or to march forward on the
road of revolution? The decision rested with the
majority of the provincial deputies. The test came
when Mirabeau, yet an obscure man, cried: “To the
Tennis Court!”—the Assembly should hold its session
there, defying the Royal Order. There was a general
assent by acclamation; the crowd of deputies followed
the philosopher Bailly and the learned cleric Abbe
Seiyes, and took the oath “never to separate until the
Constitution had been established and set on a firm
foundation.” For all practical purposes, the monarchy
was no more; it was overthrown by the unanimous
vote of those on whose traditional loyalty it had
counted. That was the consequence of the defection of
the clergy. Having forfeited the claim to rule by
divine right, the king lost the loyalty even of those
who were his most Christian Subjects until the day
before.
Two days later, forty-seven nobles led by the Duke of
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 281

Orleans came to join the deputies of the Third Estate,
who had refused to leave the hall when the king had
ordered the Assembly to disperse. The revolt was
affecting the army. The king had no alternative. He
issued the order that all the three estates should sit
together in the National Assembly. The nobility as an
order obeyed.
Meanwhile, events moved fast in Paris, culminating
in the fall of the Bastille. That symbolic act, which cast
its ominous shadow ahead, was committed in an
atmosphere of the fever heat of emotional
effervescence whipped up by the evangelists of the
pseudo-romanticism of Jean-Jacques. A terrifying
glimpse into its future hastened the completion of the
revolution at Versailles. Representatives of the
nobility in the Assembly demanded abolition of
feudal privileges. The aristocracy as a class did not
join the revolution; it capitulated.
During the first two years, the revolution was led by
the so-called Girondins. A certain class of historians
have depicted them as reformists and even
reactionaries. Yet, the truth is that the fanatical
followers of Rousseau killed a king after he had been
deprived of all power, practically dethroned by the
followers of the philosophes who would have preferred
the revolution to develop in an orderly manner,
because they were rationalists, but therefore no less
revolutionaries. They were the original Jacobins,
having been founders of the redoubtable Club. They
were uncompromising republicans; they were not
mystic sentimentalists or sanctimonious moralists, but
pagans. Condorect was one of them, many being his
followers. “In certain respects, they went further than
Robespierre: like him, they were fanatical disciples of
Rousseau, but they did not bow their heads like Jean-
Jacques and his prophet before the Supreme Being;
the greater portion of them were atheists, not deists.”1
In short,
1 Madelin, The French Revolution.
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282 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

the Girondins were democrats; therefore it was
inevitable that the exponents of Rousseau's “elective
aristocracy” came to a. clash with the original leaders
of the revolution, those who stood loyally by the ideas
and ideals of the Enlightenment; in other words,
incorporated the outcome of man's age-long struggle
for freedom.
The election of the National Convention was the
occasion for the final trial of strength between the
adherents of the two ideas of revolution: the
rationalists, but no less revolutionary, champions of
Humanism and liberty; and the passionate preachers
of equality, a deceptive ideal because it was Utopian.
The real difference between the two contending forces
can be judged from the appeal to “democratic voters”
issued in behalf of the latter: “Men who are too much
inclined to think they belong to a superior species,
must not be elected.” Thinking should be
subordinated to feeling. Reason at a discount,
emotions ran riot. The revolution came to be
dominated by the spirit of Rousseau personified by
Robespierre.
But the effect of the Enlightenment was too deep to be
so easily extinguished. Emotionalism expressed itself
in a demonstrative worship of Reason. Anti-religious
propaganda spread throughout the country. Finally,
the President of the Convention declared: “As the
Supreme Being desire no worship other than the
worship of Reason, that should in future be the
national religion.” Chaumette promptly obtained
from the all-powerful Commune of Paris a resolution
“to celebrate the triumph of Reason over the
prejudices of eighteen centuries.” Notre Dame should
be transformed into the Temple of Reason. That
fervour of rationalism, however, was degrading the
sublime to the ridiculous. Danton frowned upon it,
but his protest was rather a subtle hit to the opposite
direction: to the enthusiasts who talk bad poetry
instead of good sense. “I desire to hear nothing but
reason in prose at the bar.” Robespierre's reaction was
different; his pur-
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 283

pose was to destroy a tendency, represented by the
Hebertists, which was spreading throughout the
country threatening to overwhelm the pious spirit of
the Vicar of Savoy. He encouraged his trusted
lieutenants—Collot, Couthon, Payan and others—to
oppose the cult of Reason, openly denouncing it as
“licentious orgy.” The tone of their public
pronouncement began to be frankly deists. But the
time was not yet come for the prophet of Jean-Jacques
to put on the robe of the High-Priest of a new religion
presiding over the slaughter of revolutionaries.
When the National Convention assembled at the end
of 1792, Robespierre, though elected from a Parisian
constituency, defeating the Girondist Petion, was still
far from being the leader of the Mountain, which had
already become a live volcano belching forth fire and
brimstone. Even then only a few followed him.
Between 1789 and 1791, his cants had received little
hearing in an Assembly dominated by towering
personalities and intellectual giants who led the
revolution. That humiliating memory was somewhat
assuaged by his electoral triumph. But a more
formidable rival was appearing on the scene. Paris
also elected Danton to the Convention with a greater
number of votes than cast for Robespierre. The
Convention was clearly divided, the groupings being
according to cultural tradition, intellectual conviction,
temperament and political creed.
The revolution had taken place; what will be the
shape of the future of the new regime? The
Gironodists advocated a democratic republic in which
human rights would be guaranteed. The Mountain
was divided: Danton, in his heart of hearts, agreed
with the Girondists; Robespierre also was extremist.
As regards property, he did not yield to his
opponents. But he was a fanatical believer in social
contract; and therefore was not a democrat. He
wanted to create a vehicle for the operation of the
General Will, which would force everybody to be
free. He relied upon the support of
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284 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Paris—then the boiling cauldron of unbridled
emotion and romanticism of the Utopian variety. But
the Commune of Paris was dominated by the
Hebertists who had taken Rousseau's doctrine
literally, and therefore could also be fanatical
evangelists of the cult of Reason. They were not only
terrorists, but communists as well. They stood for
everything that the sanctimonious moralist
Robespierre detested. They would follow Danton
rather than Robespierre, if it came to a choice.
Between the two groups contending for the
leadership of the triumphant revolution, sat the vast
majority of deputies, an amorphous, irresolute, silent
mass called the Plain or the Marsh.
The clash broke out fiercely during the trial of the
king. The Mountain demanded summary execution,
and their agitation with that blood-thirsty demand
stirred up all the evil passions of the Parisian
populace. To make political capital out of that
emotional outburst, Robespierre and his associates
accused the Girondists of monarchism! The men who
had brought down the monarchy and compelled the
demoralised nobility to surrender when Robespierre
was still an unknown provincial lawyer! True to their
humane culture and love of toleration, they saw no
sense in taking the life of a helpless man, who out of
sheer fright might have acted stupidly. Emotion
clashed with intelligence; fanaticism with tolerance;
demagogy with honest concern for democracy; in the
last analysis, the claim of “elective aristocracy” to
absolute power, with the faith in orderly democracy.
The deputies of the Centre were terrorised by the
madness of the Parisian populace. Anybody
suspected of sympathy for the king would be killed.
Madame Roland wrote in her diary: “Almost all our
deputies now go about armed to the teeth. How
delightful is the liberty of Paris!” Before long, she had
to pay dearly for such frivolous sentiments, as an
offering at the bloody altar of the delightful liberty.
 285

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 285

The mass of deputies being so terrorised, the
Girondists failed to move the Convention to be
compassionate to the miserable man who was a king,
but was no more. Thereupon, they proposed that the
king's fate be referred to the judgment of the people—
a humane desire and a perfectly democratic
procedure. Robespierre was alarmed. The
bloodthirsty Parisian populace could not terrorise the
whole country. A correct judgment on the respective
moral stamina of the parties was pronounced by La
Revelliere—a partisan of Robespierre: “I must
acknowledge that it involved more courage at that
particular moment to absolve than to condemn.” Each
member was to mount the rostrum to vote, and his
name must be called out. There were people in the
gallery to prepare the black list. The moral courage to
have risked the rage of fanaticism sealed the fate of
the fathers of the revolution. The pathos of that
dramatic moment drew the truth out of Robespierre;
the master spoke through him, and the curtain of cant
was lifted upon the shape of things to come. The
would-be dictator declared: “Virtue has always been
in a minority on earth.”
The Reign of Terror began with the execution of
twenty-two leading Girondists—”these men, young,
four of them under thirty, and eight not yet forty, and
full of talent, all of them to die, crushed out of life by
the vilest hatred, without for one moment losing faith
in freedom and the brotherhood of man.”2 Hebert,
destined to be the next victim, invoked the General
Will as sanction for that crime against civilised
mankind: “Need there be so much ceremony about
shortening the bodies of wretches already sentenced
by the people?” The Convention was the place where
individual wills cancelled one another; the General
Will which survived that orgy of self-elimination, or
rather resulted from it, had found its medium of
expression in the Paris Commune,'
2 Madelin, The French Revolution.
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286 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

soon to be replaced by the Jacobin Club dominated by
Robespierre.
On that tragic day, Madame Roland wrote in her
diary: “It may be that pure victims are needed to call
forth the reign of justice.” Only a few days passed
before she was arrested for “perverting the public
mind.” Having spent three months in prison, she was
placed on trial, not to defend herself but to praise the
men who had preceded her to the guillotine. She was
however not allowed to speak; she was “eulogising
crime.” The flower of eighteenth century manhood,
not only of France but of the entire civilised world,
were criminals! How far the revolution had deviated
from its ideas and ideals.
Now terror turned on the terrorists themselves. At the
same time, it began to jusify its cruelties with moral
cants and profession of piety. The spirit of the Vicar of
Savoy had taken possession of the revolution.
Chaumette and Herault de Sechelles went to the
guillotine accused of atheism. Indicting them before
the Convention, St. Just exclaimed in pious
indignation: “They deny the immortality of the soul,
which was the consolation of the dying Socrates.”
Hebert and his followers also died condemned of
“bad morals”, Those men had learned from Rousseau
to lock upon property as the cause of all evils. They
wanted its destruction. But the real evangelist of
Rousseau's gospel was Robespierre who had grasped
the master's philosophy and tried to act accordingly
at the cost of the revolution. He had as much respect
for property as faith in the virtue of minorities, and
also in the Supreme Being, whose will he believed to
be working through himself. He could not allow the
virtue of the minority to be soiled by the communism
as well as atheism of the men who had raised him to
power, even if they also swore by the Social Contract.
By the autumn of 1793, the situation on the frontiers
changed, and Danton began his campaign for
clemency. He
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 287

realised that terror was destroying the revolution: the
Revolutionary Tribunal he had set up was becoming
an instrument of vindictiveness. What was devised as
a temporary means was becoming a permanent
institution. He did not see any reason why
unnecessary terror should not be relaxed without the
Committee losing its authority. Robespierre appeared
to agree. But the temperament and character of the
two clashed. Danton was full-blooded and frank; he
believed in enjoying life and knew how to laugh.
Robespierre was a Puritan, a prig, ascetic,
humourless—a dry lawyer from a country town.
Danton openly made fun of his perpetual talk of
virtue, and outraged him by his virility and love of
life. He had no personal ambition, while Robespierre
was preparing for his dictatorship with cool
calculation and warisome persistence. Danton was a
typical democrat, and was careless about reputation.
Danton had been biding his time. He was not a
worshipper of Rousseau. Combining reason and
emotion, he was a true revolutionary. After the fall of
the Girondists, he was the natural leader of the
revolution. He must go if Robespierre was to be
secure on the throne of the High-Priest of the cult of
revolution turned into a blood-thirsty religion. St. Just
gave expression to the fear which always haunts
dictators: “If we do not guillotine him, we shall be
guillotined ourselves.” Danton was warned in time;
he could appear before the Convention and sway it by
his oratory, as he had done so very often previously.
He could still save the revolution. But he was tired.
On hearing of the plot against himself, he said: “I
would rather be guillotined than guillotine others;
and besides, I am sick of the human race.” It was a
voice of nobleness as well as of humanity. Even if all
his acts of courage, devotion and statesmanship were
not taken into account, only for those last' words
Danton should be recognised as the greatest man of
the revolution; and as such he fell. Having
degenerated
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288 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

into a blood-thirsty religion, preaching hypocrisy, the
revolution no longer needed great and good men; the
time had come for small and mean men to invoke an
imaginary supernatural power to hide their smallness
and talk of abstract goodness to guild their meanness.
Robespierre's famous Notes against Danton, on the
basis of which St. Just prepared his Report to the
Convention demanding Danton's head, was a pile of
mean and malicious gossip. Through them all pierced
the spleen of a small mind: careless sentences uttered
by Danton in private conversations; innuendos about
his well known love affairs, of eating and drinking
and laughing; wrong motives were attributed to his
tireless attempt to strike a compromise between the
Gironde and the Montagne, in order to avoid
bloodshed. Robespierre complained that Danton
laughed at the word virtue, and that his claim to the
virtue of his normal and healthy married life proved
that he had no idea of morality and was not fit to talk
of liberty. Robespierre's peevishness became almost
insane hatred.
Robespierre himself proclaimed the greatness and
goodness of the genuine revolutionary Danton when
he argued his case for the destruction of the latter. “A
man is guilty against the Republic when he takes pity
on prisoners; he is guilty because he has no desire for
virtue; he is guilty because he is opposed to terror.”
What a perverse notion of virtue! The hypocritical
moralist directly proceeded to explain what he meant:
“In time of peace, the springs of popular government
are in virtue; but in times of revolution, they are both
in virtue and in terror.”
Robespierre could not kill Danton, if the latter wanted
to resist. He was still the most powerful man, most
magnetic personality. But he had realised his error of
having taken the wrong side in the struggle between
reason and romanticism, between the advocates of
orderly progress and democratic freedom, and the
romantic revolutionaries who
 289

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 289

could be swayed by undisciplined emotion, and
misled and misused by the cunning of ambitious
fanatics. That was an initial tactical blunder, not an
error of judgment; because, Danton never allowed
emotions, though he was a man of strong and noble
emotions, to overwhelm his intellect and influence his
judgment. Nevertheless, the initial mistake pushed
him to a direction he did not wish to go. He was
mainly responsible for setting up the Revolutionary
Tribunal —that merciless instrument of terror; within
the year, he fell a victim himself, because he wanted
to stop that madness. But it was too late;
uncontrollable evil passions ran riot. Therefore he did
not feel the urge to save himself, and perhaps save
thereby the revolution, when the chilly hand of fate
fell on his shoulders. He practically welcomed death
as a relief.
In the evening, the fatal news reached him; he sat
listless and brooding by the fireside until the
morning, when the cruel hand of death seized him.
The day before his trial, he was heard to mutter: “It
was at this time of last year that I had the
Revolutionary Tribunal set up; I pray God and men to
forgive me.” The cruellest irony of his fate was that
the same Tribunal refused to hear him. At the last
moment, the great human dynamo shook off his
inertia and wanted to tell the truth before death
silenced his powerful voice for ever. The
“incorruptible” champion of “virtue and justice” was
alarmed. Danton might still sway the Convention,
and call upon the Parisian populace to rise once again
in a mighty insurrection to hurl down the new tyrants
who had replaced the old. For the sake of “virtue”,
the President of the Tribunal, that custodian of
revolutionary justice, was ordered to put the gag on
Danton, and give him the short shrift. But the
Tribunal trembled when its founder was brought
before it, accused of conspiracy against the
revolution. Before it could recover from the shock and
do as ordered, Danton had had his say: “Danton,
19
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290 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

an aristocrat! France will not believe that story. I have
sold myself! No money can buy a man like me! My
name is associated with every revolutionary
institution—the levy, the revolutionary army, the
revolutionary committees, the Committee of Public
Safety, the Revolutionary Tribunal.” Then he uttered
the great tragic truth: “Why, I have brought about my
own death!”
It was not repentence; it was a warning for future
revolutionaries. Man makes history; but his
potentially unlimited creativeness is limited by the
available material; revolutions take place of necessity,
and sometimes they may even be inevitable; but their
pattern cannot .be fitted into any preconceived plan.
The artist creates out of imagination; but a
revolutionary is not an artist to that extent. The
attempt to impose the will of an individual or a group
of individuals on history, that is to say, on the will of
the rest, is bound to have evil or disastrous
consequences. That was the lesson Danton, one of the
greatest revolutionaries of history, had learned from
experience. His last message for the future fighters for
human freedom was to remember that lesson learned
at a great cost.
When the gag was applied, the lion roared: “Do you
take us for conspirators?” The hall resounded with a
homeric laughter: “Write down that he laughed.” The
grand finale of the drama of a great life. Only free
spirits, attached to nothing, not even to their own
lives, can be great fighters for human freedom.
In Danton's Death, Buechner depicts Danton as the
great romanticist of the French Revolution. “I
condemn the dust of which I am made, this dust that
speaks to you now. It can be persecuted. It can be
brought to death. But I challenge the world to take
from me that part of me which will live through the
centuries and survive in the skies.” (Danton, at his
trial).
****
 291

THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 291

The death of Danton was the signal for counter-
revolution which took place under the banner of
Rousseau's new religion preached by the political
Pontif Robespierre. He established his “reign of
virtue” protected by an intensified terror. “Apart
from virtue, terror is baneful; but virtue is powerless
without terror.” That was the moral sanction of
Robespierre's dictatorship. But he wanted to place
virtue on a more abiding foundation. Terror could not
last for ever. The worship of the Supreme Being as
conceived by the Vicar of Savoy, and prescribed in the
revolutionary bible, must be established to wipe out
the memory of the cult of reason. But the Convention
still harboured members who 3iad imbibed the spirit
of the Enlightenment. So, Robespierre shad to
proceed step by step.
Robespierre appeared to the majority of his fellow
countrymen, and throughout Europe, as the ruler of
France. By didactic speeches, frigid and unassailable
persistency in public affairs, his unwearing parade of
virtue, and his ceaseless claim to integrity, he
succeeded in imposing upon multitudes a false idea
of power. Finally, he decided that he might make
himself in fact what others thought him to be a tyrant,
the dictator.
He controlled the Convention and the Paris
Commune; “he swayed the Jacobin Club by his
oratory; Hanriot, the Commander of the Paris
garrison, was his follower. The opposition was inside
the all-powerful Committee of Public Safety. While all
the members of the Committee except Le Bas were
opposed to him, Robespierre relied upon the loyalty
of St. Just who controlled the army. The popularity
which he had so laboriously built up during five
years was his armour—the legend of virtue,
incorruptibility and lack of personal ambition.
When Robespierre admitted to himself the desire to
be the all-powerful ruler, he felt the necessity of
establishing himself as the High-Priest of a State
religion. He resolved
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292 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

that the worship of Reason must end. Letters came in
daily hailing him as the new Messiah. The incident of
Cecile Renault (caught with a knife in front of his
residence) proved that Robespierre's life was under
the protection of the Supreme Being. The first miracle
of the new religion, thus happened.
Striking a Voltairean pose, so very incongruous to his
austere piety, he declared: “If there had been no God,
we should have been obliged to invent him.” The
cynicism of Voltaire's famous remark was hardly
concealed. It was meant to expose the oppressive
social significance of religion. But Robespierre spoke
out of the sincerity of his heart. The respective values
of cynicism and sincerity are to be judged by the
underlying purpose. A few days lai^r, the prophet
presumptive was more out-spoken. The issue was
raised no longer hypothetically. “The idea of a Great
Being who watches over oppressed innocence, and
punishes triumphant crime, is a thoroughly popular
one.”
Meanwhile, the terror reached the climax, of course,
in the service of virtue; the Convention was
thoroughly purged, and the public tired out and
cowed down. The auspicious moment had come. The
Convention and the public were informed that the
Committee of Public Safety had decided* to hold a
“Festival of the Supreme Being.” While making the
announcement, Couthon said: “Pure souls felt
recognition and adoration of a superior Intelligence to
be a real need.” Moving the adoption of the decree,
the would-be Pontif delivered the famous oration on
“The Relation Between Religious and Moral Ideas and
Republican Principles”. He concluded by proclaiming
the necessity for the establishment of a deistic
religion.
The revolution was undone. The king had gone; but
the divine right to rule was resurrected. The Social
Contract was a make-believe; the republican
principles of Robespierre had a religious sanction;
and he set up the dogma on the
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 293

authority of the bible of revolutionaries. Hume said
that Rousseau “had only felt all his life”; he tried also
to think, but allowed his ideas to be muddled by
sentimentality and the morbid passion to be didactic.
That is why he visualised a political institution reared
upon the basis of social contract which nullified the
basic hypothesis of his political science.
Robespierre was neither emotional nor sentimental;
he was cool and calculating; nor was he much of a
thinker; he was a schemer. A man of ordinary
intelligence, he was full of cunning. He was a fanatic
also; therefore, he was sincere. He fanatically believed
himself to be a man of destiny—an instrument of the
Supreme Being. The king was gone; Robespierre
inherited the divine right to rule. He established not a
democratic state, nor even Rousseau's elective
aristocracy. Robespierre attained the zenith of his
career as the head of a theocratic state. The Festival of
the Supreme Being was celebrated with all religious
rituals; a special hymn was written for the occasion.
Robespierre presided on the ceremony, standing on
the summit of a symbolic mountain, shrouded in a
thick fume of incense, a hundred-thousand voice
chanted the praise of the Lord. “For a moment, the
Vicar of God fancied he was himself God.”3 He
descended from his elevated seat to set fire to a
gigantic statue of Atheism. Nearby, there was also the
statue of Wisdom, who was to rise out of the ashes.
But the fire that consumed Atheism also blackened
the face of Wisdom. There was laughter all around.
Always very sensitive to ridicule, Robespierre
perceived hostility on all sides.
The “Law of Parairal,” issued on June 10th, was his
reply to the humiliation and bitter disillusionment of
June 8th (Feast of the Supreme Being). The object was
to clear from his path all who opposed or even
criticised him. It was also his own death warrant, for
it established complete
3Madelin, The French Revolution.
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294 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

tyranny. He drafted the law with his own hand. It
gave the Committee of Public Safety power to put to
death any suspect without a trial—there would be no
witness, no appeal, no counsel to defend.
After his fall, one of the Thermidoreans, Tallien,*
remarked cynically: “He would have turned the
Eternal out of his place to take it for himself.” That
remark of one of his intimate colleagues perhaps is
the best summary of the biography of a man who
sincerely believed in the revolutionary gospel of
Rousseau, and pursued the false ideal with a fierce
fanaticism. But no man, not even the greatest, can
attempt to make history according to a set plan
conceived in imagination, without courting disaster.
While warning future revolutionaries against the lure
of “creative imagination”, Danton knew that disaster
awaited Robespierre also. “Vile Robespierre! The
scaffold claims-you too. You will follow me.” And he
did, before the despotism of his “reign of virtue” was
three months old. Robespierre wanted to use terror to
make himself the unchallenged ruler of France. But he
opposed it when it became an instrument in the hand
of others also. Fouche wrote later: “He had but one
step to take to become the master of the Revolution—
but he had to have some thirty more heads.”
Robespierre needed the support of his only loyal
friend against the growing hostility inside the
Committee of Public Safety. He sent an urgent call to
St. Just to return to Paris from the front. According to
Barere, St. Just proposed in a meeting of the
Committee that Robespierre be appointed dictator.
However, St. Just tried to restore unity in the
Committee, but Robespierre was sulky and often
broke down in outbursts of self-pity.
The word virtue appears in the speeches of St. Just
almost as often as in those of Robespierre. But the
latter's virtue was a pale and negative thing—a
theory. By virtue, St. Just meant a vigorous self-
discipline, the practice of
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 295

austerity, to make a man worthy of liberty and give
him a hunger for justice. He believed that a whole
nation could base its daily life on virtue, provided
that those who governed it set the example. Having
no personal ambition, he allowed no risk to deter him,
not any scruple to stand in his way. The
dishonourable part he played in the overthrow and
death of Danton and his friends is easily understood
when it is realised that those men were demanding a
less vigorous application of terror. Danton was more
representative of the ordinary Frenchman than St.
Just, who was a fanatic, and the fanatic has no use for
the happy-go-lucky laughter of Danton.
The conflict between the Gironde and the Montagne,
taught St. Just the lesson that democracy could .not be
established without a compromise. But the lesson
embittered him. He felt that sensible men would not
accept that dream as a reality. How could a revolution
be possible without the use of force? Montesquieu
had taught that virtue was the moving principle of
the Republic. But St. Just realised that she must walk
the earth with a sword in hand.
The Gironde stood for a federal republic with local
autonomy curbing the power at the centre. St. Just
believed in central authority. His conviction was
reinforced by mass desertion from the front in the
spring of 1793. He realised the necessity of a strong
centre—”one strong centralised will.” The nation
must recognise command; the whole country must be
placed under martial law.
St. Just shared Rousseau's belief that in his primitive
state man was good and simple, that the return to that
state was possible. Wisely and justly governed, man
will remain virtuous and happy. According to him,
the first and most important principle of government
was that the General Will of the people must be
expressed by an elected and essentially deliberative
assembly. The sovereignty of the people cannot
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296 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

be delegated, nor even represented, because the will
of the people is indivisible.
He argued that Condorcet had considered the
General Will only in its intellectual aspect, and had
therefore depraved it. He tried to rationalise it. The
true will of the people must be conceived as a
material thing, and not as a philosophical
speculation—an expression of active interest.
Danton wanted that under the Republic the people
should have a happy careless life, full of human
weaknesses. St. Just advocated a life of austerity and
frugality, and maintained that that would be the
really happy life, because happiness meant a virtuous
existence.
St. Just believed that he would read the Report in the
presence of Danton. When the Committee issued the
warrant of his arrest before the Report was read, St.
Just was in a moral crisis. He saw that he had been
used for a base purpose: He must choose between his
own honour and the Republic. He chose the later, and
justified the choice with the following argument:
“Those who reproach us with our severity, would
they prefer us to be unjust? It little matters what
diverse vanities time has led to the scaffold, to the
cemetry, to nothingness, if only liberty survives. What
is a man? , What is even the greatest of us, when the
permanent establishment of our Republic is in
question?”
Robespierre's last act was one of iperfidy. In a
carefully prepared speech to the Convention, he held
other members of the Committee of Public Safety
responsible for everything done under his order,
against which there was a rising revulsion of feeling.
He actually incited the Convention to overthrow the
Committee of Public Safety. Pathetically, the all-
powerful pleaded powerlessness. Owing to the
perversity and selfishness of others, his closest
associates, the “incorruptible” paragon of all virtue
could neither do any good nor check evil. What is the
remedy of the disease? There followed the
peroration—perfidious, cowardly, treacherous.
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 297

“To punish the traitors, renew the composition of the
Committee; constitute a united government under the
Supreme authority of the Convention; crush all
factions by the weight of the national authority, and
raise the power of justice and liberty.” How
differently Danton would have spoken, had he cared
to move the Convention!
Falsifying Robespierre's sophisticated cant, the Terror
had disintegrated morals and driven virtue out of his
kingdom. Spirit of revenge, fear, selfishness and other
ignoble and base sentiments prevailed. Realising that
thieves had fallen out amongst themselves, the
terrorised, dejected and demoralised Convention
suddenly felt its power. In the midst of confusion and
consternation, Cambon rushed to the rostrum to pay
his treacherous chief in his own coin. He cried:
“Before I am dishonoured, I will speak to France; one
man alone paralyses the will of the Convention; that
man is Robespierre.” The all-powerful despot of
yesterday sneaked out of the uproarious Convention,
a beaten and crestfallen man. He tried to rally the
Jacobin Club in his support. But his star was declining
rapidly. He must face the fate. The next day, he tried
several times to address the Convention, with no
success. Finally, when he did manage to make himself
heard, it was not the authoritative voice of a dictator;
it was the pathetic appeal of a fallen despot frantically
trying to escape his doom. The appeal was addressed
not to the revolutionary benches, but to the despised
centre. “Men of purity, men of virtue! I appeal to you!
Give me the leave to speak which these murderers
refuse me.” What a shameful end! Like an animal at
bay, he ran hither and thither, appealing,
supplicating, but enraged. Conflicting emotions
stifled his once sonorous voice which had seduced so
many for such a long time. Someone shouted: “The
blood of Danton chokes thee!” The Convention voted
for the arrest of the fallen despot; the gendarme took
away a completely broken man with four of his
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298 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

associates. Thus ended the career of the most faithful
follower of Rousseau.
The old regime was overthrown easily without
violence, thanks to the profound psychological
revolution accomplished by the Enlightenment. Then,
owing to accidental combination of circumstances, the
leadership of the successful political and social
revolution passed on to a different type of men.
Intellectual immaturity and thoughtless enthusiasm
brought them under the spell of a deceptive cult of
revolution, which meant a reaction to the spirit of the
eighteenth century, and therefore a negation of man's
capacity to be free and virtuous. The revival of the
worship of the Supreme Being meant voluntary
relapse into spiritual slavery, the revolt against which
was the motive of the entire history of modern
civilisation. That is the significance of Rousseau's
condemnation of civilisation, which was taken for a
righteous indignation, a spiritual revolt against the
corruption, immorality and cynicism of the age of
Louis XIV. The noble savage was a fiction, but the
romantic cult of revolution did plunge its devotees
into savagery which was neither noble nor virtuous.
Louis Blanc, who believed to have inherited through
Baboeuf Rousseau's spirit of revolt against private
property, wrote: “It is a falsehood to say that the
Terror saved France; but it may be affirmed that it
crippled the revolution.” It certainly did; and the
general revulsion against it made it easy for Napoleon
to establish his dictatorship.
****
The French Revolution was not the experience of one
particular country; it was not an event in the annals of
one nation. The men of the revolution did not appeal
to the past glory of France. They drew their
inspiration from the classical antiquity. They burned
all ancient charters and documents. Even cultural
nationalism had no lure for them. Gothic cathedrals
were looked upon as “monuments of barbarism and
superstition”, which were also to be destroyed.
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 299

The revolution marked a turning point in the history
of Europe. Its repercussions were felt far beyond the
frontiers of France. When the Republican armies
defeated the interventionist forces at Valmy, Goethe
wrote: “From here and now, a new epoch of world
history begins.” Therefore, the French Revolution has
been called the Great Revolution. It is the logical
outcome of the struggle for human freedom, which
had been waged through several centuries.4 As such,
it ushered in a whole period during which time-
honoured political institutions and traditional social
relations were challenged all over Europe; in one
country after another, absolute monarchies tumbled
and the feudal social order was disrupted. “The
movement which took the form of revolution in
France was the movement common to all Europe, of
the transformation of feudal institutions into those of
the modern State.”5
Those revolutionary events were brought about by
the instrumentality of Napoleon's army. “Wherever in
Europe the armies of revolutionary France appeared,
the old patriarchal and feudal order was swept away.
From Paris, the officers of Alexander I carried the
message to Russia, where
4 “The eighteenth century led straight to the cataracts of
revolution— and a revolution that was not merely the overthrow
of a government, but the destruction of a whole ancient order of
society, and the emergence of forces and ideas of social life
whose existence had not been recognised before. Now a vast
revolution, such as this, does not arise out of nothing: Its roots
are deep in the past, and its slow subterranean growth can be
traced, even though it be among the most obscure and least
noticed events of preceding generations. This is manifestly true
of the French Revolution, and it explains why the eighteenth
century can be described as the 'seed time of modern Europe'.
For, the French Revolution is the eighteenth century in action.
The ideas which governed the revolution are the ideas evolved
by the century, and the same ideas, expressed in the revolution,
dominated the subsequent age. Thus, a chaotic melee, void of
meaning in the world of politics, in the world of thought, the
eighteenth century can justly be considered the great formative
age of modern Europe. Its ideas guided the revolution, they are
the ideas on which the nineteenth century has lived.” (Alfred
Cobben, Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the Eighteenth
Century.)
5G. Lowes Dickinson, Revolution and Reaction in
Modern France.
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300 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

it profoundly influenced the rising young Russian
intelligentzia.”6 The army led by Napoleon, however,
was not his creation. It was created by the revolution;
Napoleon himself was a part of that creation.
Therefore, notwithstanding his personal
predilections, his role in history was objectively
revolutionary. He was neither an upstart nor an
adventurer. As a sensitive as well as an ambitious
young man, he had imbibed the spirit of the
eighteenth century in his own way.
Voltairean by temperament and intellectual training,
Napoleon was no admirer of Rousseau. When still a
subordinate of the Directoire, he bluntly remarked:
“Your Rousseau was a madman; it is he who has
brought us to this pass.” Yet, he put Rousseau's
political doctrine into practice more successfully than
Robespierre. He had evidently learned his political
lesson from the Social Contract. The cardinal principle
of the Napoleonic politics was the following: “A great
nation must have a centre of unity. Twenty-five
million of men cannot live in a republic. This is an
unpolitical slogan.” Young Bonaparte expressed this
view already in 1789. The Napoleonic regime could
be properly called a “democratic despotism”. It could
claim the mystic sanction of the General Will obtained
through three successive plebiscites.
At the same time, Napoleon also succeeded in what
Danton had failed, namely, to consolidate the new
regime on the basis of the initial achievements of the
revolution.7 He established order out of chaos without
in any way compromising the basic result of the
revolution, which was to have overthrown the feudal
social order. That fundamental aspect of the
revolution had laid down the social basis of the
military power which France attained under
Napoleon.
6J. P. Mayer, Political Thought in France from Sieyes to
Sorel.
7 “We have finished the romance of the revolution; it
is time to begin its history,—to note only what is real
and possible in the application of its principles, and to
ignore all that is merely speculative and
hypothetical.” (Napoleon).
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 301

The revolution gave land to the peasantry. And the
French peasantry, in return for the gift, supplied
Napoleon with soldiers to conquer Europe and the
conquest meant spread of the revolution—overthrow
of monarchist absolutism and destruction of
feudalism in the conquered countries.
“He had no desire to restore the Bourbons and
feudalism; on the contrary, the destruction of the
ancien regime was the presupposition of all his work. It
was that which he conceived to be the essential work
of the revolution. He first realised in fact what the
revolution had proclaimed in theory: that public
burdens should fall upon all, and public offices be
open to all. He took no count of birth or political
antecedents; talent and loyalty to himself were his
sole criterion of merit.”8
The philosophers who had inspired the revolution
thought in terms of humanity as a whole. When
Madame Roland declared that she had a
“cosmopolitan soul”, she spoke for all of them.
During the discussion of the “Declaration of Rights”,
one deputy exclaimed: “We desire to make a
declaration for all men, for all time, for every country,
that will be an example to the whole world.” That
was the spirit of the revolution. The ideal was
attained by the revolutionary army of Napoleon.
“Bonaparte was a child of the revolution, equally in
the sense that, like so many other brilliant men, he
was enabled by reason of that great social convulsion
to come to the forefront of affairs, as also because his
youthful mind had been formed by the literature of
criticism and revolt which had heralded the storm.
The amazing preponderance over Europe which
France obtained (under Napoleon) is not only to be
explained by the genius of its leader, but is also due
to-the fact that by the destruction of privilege the best
talent of the highly civilised countries of the West was
available
8G. Lowes Dickinson, Revolution and Reaction in
Modern France-.
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302 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

for his service. Men of science were given
(ministerial) portfolios. The Council of State was the
most efficient body of experts which Europe had yet
seen. For the most part, the Marshals of the victorious
army had risen by merit from the ranks.”9
The rationalist spirit of Danton survived
Robespierre's fanaticism; science got the better of
sentimentality; reason reasserted itself in the
atmosphere of romantic extravagance. Having thus
recovered from the crisis in its earlier stages, the
revolution crossed the frontiers of France to pull
down the old order in other countries. Napoleonism
was the revolution in its expansionist phase. It rose as
reaction to the endeavour of the forces of
international conservatism to crush the revolution in
its infancy. The military phase of the revolution did
not begin with the rise of Napoleonism. It began
when, confronted with the danger of foreign
intervention, Danton advocated the “levee en masse” of
the “nation at arms”. On that new broad social basis,
Carnot organised the army of the revolution which,
having first defended revolutionary France,
subsequently, under Napoleon's command, carried to
other European countries the message of Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity. Napoleon's new strategy and
tactics were determined by the structures and
composition of the army he commanded. The old
order in one country after another collapsed when the
professional soldiery of feudal monarchs proved to be
utterly incapable of resisting the onslaught of the new
type of army born out of the revolution. The levee en
masse mobilised the flower of French manhood for the
defence of the revolution. Most of the famous
Marshals of Napoleon began their meteoric military
career as common soldiers in those early days of
revolutionary enthusiasm. One of them, Victor,
originally a drummer, exclaimed when he became
one of Napoleon's Marshals: “Oh, splendid out-
9 Fisher, History of Europe.
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THE GREAT REVOLUTION-II 303

burst of 1791! Would that I could extol thee worthily,”
Marmont, another of them corroborated: “We lived in
an atmosphere of light; I feel its heat and power at
fifty-five, just as I felt it the first day.”
The army which swept away the old order practically
throughout Europe was commanded by Generals
who incorporated the heroic and liberating tradition
of the revolution —the victors of the battles of
Champagne, Lorraine, Belgium, Valmy, Jemmappes;
and it was manned by the French peasantry, which
had risen in revolt successfully against feudalism. It
was an army of revolution in every sense; and its
leader, Napoleon, was a standard-bearer of the
revolution; no matter whatever might have been his
personal motive. “The army had become far more
republican than the nation in general. It was in the
throes of a genuine paroxism of civic feeling. Never
was there such an exhibition of mystic faith: their
faith saved them. They (the Generals of the
revolutionary army) put the Marseillaise into
action.”10
Militarily, the revolution had triumphed even before
the rise of Napoleon. After the fall of Robespierre and
the end of the Reign of Terror, followers of Danton
came to the helm of affairs, and the Girondins
reappeared in public life. The sitution at home eased,
if not yet quite restored to normalcy, the Directoire
could turn its undivided attention towards the
frontiers. The “Organiser of Victory”, Carnot, was still
at the head of the Ministry of Defence. Overrun by the
revolutionary army, Holland became the Republic of
Batavia. Belgium, together with all the territories as
far as the Rhine, was incorporated in the French
Republic. The frontier was pushed forward similarly
towards Italy. Defeated repeatedly on the battle-fields
by the revolutionary army, Prussia, Spain and
Tuscany withdrew from the anti-revolutionary
alliance. By 1795, the revolution had reached the
10 Madelin, The French Revolution.
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304 REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

stage of the final showdown; for the mastery of
Europe, it must break the resistance of “the two
Powers in the world which represented in their
strongest and most pernicious form the counter-
revolutionary spirit—Protestant Britain and Catholic
Austria.”11 The former being firmly entrenched
behind the waves, ruled by her Navy, the strategy of
the revolutionary war was first to acquire the mastery
of the continent by reducing the Power of Austria.
Italy was the most vulnerable point in her armour;
and was therefore, together with other reasons,
chosen as the first object of the revolutionary
offensive. Napoleon was in command of the
operation. His days had come, and he rose up to the
occasion. “The young men who followed Bonaparte
across the mountains into Italy still believed that
France had a liberating message to give to the
world.”15 Their object was not to conquer a foreign
country, but to launch the Italian people on the new
way of life, which had been blazed by the revolution.
Napoleon's Proclamation to the Italian People was
couched in the corresponding tone. “Peoples of Italy!
The French Army comes to break your chains; the
French people is the friend of all peoples; meet us
with confidence, Your property, your religion and
your usages will be respected. We have no quarrel
save with the tyrants who enslave you.” The
spectacular success of the Italian campaign turned the
head of young Napoleon. He was fired with the
ambition of himself becoming the ruler of Europe by
skilfully wielding an instrument created by the
revolution. Nevertheless, the French Army was hailed
as the liberator, and actually brought about a political
change and precipitated a social upheaval wherever it
went. “In the history of the Italian people, the first
campaign of Bonaparte marks the beginning of that
resurgence of national feeling which is
11 Fisher, The History of Europe, u* Ibid.
 305

THE GREAT REVOLUTION—II 305

known as the Risorgimento. Though he was severe, he
seemed to come as a liberator, bringing with him the
breath of a new freedom and wide-ranging prospects
of Italian power. Much was forgiven to the young
General who broke the Austrian stanglehold on the
Italian people, and invited them to work the
institutions of a modern State. The Italian literati
praised him to the skies; the best Lombards crowded
to his Court; and the Cisalpine Republic, though
resting on French bayonets; acted for many years as a
state-craft in a lane where the tradition of public duty
had long been atrophied by foreign rule.”13
Even more revolutionary were the effects of
Napoleon's conquests of Germany. Until then, there
had been no Germany; Napoleon brought her into
existence. She rose out of the fierce clash between the
ideas of the revolution heralding a new social order
and the mediaevalism incorporated by the 360 feudal
principalities held together precariously by their
allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire, reduced to a
fiction by that time. All historians agree that under
the impact: of the French Revolution, transmitted
through Napoleon's army,Germany emerged from
the long lingering twilight of medievalism, and came
under the influence of modern civilisation. All the
great leaders of the belated GermanRenaissance were
admirers of the French Revolution. Goethe, for
example, welcomed the genius and saluted the
conquests of Napoleon. It was during the period of
subjugation by Napoleon's army that Germany
reached the summit of her literary glory and spiritual
in-
13 Fisher, Ihe History of Europe,
20
 306

306 RBASOM ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

fluence, and made the greatest contribution to
modern European culture. “It is a remarkable fact that
the zenith of German literature belongs to an age of
political impotence and division, when Goethe and
Schiller were friends at Weimar, and German
patriotism stood at its lowest ebb. The defeat of the
French Emperor at the battle of Leipzig came to him
(Goethe) as a disappointment, and the greatest lyric
poet of Germany makes no contribution to the
literature of the War of Liberation.” 14
While intellectual activity and modern culture thrived
in the Rhine Federation, Prussia remained the home
of feudal reaction, which resisted the powerful impact
of the revolutionary ideas. It combatted Napoleon
and his army not merely as foreign invaders, but as
the standard-bearer of rationalism, liberalism and the
rule of law. But even after Waterloo, Germany could
not throw off the influence of revolution. Under that
influence, Stein introduced his agrarian reform in
Prussia, The French conqueror had emancipated the
peasantry in adjacent Poland and Westphalia. Prussia
could not be immune from the repercussion of that
revolutionary event. The so-called War of Liberation
represented a conflict between nationalism promoted
by Prussia and the cosmopolitan spirit of the great
European revolution. Finally, the latter triumphed,
though for a short while, in the revolution of 1 848.
Nor could England keep herself altogether out of the
reach of the influence of the revolution. Subversive,
social doctrines had crossed the English
14 Fisher, The History of Europe,
 307

THE GREAT REVOLUTION—II 307

Channel before Napoleon's abortive attempt to do so.
They inspired a popular movement which swept over
the island; though the Charrist movement fell short of
a revolution, the passage of the first Reforms Act was
compelled and the ground for the second was
prepared. In spite of Burke, political events in Britain
during the first half of the nineteenth century moved
under the shadow of the revolution stalking over the
cotinent; and the intellectual life consisted in efforts to
concretise the principles of the philosophy of the
revolution so as to render them applicable in practice.
Literature, particularly poetry, was influenced by the
romanticism of Rousseau, while scientific naturalism
predominated philosophy. In short, Great Revolution
was felt in every walk of life in Britain also.
The Code Napoleon was the most abiding positive
achievement of the revolution. It provided the secular
State with a solid legal foundation. The
administration of civil society no longer needed the
sanction of the will of a despotic monarch nor of the
Devine Providence. The pioneering efforts of a whole
succession of philosophical jurists ever since the
fifteenth century at last yielded a rich harvest.
Napoleon completed the revolution not only by
destroying the old feudal order throughout Europe;
his much greater achievement was to provide secular
sanction to a civil order based upon social equality
and religious tolerance. For the first time in history,
social life was made independent of priestly tutelage.
The philosophy of human freedom developed over
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308 REASON ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

a period of centuries was at last given a shape capable
of practical application, After several centuries of
struggle, the revolt of man culminated in the triumph
of the Great Revolution. Therefore Michelet called it
the Second Renaissance.