I^ante •: 
 
 « Ozanaip •
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 DANTE 
 
 AND 
 
 CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 THIRTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERIC OZANAM 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRKN€H BY LUCIA D. PYCHOWSKA 
 
 N 
 
 Second Edition 
 
 — •♦}3hK«®^*^«' 
 
 New York 
 THE CATHEDRAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 
 
 1913
 
 Copyright 1896,
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ''^=^?ESiRnus of enlightening those who lived in the 
 Jl^y shade or in the gloom, Dante chanted the 
 grandest of poems m a vulgar tongue. 
 Even the lyre of his Master, A'irgil, seemed too 
 small for him who aspired, through a perfect art, 
 to be a perpetual and universal teacher of Chris- 
 tian truth. Putting aside Latin, and choosing Ital- 
 ian as the medium of his verse, the poet did wise- 
 ly ; and yet the use of a living language has not 
 made him a poet of the people. We have all read 
 the pretty tales, recounting how the simplest of Ital- 
 ian folk were wont to please themselves as they la- 
 bored, and, at the same time, to astonish ingenuous 
 barbarians, by singing intelligently whole cantos of 
 the Divine Comedy ; but vainly shall we seek the 
 names of these intellectual proletarians. Boccaccio 
 would not risk an interpretation of Dante's master- 
 piece, before invoking, with the greatest humility, 
 the assistance of the God of Light. Five centuries 
 have passed since Boccaccio's famous and imperfect 
 essay. Age after age, religiously, patiently, schol- 
 ars have toiled over the pages of the Divine Com- 
 
 862185
 
 ii. Preface. 
 
 edy. Stilly in our day, a writer of uncommon learn- 
 ing and intellect, Cesare Cantu, has said that '' even 
 an Italian reader of Dante's trilogy is obliged to 
 study it as if it were a foreign book, consulting, 
 alternately, the text and a commentary." What- 
 ever his fate, had the poet of the universe sang al- 
 ways to the music of the little lyre he first tempted, 
 he has been, and is, and will ever be the poet of 
 educated people only ; and, even among these, he 
 can be understood, inasmuch as he is intelligible, 
 by the studious alone. 
 
 Though a reckless or an incompetent translator 
 may relieve us of many of the difficulties that an 
 Italian cannot escape, no translator, however skil- 
 ful, can turn Dante's text into light reading. As 
 Frederick von Schlegel wrote, when M. Ozanam 
 was in his cradle : " A preparatory initiation into a 
 vast extent of varied knowledge is necessary, in 
 order to understand the poem either as a whole or 
 in detail." Dante's geography and astronomy are 
 not those of our school books. The allegory of the 
 poem is far from being transparent. One may be 
 well read, and yet find the poet's local history and 
 allusions puzzling. And how many fairly educated 
 persons can follow the poet closely, ashe developes 
 and resolves the most practical cases in ethics, and
 
 Preface. i . i . 
 
 the most abstruse questions in theology and phil- 
 osoph}^ ! 
 
 Within a twelvemonth, I read a review of no less 
 than fifty-three Italian works, recently published, 
 intended to explicate, or to illustrate, Dante's text; 
 and the Venetian and Tuscan critics require at least 
 two periodicals to hold and preserve their lucubra- 
 tions. Foreigners may consider themselves fortunate 
 in escaping a school of criticism so voluminous and 
 so distracting, whose chief apology is the poet's fre- 
 quent and vain-glorious abuse of that same vulgar 
 tongue which he adopted for the sake of the plain 
 people; and yet the foreigner is helpless without 
 the critic and the commentator. 
 
 Within the last fifty years, in Italy as well as 
 outside of Italy, the world of learning has shown 
 the most helpful and healthful appreciation of Dan- 
 te's work, great and small. American as well as Eng- 
 lish students have composed creditable transla- 
 tionsofhis master-poem and many volumes intended 
 to explain away difficulties, to familiarize a read- 
 er with the poet's personality, to explicate his teach- 
 ing or to describe the machinery of the Inferno, 
 the Purgatory, and the Paradise. Helpful and 
 healthful are not epithets applicable however, to all 
 the volumes published in English or in the Ian-
 
 iv. Preface. 
 
 guages of the continent. Many have been harmful 
 and even vicious. For a long time in Italy, the 
 spirit of revolt has pretended to derive inspiration 
 from Dante's pages, and, to-day, the Italian Anar- 
 chists, enemies of God and of mankind, shamefully 
 claim him as a precursor. The Protestant tradi- 
 tion that the most illustrious of Catholic poets was 
 a foe to the Papacy is still alive, and though 
 many non-Catholics are led to study the trilogy 
 because of Dante's glorious imagination; strange 
 philosophical and theological science ; forcible, 
 compact, unique style; passionate expression of 
 sentiment and of creed; there are few who are not 
 prejudiced in his favor, especially, and one might 
 say invincibly, because, more or less justly, he at- 
 tacked ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church, 
 and, more or less considerately, censured evils that 
 afflicted the Church, in his day. Only a Cath- 
 olic can duly estimate the value of Dante's cen 
 sures, which, however violent, impugn in no wise 
 the doctrine or the divine organization of the 
 Church; as only a Catholic can, with full intelli- 
 gence and perfect sympathy, comprehend the phil- 
 osophical views and theological tenets of the medi- 
 tative religious poet, who "towers above all others 
 in solitary grandeur.''
 
 Preface. V. 
 
 Of Catholic English guides through the intrica- 
 cies of the Dantean labyrinth, there has been a 
 dearth, all the more surprising when we recall the 
 many good books written in Italian, French and 
 German, Not more than a couple, among the sev- 
 eral volumes deserving a careful translation, have 
 been offered to a public that should have, and that 
 daily shows an increasing desire to have, a more 
 familiar acquaintance with the grandest of Catholic 
 poets, and the most sublime of all poets. We can- 
 not doubt, therefore, of the success of this agree- 
 able translation of Frederic Ozanam's: Dante, and 
 Catholic Fhilosophy in the Thirteenth Century, a work 
 received with general applause at the time of its 
 publication, and one whose utility has not been di- 
 minished by the lapse of years. 
 
 More than once M. Ozanam has told how his in- 
 terest in the poet was first awakened. During a 
 visit to Rome, in the year 1833, when he was just 
 twenty years of age, the sensitive and thoughtful 
 Frenchman found himself, one day, standing in the 
 Camera delta Segnatura before Raphael's Disputa. 
 Lowering his eyes from the heaven in which angels 
 and saints are grouped beneath the Blessed Trinity, 
 he began to examine the faces of the doctors and 
 pontiffs of the Church, who are distributed on
 
 vi. Preface. 
 
 either side of the altar of the Most Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. One head, garlanded with laurel, attracted 
 him. Who was the noble and austere stranger that 
 Raphael deemed worthy of a place beside St. Am- 
 brose, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. 
 Bonaventure, and Innocent III. ? Dante! Why 
 should the painter thus honor a poet? This 
 question M. Ozanam answered satisfactorily, only 
 after years of most patient and enthusiastic study. 
 His first essay on the subject was written ni 1838, 
 when he competed for the degree of Doctor of 
 Letters. Seven years later the first edition of the 
 present work appeared; and shortly afterwards, it 
 found one German and no less than four Italian 
 translators. In 1843 M- Ozanam began a series of 
 studies, which were printed in Le Correspondant, on 
 " The Franciscan poets in Italy during the Thir- 
 teenth century " ; a series that he completed and 
 published only a short time before his death in 
 1853. Not the least valuable chapter in this ad- 
 mirable volume, which still awaits a translator, is 
 the one dealing with " The Poetical Sources of the 
 Divine Comedy." To fit himself to solve the prob- 
 lem that Raphael made for him, M. Ozanam under- 
 took a French translation of the Divine Comedy, 
 with an extended commentary on the poem. Seven
 
 Preface. vii. 
 
 years he devoted to this work; and of the sev- 
 en, four were expended on the Purgatory alone. 
 Could we ask for a more telling proof that Dante 
 can be " popularized " only among the educated 
 and the studious! 
 
 Nominated, in the autumn of 1844, a Professor 
 in the Sorbonne, for life, M. Ozanam determined to 
 turn his studies on Dante to profitable use. He 
 had always intended that they should serve to illus- 
 trate the comprehensive history of Christian civili- 
 zation which he had planned in his youth; and it 
 was in accordance with this design that he made 
 the Divine Comedy the subject of his lectures, at 
 the Sorbonne, between the years 1847 and 1850. Of 
 his translation and commentary, we have only 
 " The Purgatory of Dante,'' published after M. 
 Ozanam's death; a work that has passed through 
 several editions, and that has benefited many 
 students of the incomparable Catholic poet. 
 
 Readers of '' Dante, and Catholic Philosophy in 
 the Thirteenth Century " can feel assured of the 
 competence and honesty of their guide. His chief 
 aim was, once for all, to expose the guile of those 
 who sought to associate Dante, — whoso passionately 
 loved truth and the disciples of truth and who glo- 
 ried in anathematizing public errors and the adepts
 
 viii. Preface. 
 
 of error, — with " thetumultuousrabbleof the hetero- 
 dox"; and then, doing the poet justice, to prove his 
 right to stand, where Raphael placed him, '•'among 
 the most noble disciples of eternal orthodoxy." 
 
 With textual difficulties, with criticism purely 
 literary, M. Ozanam did not occupy himself. He 
 confined himself to the study of Dante as a states- 
 man and philosopher; to his political experiences 
 and philosophical education; to a sketch of the 
 philosophical movement, prior to the thirteenth 
 century; to a review of the poet's philosophical 
 opinions and of the teaching of his preceptors. 
 The author of ^'Daiifc, and the Philosophy of the 
 Thirteenth Centi/ry" cUd not exhaust the subject. 
 He made no such pretension. His purpose was 
 merely to culture a small part of a most fruitful 
 field that had long been allowed to lie fallow. 
 
 Commendation of a work which has stood the 
 test of half a century of criticism, would be pre- 
 sumptuous. M. Ozanam knew how to interest as 
 well as to instruct. A reader of this volume will 
 find that he has formed an acquaintance not alone 
 with Dante, the philosopher, but also with Dante 
 the man; and that the author has brought the 
 thirteenth century very near to us, permitting us to 
 appreciate more intelligently its characteristics,
 
 Preface. ix. 
 
 and profitably to compare mediaeval civilization 
 with that which we call modern. Perhaps, treating 
 of the poet's political opinions, M. Ozanam attrib- 
 uted to them, here and there, a signification that 
 the poet himself would have disowned. Still the 
 author's ingenious views may suggest to some in- 
 dustrious Catholic a closer study of a tempestuous 
 period of French history; a period covering the 
 years between 1S30 and 1853. If M. Ozanam's 
 political views had a peculiar tint, it was merely a 
 reflection of the color of his time. 
 
 The mere mention of the name of Antoine Fred- 
 eric Ozanam tempts one to write at length of the 
 virtuous and talented and brave, and, above all, 
 charitable champion of the Catholic faith, rather 
 than of the scholar, writer and orator. Still it is 
 fitting here to recall his gift of eloquence; a gift 
 that, long before his appointment to the Sorbonne, 
 had gained him fame and position. How elo- 
 quent he could be, with the written as well as with 
 the spoken word, many passages in this book man- 
 ifest. The mastery of the Italian singer, the 
 majesty of his conception, the virile power of his 
 language, the vivacity of his imagination, could not 
 fail to arouse the sensitive soul of Ozanam, es- 
 pecially when he was engaged in searching the
 
 3£. Preface. 
 
 soul of one who loved, with a love so tender, so ar- 
 dent, so loyal " the daughter of God, the Queen of 
 things, noble and beautiful above all others, Phil- 
 osophy." 
 
 The translation of '■'Dante, and the Philosophy of 
 the Thirteenth Century," now presented to an en- 
 lightened public, needs no compliment other than 
 that paid it by an American writer, widely es- 
 teemed, and affectionately cherishedby all who knew 
 him personally, — Brother Azarias, He stood spon- 
 sor for the work, as I am informed by the distin- 
 guished Director of the Cathedral Library, pro- 
 nouncing it excellent. Thanks to him also, it found 
 a long-sought publisher, in the person of one who 
 has done much to keep alive the memory of the 
 modest Christian Brother, whose rare talent? were 
 ever devoted to the cause of Catholic truth. His 
 scholarly essay on the Spiritual Sense of the Divina 
 Commedia, evinced extensive research and fruitful 
 study, and adds weight to his approval of this vol- 
 ume. 
 
 Hearing that the translator is one of the gentler — 
 and shall I not say : the more poetical — sex, Cath- 
 olic men may express surprise ; and indeed a few 
 may feel remorse. Let us hope that, influenced by 
 ihe example of one painstaking and intellectual
 
 Preface. xi. 
 
 woman, others may be led to attempt work no less 
 serious and serviceable, leaving the " short story " 
 to the more volatile and vain male sex. To me, it 
 seems eminently right and proper that a woman 
 should have made it possible for English readers to 
 acquire a correct notion of the philosophy of Dante, 
 as well as of the scope and aim of the Divine Com- 
 edy. Was there ever a man who honored women 
 with an affection like unto that the poet avowed 
 for those " three blessed ladies," Beatrice, St. Lucy 
 and the Virgin Mother of God! 
 
 Great works demand and deserve meditation ; 
 and, in a sense, all good books are great. Dante's 
 epic compels meditation ; M. Ozanam's good book 
 deserves meditation. Not alone silver shall a delver 
 find m it, but also the more precious gold. The 
 poet gave an example to all who would have sound 
 knowledge about deep things. At first it was difift- 
 cult for him to enter into the thoughts of the phil- 
 osophers; but he persisted, and finally, through 
 patience, he penetrated them. Not to his patience, 
 or to the natural powers of his mind, did he award 
 all the credit for his successful mastery of things 
 subtle and profound. After pondering long over 
 books, having sought Philosophy where alone she 
 loves to dwell, " in the schools of the religious and
 
 xii. Preface. 
 
 in the assemblies of philosophers," Dante felt bound, 
 giving the world the result of his experience, to 
 inculcate a lesson; an old lesson, though one not 
 easily learned. '' May God permit thee, reader, to 
 gather fruit fro7n thy reading^' said the poet, in " the 
 twentieth strain of the first song, whose awful theme 
 records the spirits whelmed in woe." These sig- 
 nificant words may well serve as an introduction to 
 Frederic Ozanam's: Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 in the Thirteenth Century. 
 
 John A. Mooney.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 ruEMMiNARY DISCOURSE. — Tradition of Letters in Italy, 
 
 from the Latin Decadence to Dante 3 
 
 I.VTRODUCTiON.— Authority of Dante in regard to Philoso- 
 phy. — Design of the Proposed Work 47 
 
 • PART I. 
 
 Chaptek I. — Religious, Political, and Intellectual Situation 
 of Christendom from the Thirteenth to the Fourteenth 
 Century; Causes Favoring the Development of Phil- 
 osophy 63 
 
 Chapter II. — Scholastic Philosophy in the Thirteenth Cen- 
 tury 76 
 
 Chapter III. — Special Characteristics of Italian Philosophy. 96 
 Chapter IV. — Life, Studies, and Genius of Dante. General 
 Design of the Divine Comedy. Place Occupied in it by 
 the Philosophical Element 104 
 
 PART IL 
 Exposition of Dante's Philosophical Doctrines. 
 
 Chapter L — Prolegomena 133 
 
 Chapter IT.— Evil 145 
 
 xiii.
 
 xiv. Table of Cotitetits. 
 
 Page 
 Chapter III. — Evil and Good, in Conjunction and in Con- 
 flict 175 
 
 Chaptek IV. — Good 222 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Chapter L — Dante's Philosophy Considered. — Analogies 
 
 with Oriental Doctrines 270 
 
 Chapter II. — Relations of Danie's Philosophy to the 
 Schools of Antiquity. Plato and Aristotle. — Idealism 
 and Sensism 280 
 
 Chapter III. — Relations of Dante's Philosophy with the 
 Schools of the Middle Ages. — St. Bonaventura and St. 
 Thomas Aquinas. Mysticism and Dogmatism 302 
 
 Chapter IV. — Analogy between the Philosophy of Dante 
 and Modern Philosophy. — Empiricism and Rationalism. 327 
 
 Chapter V. — The Orthodoxy of Dante 343 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Inquiries and Documents irt Aid of the History of 
 Dante and of Conte77iporary Philosophy. 
 
 I. Daxte'sPoliticalLife.— WasheaGuelfor a Ghibelline? 361 
 
 II. Beatrice. — Influence of "Women in Christian Society, 
 
 and of Catholic Symbolism in the Arts. — The Three 
 Blessed Women, Beatrice, St. Lucy, and the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary 383
 
 Tabic of Contents. xv. 
 
 Page 
 III. Daxte's First Studies ix Philosophy. — Extracts from 
 
 the Conviio. — Conjectures in Regard to the Period of 
 
 Dante's Journey to Paris. — Researches of M. Victor le 
 
 Clerc Concerning Siger de Brabant. — Conclusions, in 
 
 Aid of the Interpretation of tlie Poem 423 
 
 DOCUMENTS 
 
 In Elucidation of the History of Philosophy in the 
 Thirteenth Cetitury. 
 
 I. Bull of Innocent IV. For tiie Revival of Philosophical 
 
 Studies 443 
 
 II. General Classification of Human Knowledge. Treatise 
 
 by St. Bonaventura 445 
 
 III. God : an Extract from St. Bonaventura 455 
 
 IV. Man : Extracts from St. Bonaventura 460 
 
 V. Society : Philosophy of the Law ; Politics : Extracts 
 
 from St. Thomas Aquinas 471 
 
 VI. Nature : Extracts from Albert the Great, and from 
 Eoger Bacon 493 
 
 Appendix. N?? I., XL, and III 503, 504, 506
 
 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy in the 
 Thirteenth Century. 
 
 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 
 
 Tradition of Letters in Italy, from the Latin Decadence to Dante. 
 
 MID tlie doubts and passions disquieting our age, the past in- 
 terests us mainly by its relations to ourselves, that is, by 
 what we still retain of it. The chief interest of the his- 
 tory of literature consists in seeking out among the intellectual 
 monuments of all the ages, the ways of Providence and the general 
 laws governing the human mind. Literatures follow one another : 
 we are concerned in knowing whether they are bound together and 
 continue one another ; whether, by the side of the poetic instincts 
 which everywhere awake spontaneously, there is a learned dis- 
 cipline, which constitutes art, and which the nations transmit one 
 to another, always taught and always teaching, accomplishing but 
 one and the same work as they follow one and the same destiny. 
 To- state the question in briefer terms, what we wish to know is, 
 
 if there exists a tradition of letters. 
 
 3
 
 4 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Modern researches liave begun to ro-link in history the suc- 
 cession of epochs. On one side, the languages, legends, and doc- 
 trines of classic antiquity, which were thought to have originated 
 in the regions where they chiefly flourished, have been connected 
 with the civilizations of the Orient. The old pretensions to au- 
 tochthonous development have disappeared before the proofs of a 
 common and distant derivation. On the other side, in the little 
 known depths of the Middle Ages, in the systems of its schools, 
 and in the works of its great masters, we have been obliged to 
 recognize the legitimate sources of modern science and art. The 
 world at large has ceased to date from Luther the awakening of 
 human reason. Thus has been established on the one hand the 
 unity of the centuries of antiquity, and on the other, that of the 
 Christian ages. It now remains to study more closely the inter- 
 val separating these two eras in the world's historj'. We must 
 examine whether letters perished during the terrible years occu- 
 pied by the fall of the Roman Empire and the incursions of the 
 barbarians. "Were they then extinguished to be subsequently re- 
 vived by a concurrence of favorable circumstances, or did they un- 
 dergo a transformation which was to save them, and thus preserve 
 continuity of instruction? 
 
 The Renaissance, for a long time placed at the period of the 
 taking of Constantinople, has by some been thrown back to the 
 date of the Crusades, and by others to the reign of Charlemagne.
 
 In the Thirteenth Cejitury. 5 
 
 Even before Charlemagne, we find tlic Roman muses sheltered in 
 Irish and Anglo-Saxon monasteries. But we must come to closer 
 quarters with these researches. Thej'^ should l^e pursued on their 
 proper ground, in Italy, the last refuge of antiquity and the start- 
 ing point of the Middle Ages. There it is that we may obtain a 
 view of the most memorable transition which has ever taken 
 place. Tlirough what phases did letters pass during eleven hundred 
 years, from Jie Latin decadence to the first writings in the vul- 
 gar tongue ? How did the human mind lay aside its pagan liabits 
 to take on a new character? This is the revolution we shall en- 
 deavor to follow, seeking in its long course to discover, if we can, 
 the unity of the tradition of letters. First, we will consider that 
 tradition as existing among the Romans, such as antiquity had 
 made it in the age of Augustus; then we will watch it as re- 
 generated by Christianity ; we will examine whether it traversed 
 the period of barbarism, and how it was reproduced in the works 
 of Italian genius, whence in turn it went forth to reign over 
 every literature in Europe. 
 
 I. 
 If we consider Roman civilization at the opening of the mod- 
 ern era, we shall find that it had its roots in the whole of antiquity. 
 We see in it the result and abridgment of the anterior civilizations, 
 and, as it were, the latest effort of the Iniman mind after the lapse 
 of four thousand years. The Latin language itself. I)y tlio incoii
 
 6 Dimtc, and Catliolic Philosophy 
 
 testable originality of its character, by its radical analogies with 
 tlie Clreek and the Sanscrit, bears witness to the primitive rela- 
 tions existing between the Orient, Greece, and Italy. Rome appears 
 to have received from the East, through the Etruscans, its gravest 
 religious institutions, the remains of a disfigured truth not lacking 
 grandeur. I mean that science of auguries and worship of the 
 manes which made of life a ceaseless communion with the gods and 
 with ancestral spirits. The arts and the sense of beauty came to 
 Rome from Greece, through the neighborhood of the Dorian cities 
 of Calabria and Sicily. Later, after the Macedonian war, Greek 
 pedagogues were to be bought in the slave market ; patrician 
 youths studied in the schools of Athens or of Rhodes ; the Latin 
 muses grew rich by imitation, another species of conquest. But 
 the characteristic quality of the Roman genius, that wliich it owed 
 only to itself and to the old Latium where it had its Ijirth, was 
 the practical sense of justice, the instinct of rights, of Ian'. Laws 
 were reduced to a science— yMr«.s^jn<f?ence. Eloquence defended 
 law at liome, while arms imposed it abroad ; the entire existence 
 of the ancient Romans was enclosed in this circle. Tt was by 
 reason of the energetic precision of their mental constitution 
 that they surpassed all who had preceded them. Tlie Greeks 
 wrought for glory, the Romans for empire. They desired not so 
 much tlie admiration as tlie obedience of men. Thoy used letters 
 as a power. The remembrance of public affairs [res publico.) is
 
 In the Thirtce7ith Ccntioy. 7 
 
 impressed on their finest works, as tlie name of the senate and 
 tlie people on their monuments. By the majest)- of Cicero's har- 
 angues, we recognize a speech which is mistress in the affairs of 
 the world; the poetry of Virgil is never detached from the politi- 
 cal cause which it has embraced : art has something to do beside 
 charming ; it must be of use. There was then at Rome in liter- 
 ature as in society, a secular tradition, of which Italy was the or- 
 gan, in the middle portion through Latium, in the South by the 
 Hellenic colonies of Magna Grsecia, and in the North by the Asi- 
 atic colonies of Etruria ; so tliat all tlie labors of the past had 
 there found their goal, and all the civilized peoples of the eartli 
 seemed to have put their hands to the work of forming their 
 masters. *" 
 
 Xow, the three chief things constituting Roman civilization, 
 namely, religion, laws, and letters, were bordering on their deca- 
 dence. We must follow them in their downward course, to learn 
 if their destinies divide or run side by side, to know what was to 
 be done away with and what retained. 
 
 The downfall of paganism was not at all what we have been 
 accustomed to think it. The ancient religion did not disappear 
 rapidly to make way for the Gospel. Notwithstanding the scoffs 
 of philosophers, the multitude were slow in deserting iis altars ; 
 the advent of the emperors gave to it a species of restoration: 
 minds were led back to it bv the lassitude of dou'it or the uneasi-
 
 8 Da?ite, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ness of remorse. Its strength was renewed by the introduction 
 of the foreign worships of Serapis and Mithras. But these 
 borrowed religions only brought to it a more learned error; 
 they abolished neither impure observances nor bloody rites. 
 Paganism did not then reform itself as if to meet the truth half 
 way ; it disputed the ground to the very end. The last traces 
 were long preserved, and that which thus remained was an ob- 
 stacle and not a help for the future. 
 
 Not thus, however, did legislation fare. At first it seemed as 
 if the entire Roman edifice were about to crumble. The emperor, 
 who, under this military title was merely the head of the plebeians, 
 completed the destruction of the patrician city, long shaken in its 
 sacerdotal and military constitution. TJie city perished, and with 
 it disappeared, little by little, its pitiless laws and the jealous solem- 
 nities with which it surrounded civil acts. But, meantime, the 
 empire was in course of establishment. The provinces developed 
 under a common administration ; their usages, collected and codi- 
 fied by the jurisconsults, formed a public or national law, which 
 was put forward to oppose the rigor of the old civil law, and 
 which gave new foundations to the family, to property, and to 
 justice. It was this public law, that is to say, the law which the 
 world liad made for itself tlirougli the medium of Rome, which 
 was preserved in the compilations of Justinian to become the basis 
 of future societies. All Europe is founded on this inheritance.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 9 
 
 The destiny of letters is similar to that of laws. At first, they 
 are seen to decline rapidly. A time came when, the processes of 
 art absorbing the mind, the care for the form carried away the 
 thought, and began to lower its flight. That moment was deci- 
 sive. An arrogant reaction set in against the great writers of the 
 preceding age. The illusion of false theories, the ghtter of de- 
 clamatory exercises and of public lectures, completed the aberra- 
 tions of eloquence and of poetry. Inspiration, which gives life, 
 retreated ; and with it, style, which is the light by which we see 
 the thought. And yet, this is the very period when Latin liter- 
 ature laid hold on the future. Rome then achieved two memor- 
 able acts for the diffusion and the preservation of human learning. 
 
 First, as she saw that she had received from the Eastern na- 
 tions all she could expect from them, Rome turned toward the 
 West. She there found rude manners and undisciplined minds ; 
 she undertook to lift these to her own level. During the long 
 period when her conquests seemed to have come to an end, she 
 subjugated the earth a second time, and even more completely, 
 by her language and her institutions. The propagating move- 
 ment may be followed. TVe see letters start from the North of 
 Italy, and spread by way of Roman Gaul into Spain, where they 
 raised up the brilliant generation of the two Senecas, Lucan, 
 Quintilian, and Martial. They afterwards passed into Africa, in 
 the time of Cornutus, Fronto, and Apuleius, to return to Gaul,
 
 10 Daittc, and Catholic Pliilosophy 
 
 and even to Treves on the confines of German}-, with the pane- 
 gyrists, with Ausonius, Rutihus, and Sidonius Apollinaris. Thus 
 did foreigners obtain citizenship in the republic of letters as well 
 as in the state. Rome was not ignorant of the danger of this in- 
 vasion ; she was aware of what she must lose in elegance and 
 nobility, in thus consorting with the sons of barbarians. Her 
 glory consists in not having been repelled by the sight of them. 
 She naturalized them, civilized them ; she pursued at her own 
 risk and peril the education of the writers and the nationalities. 
 This was not simply the course of events ; it was a benefit un- 
 derstood and intended. Pliny pronounced upon Italy this re- 
 markable eulogium, that " The gods seem to have chosen her to 
 give to the world a serener sky, to unite all empires, to bring to- 
 gether discordant tongues, and to restore to man, humanity. " 
 And Tertullian, going a step farther, coined a new word, an elo- 
 quent barbarism, to express that universal culture which was ' 
 spread abroad from the British Islands lo the extremities of Hun- 
 gary ; he called it, Romanitas. 
 
 At the same time, and that the widening circle might have a 
 centre, a new power, unknown to preceding ages, was in progress 
 of establishment : public instruction. Egypt had its initiations, 
 surrounded by mystery ; at Athens, the care of literary instruc- 
 tion was left to the good will or the cupidity of the learned. In 
 Italy, the land of discipline, teaching was to become a magistracy.
 
 /;/ the Thirtcetith Century. 1 1 
 
 CiBSar sanctioned it by surrounding it witli iuiinunities and 
 privileges ; Vespasian assigned a public salarj' for the mainte- 
 nance of masters of belles-lettres. Then arose those celebrated 
 schools of the Capitol, to which order and prosperity were insured 
 by imperial legislation, and which, under the reign of "Valentinian 
 III., counted thirty professors, surrounded by innumerable pupils. 
 Two instructors taught philosophy and jurisprudence: there 
 were three Latin rhetoricians, five Greek sophists, ten Greek and 
 ten Latin grammarians. Twenty-nine libraries held the learned 
 treasures of antiquity. Similar foundations were multiplied 
 throughout Italy, and a constitution of Antoninus Pius extended 
 tliem to the cities of the provinces. At the sight of these potent 
 means, one is at first surprised at the mcdiocritj'^ of the results. 
 One naturally looks with disdain upon schools which follow ages 
 of greatness, and whence issue only obscure generations. In vain 
 did Quintilian, in his " Institutes of the Orator," undertake the 
 education of the eloquent man. He was not permitted actually 
 to see the ideal orator whom he so solicitously endeavored to 
 form. However, let us beware of too rash a judgment : those 
 grammarians, artificers in words, who passed their days in con- 
 troversies regarding syntax, were watching over the preservation 
 of one of the most beautiful languages in the world. Those 
 scholiasts, whose persistent commentaries seem to fasten like 
 canker-worms on the writings of poets and prose-authors, will
 
 12 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 yet, in the discussion of every syllable, maintain the correctness 
 of the texts, throw light upon obscure passages, and preserve the 
 remembrance of usages that have passed away. To them do we 
 owe the boon of being able to read intelligently the works of the 
 great men, their masters and ours. Macrobius, Servius, Teren- 
 tianus Maurus, Martianus CapeUa, by gathering together the 
 learning of their time, became the teachers of the Middle Ages. 
 "Wait a few hundred years, and from those very schools which 
 seem to you so useless, will come forth disciples beyond their 
 utmost hopes ; from them are to issue the radiant figures of Dante 
 and Petrarch. In this, as in so many other cases, it is found that 
 man has been working for a future other than the near one in his 
 thoughts. He does otherwise than he intends to do, often, much 
 more than he dreams of ; and when his work is completed, we 
 cannot refrain from admiring the all-powerful will tliat worked 
 with him. Now, this obscure labor which preserved to us classic 
 letters, this teaching, which had its focus in Italy, and its rays 
 everywhere, is what I mean by tradition. Tradition thus gave 
 shelter to art, that the period of storms might be safely traversed, 
 as the ark, on the eve of the deluge, gathered the living creatures 
 within its hold. The ark was but a darksome refuge, poor and 
 narrow, and yet all the nobler part of nature found shelter there. 
 Similarly, tlie tradition of letters seems reduced to the meagre 
 scaffolding of scholastic glosses and grammatical rules; and yet it
 
 hi the TliirteeiitJi Century. 1 3 
 
 holds within its bounds all the great literary epochs of Europe. 
 Where we have been accustomed to see only a decadence, we must 
 recognize a starting-point. 
 
 II. 
 
 But while letters were to be saved, pagan society was to end 
 by a dissolution relaxing sucessivoly all its thews. Tliat was 
 llie period when the Christian Church began its work in Rome. 
 Between these two inimical societies, an abj'ss existed ; how was 
 the human mind to bridge it? How should Christianity enter in- 
 to letters, and letters into Christianity ? Here the question pre- 
 sents itself in all its difficulty. And it is here that we must en- 
 deavor to grasp the secret bonds by which the ages are knitted 
 together. 
 
 First, the Gospel penetrated into Roman civilization by a latent 
 influence which has not been sufficiently considered. We must look 
 closely at that interior and communicative power which was ex- 
 erted upon the pagans themselves : we must go down, so to speak, 
 into the moral catacombs, hollowed out beneath the soil of pagan- 
 ism, in order that the final upheaval might be wrought. We may 
 follow the traces of the Apostolic preaching into the palace of the 
 Caesars, and we may watch the regenerative thought slowly 
 spreading by the current of opinions, even into the laws and into 
 literature. Thus, at the end of the reign of Claudius, we sud- 
 denly meet with two decisions, one ol whicii modifies the riglit of
 
 14 Dafite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 life and death held by masters, and the other emancipates women 
 from the perpetual tutelage exercised by their kindred. And 
 these two acts, subversive of the whole public economy of llie 
 Romans, contrary to all previous efforts of jurisprudence, to the 
 ontiro tendenc}' of manners, are found, by a singular coincidence, 
 at thever}- moment of tlie propagation of the new faith which frees 
 the slave through the power of conscience, and woman by virginit3^ 
 TJie hidden action of Christianity shows itself especially in liter- 
 ature, as, for example, when we come to investigate the celebrated 
 question of the relations of St. Paul with Seneca. We soon recog- 
 nize the profound difference existing between the stoicism of the 
 Greeks, of whicli the basis was wholly pagan, and the views of 
 the Roman stoic, who re-establishes the relations between God 
 and man, through grace and love. Thus in the presence of the 
 new dogma, a silent reform had been wrought in the system of 
 the stoics. This better doctrine, adopted by Seneca, recognizable 
 in Epictetus, was to come to the throne with Marcus Aurelius, 
 and to give to the empire its last fair days. So that the Gospel, 
 accused of the decadence of Rome, on the contrary, really delayed 
 the course of events. While pagans were burning Christians in 
 tlie gardens of Nero, the torches of those festivals were already 
 enlightening the world. ' 
 
 ' A decree of the senate under Claudius abollsbes the tutelage of the rel- 
 atives over women who have reached a twelve-year-old majority. An-
 
 In the ThirtccntJi Century. 15 
 
 Tlie celebrated thesis of the relations existing between Seneca 
 and St. Paul has been so compromised by incompetent criticism that 
 one can no longer refer to the snbject withont addncing the 
 proofs. The strongest, that wliich lias been the most neglected, 
 and wliicli appears to us decisive, is the distinction between tlic 
 two stoicisms; on the one side that of Zeno, Chrysippus, and 
 Cleanthes, wliose metaphysics teaches the absolute unity of nature, 
 the divinity of tlie world, the future absorption and annihilation 
 of the soul in the divine essence, the sum of all things enclosed in 
 a fatal circle of successive destructions and creations ; finallj^, the 
 exaltation of the human being so far as to make him a portion of the 
 divinity ; this last is a pagan doctrine very similar to that of the 
 Indian Vedanta. On the other hand, we find the esoteric doctrine 
 of Seneca, who distinguishes between the divine and the human per- 
 sonalities, God acting as a father, and 'preventing by His assistance 
 man who corresponds by love ; add to this the combat between 
 the spirit and the flesh, immortality, moral freedom, and the pre- 
 cept' of universal brotherhood. These doctrines are not inferred 
 from obscure illusions contained in the public writings of the 
 philosopher; they are found in liis most intimate correspondence; 
 they fill entire epistles; see especially letters 41, 42, 95, 102, 120. 
 If, besides, such doctrines cannot be attributed to the personal ele- 
 
 other frees slaves abandoned by their masters on account of sickness or old 
 age. See M. Troplong's Memoire, analyzed in the ComptcB rendun de 
 V Academic des sciences morales et politiques.
 
 1 6 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 vation of character of a man dishonored by so many weaknesses, 
 one naturally thinks of the circumstances that might have brought 
 him in contact with the teaching of St. Paul. These are indicated 
 in the excellent Memoire of M. Grepiw; the preaching of St. Paul 
 at the Areopagus, his discussions with the Athenian stoics, his 
 appearance at Corinth before the pro-consul Annaeus Gallio, a 
 brother of Seneca's, and his arrival at Rome, where he was placed 
 in the custody of Afranius Burrhus, prefect of the prjetorium. 
 Since the above was written, I have seen the question of the re- 
 lations between St. Paul and Seneca treated with much power and 
 ingenuity in the " Cesars," by M. de Champagny. 
 
 In the second place, if we study Christianity in itself, amid all 
 the obscurity of these first two centuries we find it already in the 
 full possession of its spiritual power : it bears within it all that 
 it is to bring forth. The Church is but just born, and yet it has 
 its hierarchy crowned by the papacy, its liturgy consecrated by 
 the Eucharistic sacrifice. In the representations of sacred per- 
 sons and things in the catacombs, we see the beginnings of the 
 traditional types of Christian art ; later, the tombs of the martyrs 
 will rise to the light of day, and the basilicas that cover them will 
 lift to the very heavens their triumphant cupolas. The sacred 
 scriptures open a well-spring, previously unknown, wherein letters 
 are to be renewed. The Acts of the Martyrs arc the beginnings 
 of modern history, and in the allegorical " Visions of Hermas "
 
 In the Tliirtccnth Century. 17 
 
 we recognize a new-born poetry, the first example of the books 
 of visions so numerous in the Middle Ages, books that will finalh- 
 inspire the Divine Comedy. 
 
 Thirdly, the Christian religion, notwithstanding its radical new- 
 ness, did not abjure the old civilization which it had come to regen- 
 erate. One must not here look to see a desperate conspiracy, a 
 deliberate revolt, the facile heroism of enmity. The men who 
 were given to the lions did not deny their Roman fatherland ; they 
 believed in its destinies, they looked upon the empire as the sole 
 bond which hindered the world from falling asunder, and they 
 asked of God its preservation. The arts lent them antique forms 
 for the expression of their thoughts ; their sepulchral paintings 
 still recall the methods of pagan artists ; in them, the figure of 
 Orpheus, by a bold symbol, represents Christ drawing hearts to 
 Himself. At the same time, the first Fathers of the Church rec- 
 ognize the services of reason ; tliey find in the doctrines of the 
 philo^phers the scattered traces of an incomplete truth, some- 
 thing like a far-away participation in the Eternal Word. Several 
 disciples of Plato receive baptism without laying aside the philos- 
 opher's cloak. One of them, St. Justin, opens at Rome the first 
 school of orthodox philosophy ; he closes its doors, after a lapse 
 of twenty-five years, only to seal with his blood the alliance 
 thenceforth concluded between science and faith. Thus, in the 
 very times of the persecutions, Christianity, already the ruler of
 
 1 8 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 the future, of which it contains all the germs, binds to it the past, 
 whether by the secret ascendancy which it exercises, or by the 
 voluntary acceptance of the entire legitimate inheritance of tlie 
 human mind. 
 
 The conversion of Constantine hastened the course of event-^: 
 he did not press them at once to tlieir final conclusion. A\'c 
 must not think that the C<Bsars, when they became neophytes, 
 carried the world with them: idolatry resisted^ however, it sub- 
 stituted aix>k)gies in the place of tortures, and the struggle 
 became a discussion. At the same period began the <juarrel of 
 Arianism. These two questions were agitated, not in an obscure 
 corner of the world, but in the cities of the East, in Greece, and 
 in the full daylight of Italy. All Rome was stirred at the pros- 
 pect of the re-establishment of the altar of victorj^ ; heresy 
 deemed itself sovereign at the Council of Rimini. The fate of 
 tlie human race was the question in di.^pute; a fruitful perplexity 
 stirred the liuman mind to its very depths; and in the furrow 
 tlius formed, sprang- up a new science, Theology. In its turn, 
 literature ended by following the other powers of the world: it 
 became Christian, not without hesitations, not without profana- 
 tions, not without sundry vicissitudes. The rhetoricians entered 
 the Church ; those were the days of Lactantius, of Victorinus, 
 and of the most glorious of the deserters from the schools, St. 
 Augustine. Africa assorted her claim to him. Rome could not
 
 /// the ThirtccntJi Century. 1 9 
 
 retain St. Jerome. But there remained to the Itahans, St. Am- 
 brose ; and this fact suffices to marlv the moment when in the 
 same hands were luiited tlic two inheritances of human and 
 divine letters. 
 
 It was said lliat, hlce Plato, St. Ambrose had been visited in 
 his cradle by bees, wiiich hud left tlieir honey upon his lips. A 
 young orator, brouj;lit up iu llic Roman schools, he had appeared 
 with extraordinary applause in the courts of Milan. He still 
 wore the purple-bordered robe of the magistrate when he was 
 proclaimed bishop by the inspiration of the people. "We cannot 
 be astoniihed if the habits of secular eloquence appear in his 
 discourses, if he remembers Cicero even when contending with 
 him, if he writes hymns in the metres of Horace. The old 
 national genius is still keeping watch with him when he saves 
 the peace of the empire, when his words hold Die tyrant Maxi- 
 mns in Treves, and when his letters stop on the Danubian frontier 
 the conquering bands of the Marcomanni. Meanwhile the grace 
 of the episcopate urges him onward and leaves him no repose; 
 he takes part in all the controversies, all the dangers of his times. 
 Symmachus and the deputies from the senate, when they ask for 
 the restoration of then- idols, find him on their way; and when 
 the Arian Empress's satellites seek to force the gates of the 
 temple, he is found standing upon the threshold. Thus, all has 
 its place in this great mind, and the same heart that led him to re-
 
 20 Da?itc, a)id CatJiolic PJiilosophy 
 
 proach Theodosius with the massacre of Thessalonica, will induce 
 him to sell the sacred vessels for the ransom of captives, and to 
 shed abundant tears, weeping the death of a brother, or the fall 
 of a sin-stricken virgin. 
 
 Two other writers must detain us yet a moment. St. Paulinus, 
 a disciple of the poet Ausonius, deserted the pagan muses and 
 his rich possessions in Aquitaine, to pass his life in the shelter of 
 the tomb of St. Felix of Nola. His pensive piety loved the beau- 
 tiful sky of Campania, the devotions to a favored saint, pilgrim- 
 ages frequented by a population that returned from them to lead 
 better lives. But sacred literature followed liim into his retreat ; 
 a few chosen souls shared it, and a livelj' correspondence kept up 
 his relations with the most illustrious persons. One cannot den)- 
 him a share in the intellectual destinies of Italy, and in the 
 affairs of Christendom. 
 
 Later, wlion the days of Rome were ncaring their end, St. Leo 
 the Great seemed to hold them back. This pontiff was called 
 the Christian Demosthenes ; in the pulpit, lie recalled St. Paul, 
 and in the pontifical chair, St. Peter. Italy had nothing stronger 
 to oppose to the invasion of Attila. Three hundred thousand 
 barbarians stopped at the passage of the Mincio. in the presence 
 of the aged priest. A few years later, within the walls of Rome, 
 he assuaged the fury of Genseric, obtaining from him tlie lives of 
 the citizens and the preservation of buildings. We shall nevei-
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 21 
 
 know liow much courage and genius have been required to pre- 
 serve until the present daj', all that remain of the stones of that 
 city on which was let loose the vengeance of the whole world. 
 
 Thus the Ciiurch struggled against paganism and heresy, that 
 minds might be set free, and at tlie same time kept back the 
 barbarians, and prolonged the existence of the old civilization. 
 Tlio bishops relieved tlie weary legions of the care of the Empire. 
 In the period of terror which preceded the fall of the Western 
 throne, each year of delay was a benefit. Morals and manners, 
 Ikw and literature, needed time to prepare for themselves places of 
 refuge. With the bishoprics, centres of study were multiplied 
 throughout Italy. Then nuist have commenced the parochial 
 schools, mentioned in 529 (A. D.) by the Council of Yaison. 
 Secular instruction had yielded to the influence of the general 
 law, and the tradition of letters was thenceforth Christian. Yet 
 it forsook neitlier its patriotic memories nor its devotion to great 
 models. All the energy of the Roman accent was renewed in 
 the songs of the poet Prudentius, wlien he placed on the lips of 
 tlie martyr, St. Lawrence, the following hymn: "0 Christ! 
 name like to no other under the sun, splendor and virtue of the 
 Father, author of heaven, founder of these walls! Thou placedst 
 Rome as a sovereign at the summit of eartlily things, willing that 
 the world should serve tlie people who bear the steel and wear 
 the toga. Behold how the whole human race has passed under
 
 22 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 the law of Reimis. Hostile vvaj's of life di-aw near to one 
 another, and are blended together in thought and in word. 
 Christ! grant to Thj' Romans that their citj' may be Christian, 
 that cit}- hy which Thou hast given one and the same faith to all 
 the cities of the earth. All the provinces are united in one creed ; 
 the world has j'ielded ; may the imperial city yield in its turn! 
 may Romulus be faithful, and Numa believe in Thee ! " 
 
 III. 
 
 The invasion of the barbarians opens a third period when the 
 succession of human things seems to be interrupted. Seven times 
 in less than two centuries (404-55'?), did the northern liordes des- 
 olate Italy. They followed one another so closely that five gen- 
 erations were subjected. to these terrors, and passed away, bear- 
 ing with them that uncertainty regarding the future which de- 
 stroys the power of laboring for it. As hope died, so were mem- 
 ories blotted out. The antique world there ends, and there begins 
 the modern world: it is a birth on the day following a death, and. 
 in the darksome hour which separates the two, all transition dis- 
 appears. 
 
 However, amid these armed irruptions of which the disastrous 
 effects cannot be denied, we may call to mind another fact not 
 less considerable. 1 mean \]\c pacific arrival oi vast numbers of 
 barbarians within the Honian empire After Ca'sar had led Uie
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. 23 
 
 Germans at Pharsalia, they gradually filled the army as mercen- 
 aries, country places as colonists, a variety of offices as citizens, 
 until finally, w hen tliej' had become consuls, patricians, prefects 
 of the pra'toruuii, sons-in-law to the emperors, they occupied so 
 large a space that none -was left for their masters. These stran- 
 gers, half Romans, placed between tlie old inhabitants of Italy 
 and its new conquerors, prevented a sliock which must otherwise 
 have; reduced everything to dust and ashes; their regular domina- 
 tion smoothed the passage from liberty to violence and oppres- 
 sion. 
 
 The two facts which we have just indicated, tlie pacific entrance 
 and the violent invasion, characterize, in Italy, the successive 
 conquests of the Goths and tlie Lombards. 
 
 And. here we pause to recognize the reparative mission. of The- 
 odoric. His arrival iu Italy was at first a legal reclamation, exer- 
 cised against the Heruli, in the name of the Caesar of Byzantium ; 
 then, a peaceable taking possession, consented to by the senate 
 and acquiesced in by the people. His benefactions restored the 
 walls of the" cities, their aqueducts, their amphitheatres, and the 
 still more precious ruins of their liberties. The hierarchy of titles, 
 of offices, and of magistracies, preserved its prestige ; the laws 
 regained their power. This leader of Germanic bands, who 
 could'sigu his name only by means of a perforated plate of gold, 
 did himself honor in wearing the purple ; he gave a Roman code
 
 24 Dafutr, u7id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 of laws to his disarmed warriors, surrounded himself with secre- 
 taries, quajstors, and counts {comites\ and discoursed with them 
 concerning maxims of philosophy, the courses of the stars, the 
 nature of rivers and seas. Rome lent to him her auspices, and he 
 seemed to meditate the formation of a new Empire of the West, 
 tlius antedating by three centuries the work of Charlemagne. A 
 general alliance was formed among the Germanic nations, under 
 the patronage of the Gothic race, which then held the finest prov- 
 inces of Europe. Thus was contact with Latin science and cus- 
 toms civilizing a people who spoke an admirable language, and 
 whose heroic memories were in themselves an epic poem. Who 
 would not have predicted for tliis race a long historical destiny ? 
 The dawn of a rising civilization began to break from the shores 
 of the Adriatic to the pillars of Hercules. And yet, the mon- 
 archy of the Goihs m Italy lasted only sixty-nine years. The 
 decisive cause of its ruin will not, I think, be hard to find. The 
 heresy of Arius, that impotent and disputatious doctrine, which 
 lacked the courage to abide by the useful obscurities of faith, 
 which loved the shadow of the throne and the protection of em- 
 presses and eunuchs, did not possess the strength needed to up- 
 hold a new society: it failed, and the new order of things fell 
 from its grasp. 
 
 In connection with Theodoric, appear two men to whom letters 
 owe much, Boethius and Cassiodorus.
 
 In the ThirtccntJi Century. 25 
 
 Boethius still belongs to the past. Descended from the families 
 of Anicius and Manlius, he united in hi.< house all the memorials 
 of the old patrician, all the honors of the republic. We see him 
 on a certain day pass from the senate to the circus, and there, be- 
 tween his two sons, consuls, surrounded by lictors, distribute the 
 largesses of the prince to the assembled people, who fancy them- 
 selves back in the times of the Csesars, once more enjoying bread 
 and games (panem et circenses). During his infrequent leisure 
 moments he visited in thought the schools of Greece; his trans- 
 lations of Artistotle, and of the commentators of Artistotle, em- 
 braced the entire system of the Peripatetics : thence, and especi- 
 ally from a passage in his version of Porphj-ry, was one day to 
 issue, with the controversy between the realists and the nominal- 
 ists, tlie whole scholastic philosophy. On the other hand, his 
 " Treatise on Consolation," destined to achieve great popularity, 
 and betimes translated into many tongues, was to introduce to the 
 Middle Ages the ideas of Plato, regenerated by Christian mysti- 
 cism. The science of antiquity received in his person the baptism 
 of blood. He died a martyr. To this day, the people of Pavia 
 kneel at his tomb, and the peasants of the valley of Chiavenna 
 point out to the traveller the tower of Boethius. 
 
 Cassiodorus fulfils another destiny : he stands nearer to the 
 barbarians, nearer to the future. Wo meet him in the court of 
 the conquerors, the historian of their exploits, the panegyrist of
 
 26 Dank', and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 their reigns, in fine, the minister of Theodoric, of Amalasuntha, 
 of Athalaric, of Theodatus. always employing their power to save 
 whatever remained of enlighlenmeut. The rescripts of tiie princes, 
 drawn up by him, salute Rome with tlie imposing titles of Cily of 
 Letters, Mother of Eloquence. Teiupk of Virtue. Tlirougli liim the 
 senate received the order to re-establish the puljlic salary of the 
 grammarians and rhetoricians. This man li\ed tlirough one en- 
 tire period of liistory. He Iniried the Gothic dynasty wliich he 
 had inaugurated. But when the autliority of kings escaped his 
 grasp, he made for himself another and more lasting domination. 
 Amid the wars of Belisarius and Totila, he so\igiit shelter for liis 
 Latin penates beneath a Christian roof: he founded a monastery 
 in his retreat at Yivaria ; lie enriched it witli bodies, and peopled 
 it with laborious monks, — copyists, translators, and compilers. 
 He himself set the example; after having in his Institutions, 
 Divine and Hunian, traced for them an encyclopaxlia of contem- 
 poraneous learning, he thought of the less favored posterity which 
 was to follow, and, at the age of ninety-three, penned a treatise 
 on orthography. 
 
 These admirable lives were not wasted in solitary efforts. The 
 restored schools of the Capitol attracted a large number of stran- 
 gers. An active correspondence united the literary men (if Italy 
 with those of Gaul ; the orations of Ennodius shook the forum of 
 Milan. And when tiie deacon, Arator. read in public tlie Acts of
 
 /// the Tliirticnth Century. 27 
 
 the Apostles versified, tlie clergy and people of Rome, assembled 
 to hear him, filled during three days the elnircli of St. Peter in 
 vinculis. 
 
 Other days began with tlie conquest of the Lombards. "That 
 cruel nation, as a sword that liad leaped from its scabbard, mowed 
 down its harvest of the human lace." Incendiary bands of Arians 
 and idolaters fell upon the convents and the churches; the 
 cities were sacked, the fields devastated, and wild beasts wan- 
 dered in places previously inhabited by men. The ravagers went 
 to the very walls of Rome to bear away citizens into slavery. 
 Within, consternation reigned. Terror caused tlie disappearance 
 of the magistracies, the senate, tlie people, all tliose great shadows 
 of great things. Amid the universal dismay, tlie sovereign pon- 
 tiff himself, interrupting the course of liis homilies, left his pulpit 
 because life had become burdensome to him. The Fathers, in a 
 council at the Laieran, held in 680, confessed that none among 
 them " claim to excel in profane eloquence, for the fury of many 
 tribes has desolated these provinces, and, surrounded by bar- 
 barians, the servants of God, reduced to live by the labor of their 
 hands, lead lives filled with cure and anguisJi." It was during 
 those two centuries of misery, when Italy, torn 10 pieces by the 
 king.s, the Lombard dukes, and the Byzantine exarchs, knew no 
 repose, that amid the silence of thought and the crash of falling 
 niins, letters might have perished ; — then or never.
 
 28 Dante ^ and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 They were saved by Monasticism and the Papacy. The genius 
 of Italy, upheld by these two tutelary institutions, weathered 
 the storm. 
 
 Monasticism had received its organization on the eve of the 
 danger. The austerities of the Thebaid had long before found 
 courageous imitators in the West ; but these bands of cenobites 
 were still awaiiing a common law. Under the reign of the Goths 
 and toward the year 500 (A. D.). certain shepherds of Subiaco, 
 clearing away tlie brambles from the entrance to a neighboring 
 cave wherein Ihey thought they had seen a wild beast stirring, 
 discovered a young man; soon, judging of him by the gentleness 
 of his words, they took him for an angel. Benedictns was his 
 name. Educated in the Roman schools, wearied with tlie sordid- 
 ness of the care of terrestrial things, he had fled to the wilderness. 
 Numerous penitents soon galhered under his direction. The cells 
 of Monte Cassino rose upon the ruins of a temple of Apollo, the 
 last refuge of paganism. Thence was it that the man of God was 
 to send forth his disciples to the extremities of Sicily and of Gaul, 
 the beginning of that beneficent invasion which was to overrun 
 Cliristendom. Il is said that one night, when his monks were 
 asleep, and he watched alone in a tower of the monastery, as he 
 looked forth upon the heavens he lieheld around liim u great 
 brightness, and he saw the whole world illumined by a ray of 
 sutdight. That ray of light was the Benedictine rule. It was
 
 /// tJic Thirteenth Century. 29 
 
 liumble and short; but it embraced labor, which subjugates the 
 earth: prayer, whicli i.s mistress of licaven : and cliarity, wliich 
 o>nqucrs men : it thus restored to humanity tlic cmiiirc of itself 
 and of all things else. The rule provided for the uiaintenancc of 
 a conventual library, and soon usage joined to this the function of 
 tuition. Tlie charters deposited in the archives became tliC 
 landmarks of the first chronicles. The legends of the saints 
 threw athwart their pages the beams of a new poetry. From the 
 time of the second generation, Monte Cassino had its history. 
 From another quarter, and in the North of Italy, even amid the 
 much-feared Lombards, the monastic colony of St. Columbanus 
 (612) brought to Bobbio the learned traditions of Ireland. Thus 
 was the sacred fire of letters kept up under the care of the aus- 
 tere virginity of the cloister. What is there astonishing in the 
 fact that the monks preserved antiquity ? They were themselves 
 antiquity. They spoke its language, wore its garments, kept the 
 form of its habitations. If it had been given to Pythagoras to re- 
 turn and visit the sliores of his beloved Magna Grsecia, when he 
 beheld the pious repubUcs founded by St. Benedict and considered 
 their hfe in community, their silence, the grave, cloaked figures 
 pacing the porticos, he might have thought he had come upon 
 his own schools. And yet, the two institutions were divided 
 from one another by the entire breadth of Christianity. These 
 were the men who were to renew the face of Europe by faith, by
 
 30 Datitc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 learning, and by the cultivation of the soil. Detached from time, 
 they were of all times ; monks were to be eternal men. 
 
 About the same time (590-604), the Papacy attained to all its 
 potency in the person of St. Gregory the Great, a heroic priest 
 raised up to meet the perils of those evil days. Whilst the walls 
 of Rome, shaken by continual assaults, threatened to fall upon 
 him, his thoughts were at the ends of the eartli ; in the East, re- 
 pelhng the enterprises of the Byzantine court ; in the North, con- 
 verting the Anglo-Saxons ; in the West, completing the overthrow 
 of Arianism among the Visigoths of Spain. His discourses on 
 the freeing of slaves, his reform of the Church Chant, and his 
 writings, still held as among the bases of theological instruction, 
 acc<implished much in the interest of futuie times. He has been 
 accused of wishing to blot out the memory of the antique ages by 
 the destruction of books, but no one now believes the solitary 
 and equivocal testimony of John of Salisbury, who lived six hun- 
 dred years later. That pontiff, who has been set down as inimi- 
 cal to letters, made the study of them obligatory for the priest- 
 hood ; under his auspices, the most learned clerics mingled with 
 the most pious monks. The son of a senator, he had himself 
 hold the office of prfctor, and something of the old patrician 
 always still clung to him. "None of those who served him," 
 says the contemporary biographer, "had anythinEr barbarous 
 either in their language or in their dress. Lalinity was there to
 
 /// tlic Thirteenth Century. 31 
 
 be recognized whether under the trabea or the toga; it was a 
 Latin palace, where Latin customs were retained." B(pthins has 
 Ijeen called the last of the Romans ; this name, which again others 
 bestow upon Brutus, I should give to St. Gregory the Great, did I 
 not see after him the character of the masters of the world reap- 
 pear in some of tiiose illustrious Popes of whom the procession 
 will not be closed by Gregory VII. I do not see, the world has 
 not yet seen, the last of the Romans. 
 
 Contemporary historians extol the learning of St. Martin, Leo II., 
 Gregory III., and Zachary : their epistles stand in proof. Rome 
 had not ceased to be the centre of affairs of all nations. She con- 
 tinued to stamp the she-wolf of Romulus upon her .coin. The 
 Papacy did not hand over to the barbarians the keys of the city. 
 Learned ecclesiastics from England and from Asia met within her 
 precincts. In 690, there came to Rome a monk of Tarsus, named 
 Theodore, a pupil of the schools of Athens; this monk was des- 
 tined to bear with him ancient literature to the archiepiscopal see 
 of Canterbury. The teaching of grammar, that is to say, of hter- 
 aturc, continued in the city ; the Vutican library, meagre as it 
 might be, sent Greek iiiaiiuscripts of Aristotle to Pepin the Short.. 
 The basil ic-;is were enriched with mosaics and paintings. The in- 
 defatigable activity of the human mind showed itself in the ad- 
 mirable controversies sustained by the theologians of Italy with 
 the Moiiothelites and the Iconoclasts. But civilization was above
 
 32 Da?ite, atid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 all perpetuated by that which is its most faithful depository, 
 namely, by the languages. The Roman Church bore to the 
 northern nations the ancient idiom of the proconsuls, disputed 
 with Constantinople in the language of St. John Chrysostom, and 
 carefully gathered together the primitive texts of the Scriptures. 
 In consecrating by solemn adoption Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, 
 she saved whatever there was of most eminent in the past, the 
 genius of Latium, of Greece, and of the Orient. 
 
 And thus likewise, tradition perished not. It was preserved in 
 the Church, and hence in Christendom. Amid the obscurity 
 which extends from the seventh to the eighth century, the human 
 mind did not destroy its work of so many years. The Sovereign 
 Artificer wrought in silence; or, if He seemed to slumber for a 
 moment, the Church watched for Him, calling to our memory the 
 legend of the pious artist, who, on awaking, found the Interrupt- 
 ed picture of the preceding evening finished by unseen hands. 
 
 IV. 
 
 At length, by the blending together of the ancient civihza- 
 tion, of Christianity, and of the barbarians, a new society is 
 formed. It is founded on the concord of the priesthood and the 
 empire ; it is developed even amid their discords : we must follow 
 it until it finds its expression in a new literature. 
 
 The society of the Middle Ages was constituted on the day 
 when Charlemagne, kneeling at the tomb of the holy apostles,
 
 /// tJie Thirtcentli Century. 33 
 
 received the crown from the hands of Leo III., while the assem- 
 bled multitude cried out: "Long life and victory to Charles 
 Augustus, crowned bj- God, the great and pacific emperor of tli? 
 Romans ! " Then was realized the idea of a universal monarchy, 
 heir of the Ciiesars, and consecrated by Christianity, which was 
 to extend equally over both Latin and German nations, and which, 
 to express this alliance of all the ages, was to be called the Holy 
 Roman Empire. The great man well knew the extent of the 
 rights subsisting beneath the folds of this purple, and, by a ca- 
 pitulary of 802 (A. D.), he required, in virtue of his imperial title, 
 a new oath of fidelity from those who had done homage to him 
 simply as king. 
 
 Charlemagne had found power in Italy; he there found learn- 
 ing also. When he visited Rome for the first time (774), the 
 school children went out a mile beyond the walls to meet him : 
 letters recognized their protector. They accompanied him 
 throughout his entire progress ; the capture of Pavia gave to him 
 Paul the Deacon and Peter of Pisa; later, at Parma, he met 
 Alcuin. The Popes supplied him with skilful masters in the 
 seven arts, to the end that the study of grammar, calculation, and 
 singing might be properfy pursued in France. A Lombard cleric, 
 named Theodulph. with no patronage save his knowledge of the- 
 ology and his Latin verses, became bishop of Orleans (missus 
 (lominicits) and one of the grandees of the realm. Thus did learn-
 
 34 Dante ^ and CatJwlic Philosophy 
 
 ed men from ihe Peninsula emigrate beyond the Alps, in order 
 to assist in that restoration of human knowledge which tlie great 
 emperor had in his mind when he asked from Heaven twelve men 
 like St. Jerome and St. Augustine that the face of the earth 
 might be renewed. 
 
 Italy seemed exhausted by the effort she had made. Her 
 southern provinces, divided between tlic Greeks and tjie dukes of 
 Beneventum, and invaded by the Saracens, did not share ui the 
 beneficial unity of the empire. Soon, the decadence of the Carlo- 
 vingian dynasty, the civil wars which ens-ued, the profanation 
 of the Holy See, and the invasion of the Huns, proved a series of 
 disasters equaling the horrors of the preceding age. During the 
 long years that elapsed until the reign of Otho the Great, we are 
 tempted to ask if antiquity has survived through such great la- 
 bors, and if Christianity has grown by the fostering of such emi- 
 nent genius, only to perish together through the evils of the times 
 and the corruption of men. 
 
 However, upon closer inspection, we find light amid the chaos, 
 and its indications are more numerous tJian during the preceding 
 centuries. A law of Lothairc established schools in the nine 
 principal cities, which schools proved so many centres of instruc- 
 tion for Tuscany, the Marches, Lombardy. and Friuli. Tn 826. 
 A. D., a Roman council, held by Eugene II.. decrecil thnt in epis- 
 copal seats, and, when needful, in places depending ou ihem.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 35 
 
 pains be taken to maintain masters for the leacliing of letters, 
 "seeing that such Itnowledge is especially i.seful in furthering 
 the study of the Divine Law." This decree was renewed in 853. 
 Some years later, when Louis IL visited Beneventum (870), tlierc 
 were there, according to the chronicler, thirty-iwo philosophers, 
 of whom the most renowned was the, in truth, very little re- 
 nowned, Hilderic. One author of these days groans over seeing 
 poetry descend among the crowd. The demon of Latin verses 
 possessed men even in country places : 
 
 Hoc faciunt urbi : lioc quoque ruri. 
 More useful labors consecrate the memory of Bertharius, abbot 
 of Monte Cassino, of Bishop Hatto, and of Anastasius the Libra- 
 rian, who extracted the annals of the papacy from the acts of the 
 martyrs and the Church archives lliat lliey might take their place 
 in history. Wlien at length Otho the Great took up the interrupted 
 projects of Charlemagne, it was again to Italy that he looked for 
 the instruments of his designs. By his orders, Luitprand, bishop 
 of Cremona, undertook the embassy to Constantinople, of which 
 he has left us so remarkable an account. We see therein the old 
 age of the Byzantine empire, obstinate in its haughty isolation, 
 when indeed Europe had begun to need it no longer. Toward 
 the same epoch, a cleric of Novara. called to the German court. 
 stopped at the convent of St. Gall. Accompanied by a library of 
 a hundred volumes, Greek and Latin, and prej)ared on numerous
 
 36 Da?iie, and Catholic Philosopliy 
 
 questions which he had laid out for discussion, he purposed to 
 put to the proof and to astound the monks of tlie learned abbey. 
 But, in the ardor of dispute, as he himself says : " betrayed by the 
 custom of speaking the vulgar tongue," he lei fall a solecism, to 
 the great delight of the German Latinists. The ultramontane was 
 satirized ; the tale was noised abroad in all the monasteries. 
 Gunzo deemed the occurrence worthy of an apology, and, in the 
 letter in which he excuses his misfortune, we curiously enough, 
 amid the display of classical erudition, come upon one of the first 
 vestiges of modern Italian. 
 
 Otho II. gave back to Italy more than she had lent to him ; he 
 gave to the Holy See, Sylvester II., who re-opens the series of 
 great popes. The times that were in preparation called for noth- 
 ing mediocre. . 
 
 "When the quarrel broke out between the priesthood and the 
 empire, the Caesar was Henry IV., a scion of that Salic house 
 whose violent domination threatened Germany with a return to 
 barbarism. Of the traditions of the Roman monarchy, he knew 
 nothing but the zeal for the interests of the public treasury ; he 
 represented rather the old German kingship, upheld by the power 
 of the feudal system. The head of a military aristocracy, he held 
 to it the bishops, by the bond of investiture, which made of the 
 Church a fief, and the priests, by concubinage, which would have 
 made of the priesthood a caste. Thus would these two orders,
 
 In the Thirteenth Cejitury. 37 
 
 tlie nobility and the clergy, have pressed with all their weight 
 upon Christian society. On the other side, the true imperial gen- 
 ius, tlie genius for government, which emancipates and enlightens, 
 was at Rome in the coi.nsels of the papacy, in the thoughts of 
 Gregory VII. This Italian monk had inherited from the old 
 Romans all the power of the law, minus arms, and plus faith. 
 From the depths of the Lateran palace, where he was besieged, 
 now by the seditious multitude, and now by the anathema of a 
 schismatic conventicle, he made all the provinces of the "West 
 yield to the uniformity of the ecclesiastical law and conquered 
 the obstinate resistance of German3^ Wlien the German em- 
 peror went to Canossa and humbled himself before the pontiff, 
 this was again the triumph of civilization over the barbarian world. 
 
 When thus guiding the destinies of the Church, Gregory VII. 
 and his successors were serving the cause of letters ; in many 
 ways did they advance it. 
 
 And firstly, we do not subscribe to the common saying that the 
 arts are born and flourish best in times of peace. If there are, 
 as we have seen, wars of extermination, invasions and tyrannies 
 which crush intelligences beneath the brutal reign of force, it is 
 otherwise with those memorable contests which employ force in 
 the service of great interests, and consequently, in that of great 
 ideas. The human mind delights in struggles which call forth 
 the discussion of great questions ; it grows in the midst of per-
 
 38 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 plexities ; it needs the severe conditions without wliioh nothing 
 is productive, suffering and so>toiv. The ages of Pericles and 
 Augustus were tlie offspring of Salamis and Pliarsaha. The dis- 
 pute concerning investitures avvol<e scholasticism. Men were 
 forced to choose between excommunication and the ban of the 
 empire ; hence, men were obliged to think. The triumph of the 
 papacy gave rise to the crusades ; like all civilizing wars, they 
 were to be saluted with canticles. 
 
 In the second place, the popes, who made every effort to re- 
 form the clergy, did not neglect the potent aid of learning. They 
 sought to insure the independence of the priesthood by conferring 
 on it a possession which the feudal sceptre had no power to 
 transmit, — enlightenment. The}' exalted the dignity of tlio priest 
 by the enforcement of the law of celibacy ; but. when depriving 
 him of family joys, other consolations were to be found to give 
 honor to his solitude; letters were seated at his liearthstone. 
 The Roman council of 1078 reminded Christendom of the decrees 
 which had instituted chairs for instruction in the liberal arts in 
 connection with cathedral churches. This impulsion was deci- 
 sive, and Italy sustained it by a glorious concurrence. Three 
 men, Lanfranc, St. Anselm, and Peter Lombard, went to the 
 north of Europe to inaugurate the revival of learning. Lanfranc 
 gave to dialectics greater exactness, the writings of St. Anselm 
 restored to metaphysics the vigor of its flight, while the Sentences
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 39 
 
 of Peter Lombard lent to theology the excellent form which later 
 seemed to be lixcd forever in the Summa of St. Thomas. Their 
 lessons aroused llie sjiirit of pliilosophj' in France; their disciples 
 opened the great school, whither forty thousand students thronged 
 from the four quarters of the world, where clashing opinions 
 claimed armies of adherents, where finally, the entire learned life 
 of the Middle Ages came into play with a freedom until then 
 unknown. 
 
 In course of time, the Italian cities, united under the patronage 
 of the sovereign pontificate against the oppression of the feuda- 
 tory bishops and the imperial deputies, also engaged in the wars 
 for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. Whilst the LomViaid 
 league avenged the ruins of Milan and dictated the peace of Con- 
 stance, the ships of Pisa, of Venice, and of Genoa, returning from 
 the East, brought the poetic breatJi of Asia in the folds of their 
 sails. The victorious cities hastened to take possession of the 
 soil by the erection of monuments which should bear witness to 
 their sovereignty: the domes of St. Mark arose from the Adria- 
 tic. Other communities begin to set down their history at this 
 page. The Senate of Genoa commands one of its consuls to write 
 the annals of the republic; the chronicles of Lodi. of Como, ai,d 
 of Cremona, are drawn np. The old Roman nninieipalities. as 
 tliey reljuild their walls, revive their hiws ; jurisprudence again 
 flouri.slies iu the schools of Mantua. Piacenza, Padua, and Modena.
 
 40 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 These are the days that witness tlie commencement of the Uni- 
 versity of Bologna. Tlie same movement is felt to the very ends 
 of the Peninsula. The Normans in Sicily erect the gilded basilica 
 of Montereale, and tell in verse the deeds of their kings. The in- 
 terests of learning arc bound up with those of the fatherland, art 
 gathers inspiration from the people, and teaches them to under- 
 stand its utterances ; all that blooms has a new sap and deeper 
 roots. We perceive those beginnings of organization and sensi- 
 bility which are the signs of life : a new genius is on the eve of 
 birth, his language must be prepared for liim. 
 
 Between the classic language of the learned and the rustic dia- 
 lects which were not written, Italy had at first a barbarous Latin, 
 of which the first traces have been sought out in the comedies of 
 Plautus and in the Christian inscriptions. It would be useful to 
 follow, as M. Fauriel has done in learned lessons, the vicissitudes 
 of that mobile language, modified by usage and by the exigencies 
 of the times, which held sway in familiar preaching and in pub- 
 lic acts, and which, during several centuries, sufficed for the 
 wants of the human mind. On the other hand, Proven9al poetry 
 had penetrated into Lombardy under favor of the alliances bind- 
 ing together the nobility of the two regions. We early in the day 
 see troubadours visiting the feudal courts of Montferrat, Este, 
 Verona, and Malaspina. Bernard de Ventadour receives the crown 
 of poetry in tlie cathedral of Bologna. At the same time, the
 
 In the Tliirteenth Century. 41 
 
 French language, introduced by the Norman conquest into the 
 southern provinces, is retained, and becomes popuhir. It is tlie 
 only language spoken at the court of Palermo down to the reign 
 of William I. Into it are translated the Latin books which the 
 lords of the land can no longer read in the original; Marco Polo 
 makes use of it that the narrative of his adventures may reach 
 the grandees. St. Francis asks alms in French at the doors of 
 the Vatican basilica, and Sordello shows himself a skilful versi- 
 fier, no less in langue d' Oil than in langue d' Oc. So many exam- 
 ples finally emboldened that beautiful Italian tongue, which, two 
 hundred years after its birth, had not yet dared to appear in the 
 world of letters. The thirteenth century was ushered in by songs 
 of a harmony until then unknown. The freemen of Florence and 
 of Siena exchanged love verses with the Sicilian courtiers of 
 Frederic II., while amid the Umbrian hills was heard the canticle 
 of Si. Francis of Assisi. The people were amazed that they 
 could comprehend. From the banks of the Arno to the Pharos of 
 Messina, the voices were repeated as if by so many echoes ; they 
 recognized each other as speaking one and the same language, 
 and human thought possessed in the world one admirable instru- 
 ment the more. 
 
 And here ends this study ; for at this stage we already see 
 Ricordano Malespini gathering together the documents for the first 
 history written in popular prose; Brunetto Latini pens the first
 
 42 Dante, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 long poem in the common tongue ; and these are the friends and 
 t]ie teachers of Dante. This last name warns us that antiquity 
 is not destroyed, but that modern times have begun. 
 
 V. 
 
 Thus, letters never perished. And thus, the period of complete 
 barbarism, which was first presumed to extend over a term of a 
 thousand 3'^ears, from the fall of the Roman empire to the taking 
 of Constantinople, and which was gradually reduced until it was 
 held to cover only the seventh and llie tenth centuries, vanishes 
 before a closer examination. Barbarism miglit usurp, it never 
 ruled exclusively. A continual protest preserved the riglits of 
 learning. I do not find the universal ignorance deplored by con- 
 temporary writers ; and. for the very reason that many deplore 
 it so elociuently, 1 fail to believe in it. Tlie human intellect has 
 had tliis lionor, that the ruin of tlie ancient world and the 
 irruption of invading hordes have not been able to prevail against 
 it. Providence, in whose counsels nothing is insignificant, 
 v.atched over the destiny of art as well as over the mutations of 
 I lie iiMtions. The world was never left without some luminous 
 centre wiiereat it might re-liglit its torches. Only times which 
 liave faiiii neither in God nor in man, only impious ages, believe 
 ill an ctornal night. 
 
 Impiaque a^ternani tinnioi-uiit saoula uoetcm. 
 
 This. point solidly establislicd will serve to bring o\it a literary
 
 In the Tliirtccfifh Century. 43 
 
 doctrine long unrecognized, wliich doctrine is, that two things 
 are necessary for the ^^erfecting of art: on one side the freedom 
 of inspiration which comes and goes, differing according to times 
 and places ; on the other, the authority of tradition, which is 
 continued in instruction, in criticism, and in the learned languages. 
 On one hand, genius; on the other, labor. Genius is a gift, and 
 the few periods Avhicli really possess it attain their glory only 
 through the austere discipline of labor, throjgh a long apprentice- 
 ship under tuition. Labor is a law : courageously pursued, there 
 is no time so miserable that it cannot derive honor from it. Care- 
 ful work may even console society for temporary absence of gen- 
 ius, since labor facilitates the re-appearance of genius by holding 
 for it the phicc it has left. 
 
 Thus it is that we may trace in history the course of learning, 
 even as Bossuet there traced the coiuse of religion and of empire. 
 The law of labor is also the law of t!ie hereditary succession 
 which it preserves, and of the progress which it prepares. Knowl- 
 edge can advance only by staying itself upon acquired certain- 
 tics; the arts are illumined only by the light afforded by great 
 models. Amid the inexhaustible variety of his works, we see 
 the mind of man pursue one and the same end. seeking beauty, 
 truth, justice. We find a design traced on high which is carried 
 out here below by a series of laborers. And thus again is demon- 
 strated the unity, the solidarity of the human race, a Christian
 
 44 Dante, atid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 dogma, toward which now tend all the conclusions of science. 
 
 The continuity between pagan antiquitj- and Cliristian times, 
 which appeared to be interrupted, was really preserved in Italy. 
 That beautiful country, situated on the Mediterranean, the centre 
 of communication of the various parts of the world, subjected to 
 vicissitudes which never allowed it to constitute one distinct na- 
 tion, truly seems destined to some nobler function in the interest 
 of the whole of mankind. Italy is the organ of Rome, and Rome is 
 the immortal depository of the political, literary, and religious 
 tradition of the world. She educated those western peoples, long 
 known as the Latin races, who, imbued with the Latin faith, 
 Latin law, and tlie Latin language, have everywhere left their in- 
 effaceable imprint. Our entire civilization is moulded by Rouic. 
 Thus do the destinies of the whole of humanity rest upon that 
 mysterious city, and we must say with the great writer whom we 
 are about to study : " No farther proof is needed to show that 
 an especial providence of God has presided over the birth and the 
 greatness of this holy city; and I am firmly persuaded that the 
 stones of its walls are entitled to respect, and the ground on 
 which it stands is worthy of veneration beyond anything that 
 men have said or believed." 
 
 It is because he understood the destiny of Italy that Dante be- 
 came the national poet, and at tlic same time the poet of Christen- 
 dom. Wliile inspiration never descended upon more eloquent
 
 /;/ the Thirtee?ith Ce7itnry. 45 
 
 lips, never did tradition find a more faitliful heir. Dante, great 
 as he was for having dared so much, was perhaps still greater 
 by reason of Iiaving known so unich. During six hundred years 
 commentators have not ceased to study the Divine Comedy, and 
 consequently to learn from its pages. It has been treated as we 
 treat the Iliad and the .Eneid ; and I wonder neither at the admira- 
 tion nor at the persevering labor bestowed upon it. There is. in 
 fact, an inexhaustible subject of study in the great epics ox 
 Homer, of Virgil, and of Dante, for the reason that they represent 
 three momentous eras in the history of the world : Greek antiq- 
 uity in its budding, the destiny of Rome binding the old times 
 with the new, and the Middle Age w^hich touches upon our own 
 day. It is this which makes at the present moment the popular- 
 ity of the Divine Comedy, and assures to it, not a passing favor, 
 not a triumph of reaction, as some say, but a serious attraction, a 
 permanent authority. What wo look for in it is history — the 
 genius of the thirteenth century, the genius of the troubadours, 
 of the Italian republics, of the theological school, of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas. This it is tliat holds an innumerable auditory at the 
 feet of the old poet. When I behold this multitude of readers, 
 interpreters, and imitators, Dante seems to me well avenged. To 
 the exile, who had not where to lay his head, who experienced 
 how bitter is ihe bread of the stranger, and how hard it is 10 as- 
 cend and descend the stairways of other men, flock a crowd of
 
 46 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 the obscure or the ilhistrious, asking the bread of the word, and, 
 in his turn, he will make all oenerations of men of letters asoend 
 and descend by his stairways, by the steps of his Inferno, his 
 Purgatorio, liis Paradiso. And we, we also are his people; hence 
 we shall not consider wasted the time we may devote to the 
 doinsrof somethino- in his service, and consequent! v in the fnrtiier- 
 ance of the great cause vvhicli he served— the cause of religion. 
 liberty, and letteia.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ~Y^4^T-iiEN tho piljfriiiiaoe to Iloino. so often dreanied of, is 
 y-yf filially realized, ami the traveller, impelled by a pious cu- 
 riosity, has ascended the great staircase of the A'aticaii, 
 and has surveyed the wonders of every age and of every country 
 "•athered together under favor of the hospitality of that magnificent 
 residence, he reaches a si^ot tliat may fitly be called the sanctuary 
 of Christian art, the Stanze of Raphael. The artist, in a series of 
 historical and symbolic frescos, has there depicted the glories and 
 the benefactions of tlie Calliolic faith. Among those frescos is one 
 ou wliich the eye rests most lovingly, botli by reason of the beauty 
 of tlie subject and the felicity of the execution. The Holy Ku- 
 ciiarist is there represented on an altar lifted up between heaven 
 and earth ; heaven opens, and amid its splendor permits us to see 
 the Divine Trinit\-, tlie angels, and the saints; tho earth beneath 
 is crowned by a muncrous assemblage of pontiffs and doctors of 
 the Church. In one of the groups composing the assemblage, the 
 spectator distinguishes a figure remarkable by the originality of 
 
 its character, its head encircled, not by a tiara or a mitre, but by 
 
 47
 
 48 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 a wreatli of laurel. The countenance is noble and austere, no- 
 wise unworthy of such compan}-. A momentary glance into the 
 memory brings to mind Dante Alighieri. 
 
 The question then naturally rises, by what right has the por- 
 trait of such a man been introduced among tliose of the vener- 
 ated witnesses of the faith, and that by an artist accustomed to 
 the scrupulous observance of liturgical traditions, under the eyes 
 of the popes, in the very citadel of orthodoxy ? 
 
 The reply to the question is inferred at sight of the almost re- 
 ligious honors paid by Italy to the memory of the man, honors 
 which announce him to have been something more than a great 
 poet. The shepherds of Aquileia still show on the bank of the 
 Tolmino a rock which thej' call Dante's seat, where he often came 
 to meditate on the thoughts suggested by exile. The dwellers in 
 Verona delight in pointing out the cliurcli of St. Helen, where, as a 
 traveller, he tarried to sustain a public thesis. In a monastery of 
 Camaldolesi, shadowed by the wild hills of Gubbio, a carefully- 
 preserved bust recalls the fact that lie there found several months 
 of solitude and repose.' Ravenna, nobly jealous, keeps his ashes. 
 But Florence, especially, has surrounded willi expiatory honors 
 all that remains to her of him : the roof which sheltered his head, 
 the stone whereon he \\-as accustomed to sit. She has even 
 
 ' Pelll, 3/f Hioj-i€ per Za ri7a (?i Dante, at the end of the "Works of 
 Dante," Zatta's edition.— -iHciri dt Dante, by F. Aniviitiene.
 
 hi the Thirteentn Ce?itiiry. 49 
 
 awarded to him a species of apotheosis, by making Giotto repre- 
 sent liiin, clad in triumphal robes and with crowned head, under 
 one of the porticos of the metropolitan church, almost among the 
 patron saints of tiic city. 
 
 Monuments of another kind afford a still more explicit testi- 
 mony. Such are the public chairs founded in the fourteenth 
 century at Florence, Pisa, Piacenza, Venice, and Bologna, for the 
 interpretation of the Divine Comedy : and such also are the com- 
 mentaries on the poem which occupied the time of the gravest per- 
 sons, as for example, the Archbishop of Milan, Visconti, who em- 
 ployed for this work two citizens of Florence, two theologians, 
 and two philosophers; or the bishop, John of Serravalle, who de- 
 voted to a like labor his leisure hours when attending the Co\mcil 
 of Constance.' The finest minds of Italy bow reverently before 
 this elder brother: Boccaccio, Yillani, Marsilius Ficinus, Paulus 
 Jovius, Varchi, Gravina, Tiraboschi, have all greeted Dante willi 
 the title of philosopher. The unanimous opinion of his day, for- 
 mulated in a line wliich has become proverbial, proclaimed him as 
 both a doctor of divine verities and a sage who permitted nothing 
 human to escape him : 
 
 Theologus Dantes, nullius dogmatis e.'cpors.^ 
 
 ' Foscolo, Edinburpr Review, v. XXIX. Tirabo chi. History, vol. V. 
 
 2 See the epitaph composed by Giov. del Vlrgillo.— Boccaccio, Vita di 
 Dante. Giov. Villanl, History, Bk. IX. Marsilius Ficinus, Einst. Inter 
 Clarnrum Virnrum EpiM., Romae, 17.54. Paulus Jovius, EJofl., c iv. p. lit. 
 Varchi, Ercolano. Gravina, della Raoiou poetica.
 
 50 Dante, and Catholic PhilosopJiy 
 
 Tlicse friendl}' voices found echoes beyond the Alps. One of the 
 tirsl French translators of the Divine Comedy thus expresses him- 
 self in the dedication of liis work to Tlcnry IV. : '• Sire, I do not 
 fear to affirm that this sublime poem ought by no moans to be 
 placed with sundry compositions that tlio divine Plato compares 
 to the garden-plots of the beautiful Adonis, which, springing- up 
 in a single day, fade away and die as rapidly. In this noble poem we 
 find an excellent poet, a profo\uid pliilosopher, and a judicious 
 tlieologian." ' German criticism has pronounced a similar verdict. 
 Brucker recognizes Dante as •• the first among the moderns with 
 whom the Plaionic muses, after seven lumdred years of exile, 
 found an asylum ; a thinker equal to tlic most renowned of his 
 contemporaries, a sage who deserved to be numbered among the 
 reformers of philosophy. "'* 
 
 But such is among us, perisliablo creatures tliat we are, the fra- 
 gility of memory and tlie short reach of glory, tliat ordinarily after 
 a few centuries, little remains to ns 1>nt rlie mere name of those 
 who liave most honored humanity. Such names often attain im- 
 Minrtality tlirough the action of a tr.iditional but ignorant admira- 
 tion, like to the legendary dolpliin which bore over tlic waves in- 
 differently a mocking animal or an inspired poet. Tf these indo- 
 lent courtesies of posterity sometimes profit persons of little worth. 
 
 ' Dedication of the Abbe Grangier's translation. 
 
 '-' Brucker, Hl'.^•^ critic, phiios.. Period 3, Part I., Bk. I., CIj. I. See also 
 F. Scblegel, History of Literature, Book II., Chap. I.
 
 In the TliirtccntJi Century. 51 
 
 more often they wrong great men. Ii appears as if due justice 
 liad ))epn rendereil to such men, because, on occasion, they receive 
 a tribute of common praise, while in fact tlieir most precious titles 
 to honor remain buried in the dust. So that, if they could sud- 
 denly rise from their graves, we do 1101 l.now wliieh feeling would 
 most affect them, indignation at being raisknown, or pride at being 
 so surrounded by homage, even when so little really understood. 
 
 Dante has passed through the experience of these strange 
 vicissitudes of human glory. The work of ^o many vigils and of 
 such loving care, to which he devoted his life and hy which he 
 conquered death, the Divine Comedy, has, after the lapse of si^- 
 hundred years, come down to us, but with the loss of a portion 
 of its philosophic interest, that is to say. with the loss of that 
 part of it which the author esteemed the most highly. 
 
 Among those who are called cultivated persons, many know, 
 of the entire poem, only the Inferno, and of the Inferno, only the 
 inscription on the entrance, tlie episode of Francesca da Rimini, 
 and the death of tfgolino. The singer of Uie resignedly-borne 
 pains of Purgatory, the narrator of the iriunipljant visions of Par- 
 adi.so, seems to them but a sinister apparition, one bugbear the 
 more amid the fabled darkness of the thirteenth century, alreadv 
 peopled by so many phantoms. Others, more highly instructed, 
 have not been more just : Thus Voltaire sees in the Divine 
 Comedy merely " an odd work, yet resplendent with natural
 
 52 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 beauties, wherein the author lifts himself, in the details, above 
 the bad taste of his age and liis sulijeet." ' If the critics of oiu' 
 own da_y have approached the reading of the poern witli more 
 serious dispositions, some liave found in it only the record of a 
 piously romantic passion, and others a political manifesto written 
 under the dictation of revenge. For both these classes, the nu- 
 mei'ous passages relating to dogma are nothing but the parasitic 
 vegetation of a too ferlilc mind, in fact, the ill weeds of that con- 
 temporary learning which struck root everywhere.^ Finally, the 
 historians of philosoph}', while allowing all that pertains to it in 
 this vast composition, have contented themselves with announc- 
 ing the thesis, without entering into the controversy, thus lead- 
 ing us to think that they have underestimated the importance of 
 the result. And yet it was to them, it was to meditative minds, 
 free from the contagion of error, that the old poet appealed, when, 
 interrupting his narrative, he thought with sadness upon those 
 who would not comprehend him, and cried out with a nobly sup- 
 pliant voice : 
 
 " O ye who have sound minds, 
 
 Mark well the doctrine that conceals Itself 
 
 Beneath the veil of the mysterious verses ! " ' 
 
 ' Esmi smr les mneurs. 
 
 " Ging-uene Histoire dc laJitteraturtitMUnnc, vol. II.— M. Villemain 
 (vol. I. of his course) was the flrsttd point out the numerous aspects under 
 which the genius of Dante may be contemplated. 
 
 '■' Inferno, cant, ix., terz. 31.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 53 
 
 Thus, ill proposing to set forth in clearer light the Philosophy 
 Of Dante, we do not pretend to point out a fact hitherto unper- 
 ceived, but to insist upon a fact too much neglected. The am- 
 bition of discovery is not ours. AVe liave thought we should be 
 doing as much as our powers would permit, and also, something 
 i'ur the advancement of knowledge, if we were to seek out some 
 datum furnished by respectable authorities, and follow it througli 
 its developments, which may offer more than one species of in- 
 terest. 
 
 ft 
 
 .Viid first. f)f all things in the Middle Ages, the most calumni- 
 ated, and the last to find rehabiliUition, is its philosophy. ' Ig- 
 norance in regard to it aroused contempt, and contempt in turn 
 encouraged ignorance. It has been represented to us as speak- 
 ing a barbarous language, as pedantic in its form, and monkish in 
 its spirit. Under so unfavorable an exterior, we readily fancied 
 it entirely confined to theological studies, and often given over to 
 profitless speculations or endless controversies. It seemed to us 
 that Leibnitzhad treated the School with great indulgence when he 
 assured us thai we might find geld amid its refuse. But here (in 
 Dante) is a philosophy expressed in the most melodious language 
 of Europe, in a popular idiom couiprchended by women and chil- 
 
 1 This rehabilitation, commenoed by the lessons of M. Cousin (History 
 of Philosophy. Lesson II.), has been jrreatly forwarded by the recent pub- 
 lioation of the works of Abelard, and by the learned researches accom- 
 panying them.
 
 54 Da?itc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 dren. Its lessons arc canticles, recited to princes to charui their 
 leisure hours, and repeated by artisans to refresh their souls 
 after labor. We here find it free from the accompaniments of 
 the School and the restrictions of the cloister, blending itself with 
 the sweetest mj-sterics of the Jicart. tlie noisiest contests of the 
 public square: it is familiar, laic, and whollj- popular. If we try 
 to follow the course of its explorations, we find it setting out 
 from a profound study of lumian nature, constantly advancing, 
 extending its guesses over the entire creation, and in the end. 
 but only in the end, losing itself in the conteniiilatiuu of tiie De- 
 ity. We tind it everywhere a foe to dialectic subtleties, using 
 abstractions most soberly and only as necessary loiinulas to co- 
 ordinate positive knowledge, little given to dreaming, and less 
 concerned with the reform of opinions than with the reformation 
 of morals. Then, if we inquire into the origin of this pliilosophy, 
 we learn that it was born in the shadow of the cliair of scholas- 
 tic doctrines, that it gives itself out as their int(;rpreter, that it 
 proves its mission and glories in it. We have here, doubtless, a 
 phenomenon remarkable in itself, but there may be still more be- 
 hind : the pupil, perchance, may reconcile us with his teachers; 
 we may even seat ourselves at their feet. Accumulated preju- 
 dices may be dissipated, and their dispersion will enable us to 
 recognize a vast gap in the history of learning ; a gap now well 
 known, and soon to be filled.
 
 In the Thirtcoith Century. 55 
 
 Tliere are prejudices of another kind which it is no less impor- 
 tant to set aside. Tliere are many now-a-days who deem poetry 
 merely an affair of art, who sec in it only a relative beauty result- 
 ing from the triple hannon}' of the thoughts, of the thoughts 
 with the words, and of the words among themselves. These 
 light-minded souls make no account of the logical value of thought, 
 nor of the moral significance of words. Art is to them a mere 
 source of pleasure, without any ulterior aim, for the reason that 
 to them life is a pageant without serious meaning ; they arc hekl 
 captive in the visible world within portals closed for them liy 
 sensualism and doubt. Their traditions are those of sundry poets 
 of antiquity, and of some of modern times, who sing only of sensa- 
 tions and passions, and whose greatest triumph is to arouse in 
 tliosc who listen to them terror and pity, affections for tlie most 
 part sterile. Hence the indifference which in our day greets so 
 many poetical efforts ; Iience the rancor of neglected authors ; and 
 hence also, if we may so phrase it, that reciprocal isolation of 
 literature and of society whicli prevents their uniting for their 
 mutual vivification. Now, liere is a poet wlio appeared in a 
 tumultuous age, who lived as if enveloped in storms. Yet, be- 
 hind the moving shadows of life, he divined immutable realities. 
 Led by reason and by faith, he outstrips time, penetrates into the 
 invisible world, there takes possession, and establishes himself as 
 if in liis native land — he whii lias u<i Iniiircr a countrv hero liciow.
 
 56 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 From that lofty stutioii, when his eyes fah upon liuman things, 
 lie is able to see at once the beginning and the end; consequently, 
 he measures and judges them. His discourses are instructions 
 whicli master conviction and influence conscience, while by their 
 rhythm they take firm root in the memory. They are like a 
 preaching addressed to the multitude, an exhorting never silent, 
 taking men captive by seizing upon the strongest of their endow- 
 ments, intelligence and love. This is then a poetry which, to the 
 three harmonies whence beauty results, joins two others, the har- 
 monj- of the thouglit with tliat which is, that is to say, truth ; 
 and the harmony of the word with that which ought to be, name- 
 ly, morality. 
 
 It thus possesses a double value, mental and moral, responding 
 to the dearest needs of the greatest number of men: it wins the 
 comprehension of those whom it has comprehended ; it is a work- 
 ing power; it is, as the phrase runs, social. Here again is a 
 phenomenon that undeniably merits a place in the history of art. 
 It is indeed more than a phenomenon, it is an example, and an 
 example, when it is excellent, carries with it the refutation of 
 contrary theories. 
 
 The union of two things so rare, a poetic and popular philoso- 
 phy and a philosophic and really social poetry, constitutes a mem- 
 orable event, indicating one of the highest degrees of power to 
 whicii the Inunan mind has ever attained. If every power, or
 
 /// the Thirttenth CenUiry. 57 
 
 force, finds its exciting cause in tlie circumstances environing it, 
 the event just indicated must lead us to appreciate the intellectual 
 culture of the epoch in wliich it is encountered. As we pause 
 witli respect before the dwelling wherein an illustrious man was 
 born, although the walls may be blackened b}' age and we do not 
 comprehend its interior arrangement, so may we also learn to re- 
 spect the civilization amid whicli Dante lived, aUiiough it may 
 seem to us blurred in the shadow of a far-away time. To do this, 
 we shall liave to modify some of our historical habits : we may 
 even be obliged to throw back by two centuries or more, the 
 generally admitted date of the renaissance, which date calumni- 
 ously takes for granted the degradation of the ten preceding 
 generations. We shall be forced to confess that men already un- 
 derstood the art of thinking and of speaking, even while they 
 still knew how to believe and to pray. "We shall render homage 
 to that heroic age, that beautiful adolescence of Christian liuman- 
 ity, toward which, in these days of stormy virility, we often have 
 need to turn our eyes. Such tardy confessions are not lacking at 
 the present time. Yet, if we may be permitted to attach any 
 especial hope to the result of this our own work, it will be the 
 hope that such avowals may be multiplied. It has been above all 
 a feeling of filial piety which has guided us while collecting the 
 facts and ideas to be set fortli in this volume: they are for us a 
 few more flowers to be strewn upon the graves of our fathers who
 
 58 Dante, nnd CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 were good and great, a lew more grains of incense to )jc offered 
 at the altar of Him who made them good and great that His de- 
 signs might be wrought out. 
 
 These motives, determining the selection of the philosopliic 
 point of view occupied by us, will not make ns forget the limits 
 of tlio horizon which it embraces. We shall not attempt to take 
 in the immense range swept by tlie vision, nor to follow out all 
 the mysterious labyrinths of the Divine Comedy; we know that 
 the memories of the past and tlie scenes of the present, political 
 ixissions and passions of a tenderoi' kind, national traditions and 
 religious beliefs, lioaven ami earth, all had tlieir share in this 
 admirable creation : 
 
 " The poem sacred 
 To which hotli heaven and earth have set tlicir hand." " 
 
 We recognize in it portions tliat are epic, elegiac, didactic, all 
 gathered together in a harmonious whole. The didactic portion, 
 in its turn, seems to us divisible into two parts : the first, truly 
 tlieological ; the second,truly philosophical. But the Pivinc 
 Comedy is like one of those vast inlieritances fallen into tlie 
 hands of a weak and iiupoverislied posterity, wlio must divide, 
 that they may properly till it. We have chosen tlie portion liithorto 
 the least cultivated, ))ui pcrhiips one of the richest; we cannot 
 
 l'iirii(lls<i. I'iuit .\.xv.. tfrz. 1.
 
 /;/ the TJiirtccnth CcutiDV. 59 
 
 begin to clear up the uruiiml unless wc first step outside of its 
 boundaries. 
 
 livery tiling, ia fact, ought to be studied in connection willi its 
 .-;\u'roundings t^ihms son iniliim). ]"]veu wlien we endeavor to iso- 
 iiilc some one sulijoct in order tlie better to master it, we cannot 
 entirely withdraw it from the inlhicnce of things exterior to it- 
 self. In ever}' abstraction, there remains some small degree of 
 reality, as in an artificial vacuum there always remains a small 
 quantity of air. A philosophical svstem is not an isolated fact, it 
 is the product of all the faculties of tlic soid : these faculties obey a 
 previously-received education, impulsions external to the soul 
 itself. It will then be useful to begin by studying the general aspect 
 of Dante's cpocli, the phases of contemporary scholastic teaching, 
 the especial characteristics of the Italian school to which he 
 belonged, the studies and the vicissitudes which filled up his life, 
 and the inttuence which all these causes combined necessarily 
 exerted upon his doctrines. 
 
 It was doubtless in the Divine Comedy that the genius of the 
 aiuhor found expression. But genius can never be all contained 
 Avithin the limits of a single furni, let that form be as vast as it 
 may; it overflows the boundaries set, and whether by preluding 
 its chosen work, or by occasiontdly interrupting it, it finds other 
 channels for the exuberance of its inspirations. Thus the hand 
 that traced the Divine duuedy thi'ow nff, as if in play, other
 
 6o Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ■writings wliich are a commentar}- upon it, and its natural comple- 
 ment. From a comparison of these several documents, one with 
 another, but in the main adhering to the conceptions encoun- 
 tered in the poem, we shall endeavor to bring forth a complete 
 analysis of the author's philosophy. After sketching the sepa- 
 rate features of this philosophy, we shall try to characterize the 
 whole taken together. We must transport ourselves into the 
 divers orders of ideas, in the centre of which it seems to 
 have its place. We will examine by what points it holds to each 
 one, how it touches upon reminiscences of the Academy or of the 
 L}-ceum, on the disputes between the realists and the nominalists, 
 on tlie recent discussions concerning materialism and .spirituality. 
 Then wo will rise with it above systems that pass away; we 
 will follow it to the foot of an immutable tribunal, that of Re- 
 lio-ion Lendina- ourselves to old controversies recently renewed, 
 we shall see whether we are to place the Italian poet amid the 
 tumultuous crowd of heterodo.x minds, or to admit him among 
 the noblest disciples of eternal orthodoxy. 
 
 The logical order of these researches presupposes the solution 
 of several historic questions, an exhaustive examination of which 
 would necessitate long digressions ; these questions will form 
 tlie subjects of some supplementary disquisitions ; the book will 
 close with a series of extracts from St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, 
 Albert the Great, and Roger Bacon, which, containing in small
 
 /// tJic TJiirtccnth Cc/iti/ty. 6l 
 
 compas8soincpriiieipalpoiritsi)f tlifir teaching, may perliaps render 
 clearer the duetrinc of Dante by shuwiiig that of his masters, 
 and may aid in making known tlie Catholic Philosophy of the 
 Thirteenth Century. 
 
 This goal reached, if we look Vjehind us, we shall not be able 
 to conceal from ourselves the insufficiency of our efforts. The 
 Divine Comedy is in some sense the composite result of all the 
 conceptions of the Middle Ages, each one of which in turn is the 
 resultant of a gradual work carried on tlirough the length and 
 breadth of the schools Christian, Arabian, Alexandrian, Latin. 
 Greek, and having its beginning far back in the sanctuaries of the 
 East. It would be worth while to follow out this long genealogy. 
 It would be well worth our while to know how many centuries 
 and generations, how many vigils forgotten or unknown, thoughts 
 obtained with ditticulty. then abandoned, returned to or trans- 
 formed, had been required to render such a work possible : what 
 it cost, and consequently, what value is to be placed upon it. 
 But a study of this kind wo\dd never come to an cud. If Ber- 
 nadin de Sainl-Pierrc discovered a world of insects on a straw- 
 berry vine, iuid, after twenty days of observation, witlidrew con- 
 founded before the wonders of one humble plant, is it astonishing 
 that one great man. one single book of that great man, a single 
 aspect of that book should suffice for the labor of many 3-ears ? 
 But will the years consumed in sucli a way leave no regret be-
 
 62 Danh\ and Catholic PJiilosopJiy . 
 
 hind them ?. . . .Like to our poet, a pilgrim througli the limitless 
 regions of histor}-, surrounded by all the figures of the past, we 
 are allowed only a short converse with each one of them, under 
 penalty of not being able to accost the rest. To us, as to him, it 
 seems that a voice cries out: 
 
 " Already is the moon beneath our feet : 
 The time permitted now is short ; and things 
 By thee undreamed of still remain to see," ' 
 
 * Inferno, xxix., 4,
 
 IP^TIT I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REMGIOUS, POMTICAL, AN"I> IXTEl.LKCTU.Vl, SITUATION OF CIIKIS- 
 
 TEXnOlI FHO.M TIIK THIKTKEXill TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY ; 
 
 CAUSES FAVORING THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 \\)ci\ i^i^'^ Providence and human liberty, the two great powers 
 
 r^l -y whose combined operation explains history, sometimes 
 act in unison that the work of the ages may be prosecut- 
 ed with increased vigor, and the face uf a!) ihingsbc renewed. \t 
 sueli times, certain unanimous instincts, dwelling in the multitude. 
 UN if manifestations uf the will of Goil (ro.r Dei), change their di- 
 rection. Political institutions, which I'csult from a certain devel- 
 opment of the faculties of man, give way under the intluence of 
 an ulterior movement. Such epochs are known as epochs of trau- 
 sitiun. < »ue of tiiese is met with in the Middle Ages, extending 
 from the middle of the tiiirteenth to somewhat beyonu the first 
 years of the fourteenth century. 
 
 I. At that period, the Churcli itself, unchangeable in the ac- 
 
 coniplislitnent of its eternal destinies, aflmiltC(l a (•crtain change 
 
 63
 
 64 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 in its action upon the temporal affairs of Christendom. If vi 
 again, upon two occasions, descended into the arena, if it withstoo<l 
 Frederic II., and PhiHp tlie Fair in defence of the hberties of all, 
 on an otlier occasion, in presence of the misfortrmes of its Iiead, 
 Boniface YIIL, it judged that other days had set in. It then be- 
 gan to lay aside the political guardianship it had exercised over 
 nations still in tlieir infancy, but now become strong enough to 
 take upon themselves the defence of their own causes. It slowly re- 
 treated within the limits of the spiritual domain. Four cecnmeni- 
 ical councils, one at the Lateran, two at Lyons, and one at Vienne, 
 called together in less that one hundred years, had already extend- 
 ed the comprehension of dogmas, had tightened the bonds of dis- 
 cipline, and Iiad provided for tlic reform of morals. Four relig- 
 ious orders newly instituted, the Order of St. Dominic and that of 
 St. Francis, the Augustinians, and the Fathers of Mercy, multiplied, 
 wherever they went, the light of instruction and the works of love. 
 The thought of religion hovered less frequently over battlefields, 
 and entered less into the councils of princes, but it liad succeeded 
 in taking a more assured place at family firesides, it penetrated 
 more deei)ly into tlie solitude of individual consciences; it 
 there formed virtues crowned by tlie aureola of the saints. 
 There are few periods wliicli have so abumlantly peopled our 
 altars. 
 
 On the other hand, the shores of Africa had witnessed the fail-
 
 /// tJic Thirteenth Century. 65 
 
 lire of two crusades, the last heroic efforts of Chrislendotn to pass 
 Ix^yoiid its ?]uroi)ean l)ouiidarics. The Christian world had been 
 foiced to defend its nortliern frontiers against hordes of Mongo 
 lians, and to win its southern bounds back from the Moors. Sat- 
 islied with preserving its independence from the powers without, 
 it thenceforth employed its energies within its own borders. To 
 the glorious era of conquest, succeeded the laborious era of polit- 
 icjil organization. The H0I3' Roman Empire, dishonored b}- the 
 crimes of the Holienstaufen, lost the homage of its most illustri- 
 ous feudatories and its old title to universal supremacy. Escaped 
 from the centralization which menaced them, the new nationali- 
 ties were in progress of establishment; they were separating, one 
 from anotlier, arranging their boundaries, and tliis not without 
 frequent wars, frequent diplomatic experiments, the tirst rudi- 
 ments of international law. The feudal aristocracy ceased to be 
 tiiat exclusive power before which many generations had silently 
 bowed. It was forced to enter into a struggle, or into a series of 
 negotiations with royalty, which was breaking away from it, and 
 with the clergy and the people, who both energetically laid claim 
 to their respective franchises. I'^udcr the names of Estates, of 
 Parliaments, of Diets, or of Cortes, representative assemblies ex- 
 isted, where the three orders appeared as the moral, military, and 
 financial guardians of the nations. But above all did tlie Third 
 Estate, the fruit of the emancipation of the towns, increased by
 
 66 Diuitc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 the enfranchisement of large numbers of serfs, ingenious in 
 maintaining in its ranks that union wliich is tlie source of 
 strength, and sl\ilful in forming alliances with the older jKiwors, 
 gradually enlarge the part allotted to ii in puVilic affairs. Local 
 and arbitrary customs yielded to the general authority of the or- 
 dinances of the princes, to the learned autliority of Roman juris- 
 prudence. The newly codified laws wei'c executed through the 
 ministry of a settled magistracy whlcli admitted plebeians to sit in 
 its courts. From that juncture must date the renaissance of the 
 civil law. 
 
 Peaceful revolutions were also in progress within the realm of 
 thought. Theology still led the sciences, but, without jealousy 
 she beheld them grow up around her. Tlie travels of Marco Polo, 
 the missionary efforts of a few poor friars who crossed the deserts 
 of northern Asia, (ienoese vessels borne by the winds to the Can- 
 ary Islands, had enlarged the limits of the known world. The 
 discovery or invention of the compass, of spectacles and of gun- 
 iwwdcr, led men to di\ine forces in nature till tlien unperceived. 
 On every hand were opened schools of various sorts, often s])C- 
 cial in their purpose, as those of Salerno and Montpellier for 
 medicine, and that of Pisa for juiisprndence. In tlic principal divis- 
 ions of the Christian world arose universities, really worthy of 
 the name from the encyclopedic character of titeir teaching 
 and the multitude of students thev attracted from the most di,-;-
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 67 
 
 tant lands. Paris set the first example ; Oxford, Bologna, Padna, 
 Salamanca, Xaplos, Upsal. Lisbon, and Rome followed it before tlie 
 lapse of a hundred years. The progress of the arts had been .-^till 
 more rapid. The day of great inspirations was already past : 
 that of analytical labor had begnn. To the epics of chivalry and 
 tlie lyrics which had been sung, succeeded a poetry friend- 
 ly to allegory and to satire, didactic, often pedantic, which, aban- 
 doned by music, preserved only rhythm. Prose, in its turn, 
 withdrew the written word from the laws of rhythn. to subject it 
 solely to the laws of a grammar not yet settled. It made its first 
 timid attempts in collections of laws and in chronicles, meanwhile 
 fixing the character of modern languages. The arts of design 
 followed a similar coiu'se. Architecture, after reaching the high- 
 est perfection possible to the Gothic style, strove to gain in elab- 
 orateness what it perhaps lost in purity. Painting and sculpture, 
 sheltered beneath its shadow, subjected to its dispositions, and 
 treated until then as simple sutiordinates. no longer contented 
 themselves with giving life to stained windows and peopling the 
 niches of basilicas: they ventured njion independent compositions 
 in the frescos which began to cover tlie walls, and in the decor- 
 ations of tombs. Finally, connnerce, which, under favor of the cru- 
 sades, had extended the circle of its maritime enterprises, was 
 now busied in exploring overland routes and in multiplying cen- 
 tres of trade. Manufacturing industries prospered in the cities.
 
 68 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 protected b}- municipal liberties. The transfornmiioii of serfdom 
 Into vassalage encouraged agriculture, as previously the change 
 of slavery into serfdom had regenerated it.* 
 
 Amid these varying forms of human activity, Philosophy could 
 not remain stationary. The noise of the exterior world penetrat- 
 ed even into the deepest solitudes, and there deflected the course 
 and prolonged the duration of the most serious meditations. 
 Generous souls are unwilling to remain on a level lower than that 
 of the facts which they witness, and great events call forth 
 great ideas. But the movement thai was taking place was a move- 
 ment of withdrawal and of interior organization, when elements, 
 foreign to one another but until then confounded, separated, or 
 attracted to themselves homogeneous elements until then di- 
 vided. This movement reproducing itself in philosophy, was con- 
 verted into reflection, abstraction, recomposition, that is to say, in- 
 to the very acts whicli constitute the science of pliilosophy. In 
 this way did the forces, developed by the age, bear upon that 
 science and determine the exercise of its powers. 
 
 XL The men of the day co-operated witli the force of circum- 
 
 ' We here speak of the vicissitudes of the arts in the iiortlieru countries 
 of Europe only. In Italy, other causes had prepared for tlicin an earlier 
 and more continuous prosperity. The facts we have just called to mind 
 are reflected by many allusions in Dante's poem, while their consequences 
 are evident in his doctrines.
 
 hi the ThirteoitJi Century. 69 
 
 stances. First in order came the ^^os eroign pontiffs : Innocent IV., 
 whoso iuflt'xilik' courage swayed tlio tliirteentli century, souglit 
 to reign alo li.rungii the cultivation of intelligence. Forced to 
 Hy from (;iiy lo city, and to find slielter bencatli foreign I'oofs, he 
 gathered ; round him, as tlie sole ornament of his exile, a group 
 of learned men who formed in themselves an entire imiversitr. 
 Later. e.\ lending his solicitude to all the schools of Christendom, 
 l.e was filled with apprehension at seeing students ci-owd around 
 the chairs of jurisprudence and desert those of philosophy. He 
 endeavored to re-direct attention to the last named stud}- ; he 
 even attached to it temporal interest by deciding it to be anindis- 
 ]iensablc preliminary to the attainment of ecclesiastical lionors 
 and benefices.' Urban IV. commanded that at Rome, and under 
 his own eye, physics and ethics should be taught by St. Thomas 
 Aquinas. Every day. after dinner, he encouraged among his car- 
 dinals philosophical discussions, in which he himself took part. 
 This honorable familiarity consoled science, and made it forget 
 the haughty contempt bestowed upon it by gilded puppets and 
 ignorant, mail-clad men.' On the papal throne and in the person 
 of Clement IV., Roger Bacon found the sole protector of his much 
 
 ' Tiraboselii, t. IV., lib. I., cap. II. Duboulay, Histoire de V University, 
 ann. liM. 
 
 ^ Tiraboselii, t. IV.. lib. II., tap. II. Letter from Campano de Novara to 
 IV>l.i' Urban IV.
 
 70 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 calumniated labors. Other popes were the possessors, not only of 
 friendly dispositions, butof personal learning and a justly acquired 
 renown : sucli were Peter of Tarentasia, orator, canonist, and 
 metaphysician, who took the name of Innocent V . : and John 
 XXL, better known as Peter the Spaniard, who wastlie author of 
 a logic received with unanimous approbation and long regarded as 
 a classic work.' 
 
 Among secular princes, several followed these examples. First 
 in rank came Frederic II., emperor of Germany, the wearer of four 
 crowns, whose reign was a long forty years' war, and who ap- 
 peared liy turns as legislator and as tyrant — a conquering barbar- 
 ian under his tents in Lombardy, a voluptuous sultan in las se- 
 raglios of Apulia and Sicily, a troubadour by inclination, and a 
 philosopher, perhaps, through ostentation. During the hours of 
 leisure passed in his well filled liVirary, Greek or Arabic manu- 
 scripts were often unrolled by him; he wished to make tlieni 
 known in Europe, and. in a manifesto drawn up by his chancellor. 
 Pietro delle Vigne, he announced the translation of a number 
 of works, including probably some of the writings of Aristotle. - 
 Learning met with no less favor under King Robert of Naples. 
 
 ' Brucker,Hixf.cnfic.p/n7o8., Vol. III., period II., part lI..>)k.II.,(liiip. 
 ill., sect. 3.— Dante, Paradise, cant, xli., tera. 44. 
 
 "^ Brucker, HiM. critic, pltilos., chap, ili., sect. 1.— Joiinlnin. Uechir- 
 che» «U)- \c» trnductinjis (VAristote, 2d edition.
 
 In the ThhtcentJi Century. 71 
 
 lauded after his deatli as a consummate sage '; under Alphonso 
 of Castile, wlio merited the title of the Wise, and even at the 
 English court, where an adulatory crowd gathered to listen to the 
 lessons of Duns Scotus.^ But in no country better than in France 
 did royalty know how to reflect honor upon itself by the influ- 
 ence which it exerted on tlie cultivation of the human under- 
 standing. The tale would be a long one to tell : — St. Thomas 
 Aquinas invited Iq the table of St. Louis, and the king making 
 his secretaries write down the sudden inspirations of the Angelic 
 Doctor; Vincent of Beauvais admitted, in virtue of his position as 
 reader, to the intimacy of the same prince ; the Sorbonne founded; 
 Pliilip the Bold naming as instructor to his son the famous Egidi- 
 us Colonna.' It suffices to call to mind that the benefactions of 
 the Frencli kings made the prosperity of tlie University of Paris. 
 They gave to it that prestige wliich attracted to its benches forty 
 thousand students of every nationality, called to its chairs the 
 most illustrious foreigners, and rendered it w^orthy of being sa- 
 luted by tlie popes as the fountain of trutii, the centre of illumi- 
 nation.'' So that, placing uurselves in the thirteenth century on 
 tlie modest hill of St. Genevieve, we may see gathering as tributaries 
 
 ' Tirahoschi. t. V., liii. I., caii. II. \\v quotes Petrarch and Booonf-rlo. 
 ' Briicker, lliai. critir. iihihis.. diaii. iii., scot. '-J. 
 ^ Rnicker, Inc. tit., Micliclet, HMoire tic France. Vols. I!, and III. 
 * ISiill I if Alexander IV., cited liy Rnynaldiis.
 
 72 Dayite, atid Catholic Phi/osopiiy 
 
 nt its foot, all the intellectual glories of tlie Catliolic world; we 
 Ilia}' hear Jiscussed the innumerable questions raised in contro- 
 versy; we may descry from afar the evolutions of struggling 
 minds: in short, from that view-point we may overlook the entire 
 course of contemporary philosoph}-. 
 
 The spiritual power and the temporal, so often armed one 
 against the other, were tlien in agreement regarding their action 
 upon the labors of thought. Both assured to conscientious study 
 security, liberty, and leisure. Both, above all, by conferring up- 
 on instruction public consecration, imposed on it the abnegation 
 of all personal rivalries, and formed it to grave and conciliatory 
 habits. 
 
 III. One of the most prominent consequences of the protection 
 of learning by the great, was the rapid multiplication of books and 
 translations, and hence the daily increasing accessibility of the 
 learning of antiquity and the doctrines of the East. The latest 
 writers escaping the ruin of Rome, together with the Organum of 
 Aristotle and the treatises of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, were 
 the introductory teachers of tlie first scholastics." Later, the 
 crusades had familiarized the Latins with the languages of Greece 
 and of the Orient. The works of St. John Damascen were trans- 
 
 ' On the history of the (hganum in the Middle Ages, see the Mcmoire 
 (le M. Barth^lemy Salnt-HUalre, Vol. II. See also Brucker, loc. cit. lib. 
 II., cap. II.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. Ji 
 
 lated, and William, abbot of St. Denis, brought back with him 
 from Constantinople sundry manuscripts, among which might 
 have been found the Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics of Aristo- 
 tle." Already had daring pilgrims gone to t)ie schools of Toledo 
 and Cordova in search of Mussulman learning. But it was espec- 
 ially toward the period now occupying us that Hellenism and 
 Orientalism intervened, with an unexpected display of strength, 
 in the philosophical destinies of the West. The diversity of 
 idioms was no longer an obstacle for an age which had witnessed 
 the conquest of the Byzantine empire and the invasion of Egypt by 
 the armies of France : the works of Avicenna and of Averroes ap- 
 peared in the Latin tongue ; Moses Maimonides made known the 
 Works of Mussulman doctors as well as the reveries of the Jewish 
 Kabbala ; at the same time, Ptolemy's A Imagesta, Plato's Timaeus, 
 the books of Proclus, and others less renowned, found interpreters. 
 But great above all was the good fortune of Aristotle; his works, 
 already translated from Arabic versions, were retranslated from 
 the original text. Some treatises passed even into the popular 
 idioms. The opposition, at first so threatening, of the University 
 
 ' The marriage of Otho II. to Theopliania must have conduced to the re- 
 establishment of intercourse between the West and Greece. M. Barthel- 
 emy Saint-Hilaire has proved the continuity of Greek studies through the 
 Middle Ages. Jourdain, Recherches sur les trad%ictU)'ns d'Aristote, 2d 
 edition.
 
 74 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 of Paris, which had obtained in a provincial council the condemna- 
 lion of the peripatetic doctrines, had been moderated by the wis- 
 dom of Pope Gregory IX. ; this opposition soon began to admit ex- 
 ceptions ; it then inclined toward a general toleration, and ended 
 by dying out under the influence of the most venerated doctors,, 
 who, covering the Stagy rite with their mantle, conducted him, 
 not merely to the threshold, but even to the very centre of the 
 School.' At the beginning of the fourteenth century, classic An- 
 tiquity and the East received a sort of solemn welcome into the 
 Christian Republic, when, at the council of Yienue, it was or- 
 dained to establish in the four principal universities and in the 
 place where the Roman court .should have its residence, chairs of 
 Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, and Greek.- This aiilliority conceded 
 to the Ancients and the Ax'abs, was not arbitrary in its principle •. 
 it was due to a long series of hard working meu, not without an 
 occasional subhme inspiration, who represented the Icirned tra- 
 dition of the human race. If this tradition cannot be accepted 
 without examination, neither can it be neglected without impru- 
 dence. The secret of all really scientific progress lies in an econ- 
 omy wisely careful of the experience of the past as applicable to the 
 
 ' Lannoi, dc Varid Arislotelis fortund. Jounlain, Recherches, cli. V. 
 
 * Tiraboschi, t. V. lib. III., cap. IV.— John of Salisbury, Robert Grosse- 
 Tete, Roger Bacon. Albert the Great, and f\ en Heloise, appear to bavc 
 known Greek and Hebrew. Scr Brucker. /'» . i it.
 
 /// the TliirtcentJi Century. 75 
 
 needs of tJie future. Woe indeed tu isolated generations, whicli, 
 not having received tlie heritage of inf^trucaion ur iiaving repudi- 
 ated it, are obhged to begin afresli, frail and mortal as they are, 
 the work of the ages ! 
 
 Tims, while contemporar}- events cDnanunieatcd to philosophy 
 an enduring movement, and tlie good will of men in power gave ii 
 a direction, the appearance of antique and foreign doctrines marked 
 for it its point of departure.
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 I. 
 
 "X^^^TTHEiV the barbarian invaded Europe, trampling under 
 y^W' foot the long cultured furrows of Latin civiHzation, tlie 
 small aiuount of learning scattered liere and there that still re- 
 nuiincd after the great catastrophe, was gatliered together by pious 
 hands, eh>sely grasped that the loss might not be total, and enclosed 
 within a narrow circle, a meagre eiic.yclopa3dia, wliich reduced the 
 liljcral arts to the niunber of seven, divided into trivium and qua- 
 driviuni.'- Philosophj- was included in this cycle only by the 
 least of its parts, dialectics: theology found in it no place; the 
 science of divine things remained secluded in the depths of the 
 sanctuai'v, apparently inactive in certain directions. 
 
 Hut bi-ighler days were at hand. Within the depths of the 
 sanctuary, amid the inspiring cercnuonial of divine worship and 
 the re\erberation of the preaclier's voice, Theology had roused 
 herself; she sought to form a conception of the invisible things 
 
 ' This liivision uf (Ik- hiaiiclies of learning, probably derived from a 
 
 Pytliagorean .source, is found in Philo, de Congreum, in Tzetzes Chil., IX, 
 
 TTT, II w.is introduccil iiitu the West by the writings of Casslodorus and 
 
 JliHtianiis Oaj)e]la. 
 
 T6
 
 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. JJ 
 
 w liich she proposed for belief; tliis was the beginning of the niet- 
 aiihvsical studies of the period. Tiienceforth, dialectics could no 
 loimer be confined within tlie limits of the triviuni. AVearv of 
 combining words, it attempted to bind together the conceptions 
 which had been elicited, and thus rose to the function of logic. 
 Metaph3'sics and logic found themselves face to face, and a dog- 
 matic philosophy resulted from their union. Tiie conditions of this 
 union depended upon a primary problem, namely, whether there 
 is a correspondence between the invisible existences postulated 
 l)y metapliysics and the notions deduced by logic — between reali- 
 ties and ideas. This was the famous problem of universals^ be- 
 queathed by antiquity (in a phrase contaired in the writings of 
 tlie Alexandrian, Porphyry) to the Middle Ages, which accepted 
 tlie inheritance. St. Anselm resolved it by concluding the exis- 
 tence of God from the notion of God, by establishing the necessary 
 reality of tlie idea of perfection, by realizing all general ideas, thus 
 making himself the head of the Realists. 
 
 Others, on the contrary willi Roscolin, refused all olyeclive 
 value to general ideas, and recognized in genus and species merely 
 arliitrarv creations of language: these were the Nominalists. The 
 two rival schools renewed the interminable struggle between ideal- 
 ism and sensism. They bad illustrious champions, as William of 
 Champeaux and Abelard, who filled Christendom witli the din of 
 their mutual onslaughts. Tlie discussion multiplied the divisions:
 
 78 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 there were four sects of Realists, and the Nominalists numbered 
 three.' 
 
 These contradictory conclusions of human reason seemed to de- 
 clare its inefficiency. Some rejected the uncertain aid of logic 
 and thought to rise to knowledge by intuition, to intuition liy 
 means of asceticism. There was then a mystic philosophy, whose 
 principles were formulated by the writings of Godfrey, Hugh, and 
 Richard, all monks of the abbey of St. Victor.^ Theology, when 
 awaking rational studies from slumber, called them out upon the 
 border lines between orthodoxy and human opinion. These boun- 
 daries, often difficult to determine, were frequently not properly 
 recognized. Certain doctrines aroused suspicion ; others, as those 
 of Amaury of Chartres and David of Dinant. called forth solemn 
 anathemas. From the violent collision between scientific liberty 
 and religious authority, arose doubt. Confused memories of pagan 
 literature, and the first influence of Saracen doctors, encouraged 
 
 ' Thf dispute iK'twcen the Realists anil tlie Nomin.ilists, previously set 
 furlli l).v Bnicker, Chap. Ill, Sect. 3; by Degerando. Vol. IV ; Biihle, and 
 Thenemann ; has l)een ably analyzed in the preface to the edition of the 
 works of Abelard, issued by M. Cousin. John of Salisbury, in his Mcta- 
 loyicus cited by Brucker, ibid, enumerates six different opinions as divid- 
 iuf? Realism. 
 
 ' Cousin, Course of History of Philosophy. Vol. I.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 79 
 
 scepticism.* Thus, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, 
 all the tendencies of the human mind liad shown themselves, and 
 their very divergence testified to their energy. 
 
 II. This century, already glorious under so many titles, was al- 
 so that in which scholastic philosophy reached its apogee. The 
 abdication of power which tlie Church was about to make in the 
 political order, liad already been preluded by Theology in the intel- 
 lectual order. Theology emancipated philosophy, wliich, under her 
 tuition, liad acquired strcngtli enougli to stand alone. She retained 
 only her maternal superiority and the relations of reciprocal assist- 
 ance : there was a certtiin separation, but neither in all things nor 
 for over ; ciiiancipation. but no mutual disavowal. '• Tlie science 
 of Faith." said the doctors, '-considers created things only in as 
 mucli as they rcHcct an imperfect im.age of tiio Pivinit)'': human 
 philosophy considers them in tlie mode.s of being whicli are proii- 
 er to themselves. The philosopher proposes to himself the inves- 
 tigation of secondary and special causes; the believer meditates 
 oM the First Cause. In philosophical teaching, we start from the 
 knowledge of creatures to reacli the idea of God. wlio is tlie end : 
 in the teaching of Faith, we begin by the iilea of God. and, dis- 
 covering in Him the universal order, of which He is the centre. 
 
 » Cousin, tof. fi(. Bnicker, Cliap. HI. Sect. 1. Vri-xis de Vhi.-it. de la 
 philosophk; issued by the directors of the CDlh'gc de Juillu, V- '^-'^
 
 8o Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 we come to tlie knowledge of creatures. Tliis second method is 
 the more perfect, since it assimilates luniiaii intelligence to the 
 Divhie Intelligence, which, in contemplating Itself, contemplates 
 all things in Itself. And j'et the science of theologians may 1)or- 
 row somewhat from the labor of philosophers, not thatsucli labor 
 is necessarj' to it, but to lend more clearness to the dogmas which 
 it presents to our belief." ' 
 
 Thenceforth assured of a distinct existence, and one certainly not 
 without honor, philosophy developed freely, and we may see the 
 wide limits she assigned to herself when defining her own posi- 
 tion : " Philosophy is the study of intelligible truths ; and, as 
 these truths relate to words, to things, or to morals, it is rational, 
 natural, or moral. Rational, it embraces grammar, which has for 
 its object the expression of ideas; logic, which is concerned in 
 their transmission ; and rhetoric, which aims at producing emo- 
 tions. Natural, it comprises physics, which treats of the genera- 
 tion and corruption of things ; mathematics, by which we consid- 
 er abstract forms and general laws ; metaphysics, by which we 
 lead things back to their cause, their type, their end. Moral, it 
 bears the divers names of monastics, economics, or politics, accord- 
 ing as it aims at procuring tlic good of the individual, of the family, 
 or of the state." '^ 
 
 ' St. Thoiiiiis, Sumnm contra gentes, lib. II, cap. IV. Summa Theologiae, 
 p. l,q. I, art. iv. 
 
 " St. Bonaventura, de Reductinne arlium ad Tlieologiam. Idem, Brev. 
 iloquiutii : " Philosop)iia est iiieflium per (|Uod thetdoRus fabricatsibi spec- 
 ulum e,\ creaturls ex quibus tan(iuaiii pm scalaiii eriffitur'in ca'lum."
 
 hi the Thirtee7ith Ce?itury. 8i 
 
 This enumeration gave to philosophy the position of a universal 
 science, such as the ancients conceived it when they embraced 
 withm its limits eloquence and poetry, geometry and legislation, 
 and when they named it, the knowledge of things human and 
 divine.' If, besides, we eliminate grammar, rhetoric, and math- 
 ematics, which, already contained in the seven arts, had their own 
 special teaching, there remained logic, physics, metaphysics, and 
 morals, which, all taken together, constituted the course of phil- 
 osophy of the School, embracing a compreliensive system of doc- 
 trines, questions asked and answers given in regard to God, na- 
 ture, and liumanity, thus forming the necessary completion of the 
 previous studies. But, since in this course, logic occupied the 
 first place, and a close examination of intellectual phenomena was 
 made before permission was given to devote oneself to the explor- 
 ation of the outer world, it was first in ideas that one studied 
 things, truths of all kinds appeared primarily in the light of con- 
 sciousness ; from that time, although as yet without receiving any 
 name, existed psycholog)^ on which branch were to be concen- 
 trated the philosophical researches of the moderns. So that all 
 the definitions which have been given of philosophy at every peri- 
 od of its existence, the broadest as well as the deepest, are ap- 
 plicable to the scholastic philosophy. 
 
 « Cicero, Tuscul., lib. v. dc Officiis, II.
 
 S2 Dank, and CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 To act in the new sphere opened to it. philosoph)' required a 
 union of all its powers. It needed an organization capable of di- 
 recting the widely scattered efforts of thought to an efficient co- 
 operation. We liave already mentioned tiie political causes fa- 
 voring the convergence of the existing varietv' of systems. Among 
 tlie numerous shades of realism and nominalism, there were some 
 which nearly approached one anotlier. Thus, the opinion of Gil- 
 bert de la Poree, who admitted generalitj' only in the laws of na- 
 ture, seemed readily to blend with that of John of Salisbury, who 
 allowed the legitimacy of general ideas formed by the abstraction 
 of the qualities common to many individuals.' 
 
 This fusion was actualh' effected. And while, dating from 
 about the year 1200. all Christian thinkers took with pride the 
 name of realists, conceptualism, an outcome of nominalism, had 
 penetrated to the depths of their teaching. Thus were reconciled 
 the two schools which had divided the area of dogmatism by ad- 
 hering without reserve either to the experience of the senses or 
 to the infallibility of reason. Tlioy also learned to appreciate tlio 
 importance of mysticism, and borrowed from it those intuitive 
 perceptions of which it alone possesses the secret. At the same 
 time, the temptations to scepticism called into being by an imper- 
 fect and consequently dangerous knowledge of pagan and mus- 
 sulman doctrines, disappeared before a complete erudition, which 
 
 ' Brucker, Chap. III., Sect. 3.
 
 /// the Thirtcentli Century. 83 
 
 filled the part of a wise and cautious moderator. The final result 
 was a veritable eclecticism, whereby an alliance was concluded 
 embracing reason, the senses, intuition, the tradition of the past, 
 each and all of tlie great powers of the understanding. In lieu of 
 the exclusive sects of the preceding period, arose illusirious doc- 
 tors, eacli one representing more especially one or another of 
 the said powers, but not thence failing to recognize the others. 
 
 III. Alain de Lille. Alexander Hales. Vincent of Beauvais, and 
 William of Auvergne, were mereh' precursors. 
 
 Finally appeared Albert the Great (1 195-1 ;J80\ an Atlas who 
 bore on his head the entire round of the learning of his day, and 
 who no whit bent beneath its weight : familiar with the languages 
 of antiquity and of the East, he drew from those two sources of 
 tradition powers really gigantic. From the benches of the Uni- 
 versity of Paris, where he had sat as a simple learner, he passed 
 to Cologne, where, establishing his chair, he appeared as the ini- 
 tiating hierophant of Germany. His chief merit lies in the ex- 
 tent and the prolusion of his erudition. However, he did not neg- 
 lect pyschological questions, which can be solved only by the i)er- 
 sonal exercise of reason: he pronounced upon the origin and tlie 
 value of ideas, and on the division of the faculties of the soul. 
 Tic did not disdain to interrogate nature, and to seek in persever- 
 ing observation, in furnaces and crucibles, unknown powers, such 
 as the transmutation of metal.s. He went still farther, in regions
 
 S4 Dante, and Catholic PJiilosopJiy 
 
 inaccessible to human vision, impenetrable to induction, he thought 
 to discover supernatural agents capable of modifying the regular 
 order of phenomena : it is said that he himself believed in the title 
 of magician conferred on him by his disciples. He continued 
 popular in the memory of posterit}', as a being almost mythologi- 
 cal and more than human.' 
 
 In another quarter, in a cell of an obscure Enghsh convent, the 
 inspiration which gives rise to great discoveries descended on a 
 poor friar, Roger Bacon (1214-1294). He had studied at Oxford 
 and at Paris, but the imperfections in the studies of his time had 
 struck him at an early period : he sought out the causes, demon- 
 strated the need of reform, proposed its conditions, and himself 
 set the example. He held especially to the value of experience, 
 an enlightened, thoughtful experience, whicli, not content with 
 merely investigating phenomena, calls them forth, and reproduces 
 them by way of experiment. Amid the sombre shadows of his 
 laboratory, this unknown man had a vision of the future. lie 
 says: '■ One may cause to bur.'^t forth from bronze thvmderbolts 
 more formidable than those produced by nature : a small quantitj' 
 of prepared matter occasions a terrible explosion accompanied by 
 a brilliant light. One may multiply this phenomenon so far as to 
 
 > Cousin, Course of Hlstor.v of Philosophy, vol. I.— Albert, Summa de 
 Creaturis, de Anima, lib. l. tract. 2. Libelhwde Alchimia.— Dante, Par- 
 adise, X., 34.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 85 
 
 destroy a city or an army. Art can construct instruments of nav- 
 igation sucli tluit tlic largest vessels, governed by a single man, 
 will traverse rivers and seas more rapidly than if they were filled 
 with oarsmen. One may also make carriages, which, without the 
 aid of any animal, will run with immeasurable swiftness." ' 
 
 Roger Bacon, however, could tear himself away from such at- 
 tractive investigations and visit other portions of the domain of 
 philosophy. He solved in an eclectic sense the question of imiver- 
 sals. In addition to external experience and the conceptions of 
 reason, he admitted an interior experience which is acquired in the 
 communion of the soul with God. He also accepted the authority 
 of the wisdom of the antique world, but not until it had been test- 
 ed by severe criticism: philology was to him the object of many 
 and prolonged meditations. Providence conferred upon him length 
 of days, and science awaited from him a whole century of prog- 
 ress; but the wonder of his contemporaries, who named him the 
 Admirable (Doctor mirabilis), was changed to odious suspicion. 
 His old age was passed in a prison, and light was lacking to his 
 latest labors. In after years, at the era of the " Reformation," 
 
 • Roper Bacon, de Secretis Artis et Naturne. Gunpowder appears to 
 have been employed a hundred years before his time by the Moors in Spain. 
 But Bacon was doubtless one of the earliest among the learned men of 
 Europe to make known its wonderful effects. Neither can we with perfect 
 (ortainty credit him with the invention of the telescope.
 
 86 Dante, and Catliolic Philosophy 
 
 Jii6 uiaimacripts were destroyed in the burning of a convent bv 
 men who professed to be rehghting the torch of reason extin- 
 guished bj' the monks of the Middle Ages.' 
 
 7\bout the same period, under a less severe sky, at the foot of 
 the hills of Tuscany and Calabria (whose slopes have given birth 
 to so many great men), two brother geniuses were born: nearly of 
 the same age, the same daj' f lund tliem brought together in Paris 
 to receive academic lienors ; a nnitual friendship united them dur- 
 ing their lives, the same year saw them descend into the toinl>, 
 and a like veneration placed them Violh upon our altars. In his- 
 tory, we cannot disjoin St. Bonaventura and St. Thomas Aquinas. 
 St. Bonaventure (1221-12-74), endowed with an intelligence 
 perhaps less laborious and more loving than that of his illustrious 
 contemporary, inclined to the doctrines of the contemplatives, 
 and stro\e to harmonize with them the legitimate exercise of all 
 the faculties of man. '■ From God," according to him, " all hght 
 descends ; but this light is multiform in its mode of communica- 
 tion. The exterior light, or tradition, illumines the mechanical 
 arts; the inferior light, whicli is that of the senses, gives rise in 
 us to experimental Ideas; the interior light, which we call rea- 
 •son, makes us know intelligible truths; the superior light comes 
 from Grace and from the Holy Scriptures, and it reveals to us 
 the truths which sanctify. These divers orders of knowledge are 
 
 ' Precis dc Vhistoire de la philosophic, p. 293.
 
 /// the Tliirtccnth Century. 87 
 
 co-ordinated among tlicmsclve?, and fomi an ascending progres- 
 sion. The soul, after having descended to the study of external 
 objects, ought to retire within itself, where it will discover the 
 reflex of the eternal realities; then it must rise into the region 
 of eternal reaUties that it ma\- contemplate the first principle, 
 God. From this first principle it will see emanating influences 
 which are felt through all the degrees of creation ; redescending, 
 as it had ascended, it will recognize traces of tlie Divine operation 
 in everything that is conceived, felt, and taught. Thus all the 
 sciences are interpenetrated with mysteries, and it is only by 
 grasping the clue to the mystery that we can reach to the pro- 
 foundest depth of the science," Unfortunately for his disciples, 
 tlie Seraphic Doctor (Doctor Seraphictis) ascended, too speedily, 
 and by too short a way, to the mystic heights which he had 
 pointed out from below : he died during the sitting of the second 
 council of Lyons. The assembled delegates of the universal 
 Church honored his obsequies. And if to his memory was still 
 due another kind of homage, less imposing and much later in 
 time, it was found in the fact that a hundred and fifty years after 
 his death his writings consoled the pious Gerson in the solitude 
 to which he had retired, wearied with the sight of a corrupt society 
 and the disptrtes"of"a"degenerate school.' 
 
 » Precis de Vhint. de la philos. St. Bonav., de Rcdtictionc artium 
 ad T/iff>/f>(/i"((»/i.— Gerson, ainid Rruclcor, Inc. fi7.— Dante, Paradiso, .\ii.
 
 88 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) had hoard his master, Albert, 
 define the human mind as a " potential all." We may say that 
 he himself was this all realized. Never were more excellent 
 qualities more happily combined, while the whole was governed 
 by a lofty, serious, meditative reason. Hence, when his compan- 
 ions in study called him the great Sicilian Ox, his teachers ac- 
 cepted the augury for him. The ordinary abode of his thoughts 
 was to be the most rational of all sciences, that consequently 
 which rules and co-ordinates all the others, namely : metaphysics. ' 
 There, at the end of every speculation, the inevitable problem of 
 universals presented itself ; it became necessary to pronounce on 
 the objective reality of rational conceptions, to establish the equa- 
 tion between ideas and things St. Thomas admits in God the 
 existence of ideas archetypes of creation ; but man has no direct 
 vision of these archetypes. His knowledge is formed of the im- 
 ages received by the senses, and the abstract perceptions which 
 arise from them when viewed in the light of reason. ^ This con- 
 ciliatory logic, which conceded a proper place to the intervention 
 of the senses, was to lead St. Thomas in his physical researches. 
 He refuted the opinion which excluded bodies from the primitive 
 plan of creation ; he gave tliem a place in the hierarchy of beings, 
 
 » St. Thomas, Prolog, ad Metaphnsic. 
 
 * SummaTlicologice, p. 1., q. xv. art., U—Opuscul. de Sensuresvectu 
 particularium el Intellectu rcspectti universalium.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century 89 
 
 and discovered in them a conciu-rencc in the universa' order, a 
 ceaseless tendency to perfection, a foot-print of the Divinity. 
 However, his spccnhitivc invostigatiuns bronulit liim back to 
 praeticai matters: he estabhshcd tlie o.xistencc of a scries of laws 
 binding together in tlie net-work of tlioir precepts, man. the fam- 
 ily, and society ; he also recognized tlie excellence of contempla- 
 tion ; he knew the patlis by wliich ti'anscendent virtne may lead 
 to the immediate vision of eternal trutii.' 
 
 But it was not enongh for him to have proved his ability in so 
 many different departments ; he applied himself to the examina- 
 tion of the teaching of his predecessors: various writings of 
 Aristotle, the Timaeus of Plato, the Master of the Sentences, were 
 all in turn objects of his conscientious commentaries. Finally, St. 
 Tliomas conceived a work worthy of him, a vast encyclopanlia of 
 the moral sciences, in which should l)o sea down all tliat wc can 
 know of God, of man, and of llii-ir nnitual relations, a philosophy 
 truly Catholic, Summa totius thtologice. That monument, so liar- 
 monious in spite of the apparent asperity of its form, colossal iu 
 its dimensions, magnificent in its plan, remained indeed imfinished, 
 similar in this respect to so many of the great political, literary, 
 and architectural creations of the Middle Ages, things which des- 
 
 » Cousin, Course of History of Plillosophy, vol. I.— Erasmus, Leibnitz, 
 Fontenelle, minds so different, and so little capable of being compared to- 
 gether, all agree in laudln? St. Tliomas.— Dante, Paradiso, x.-xlil.
 
 90 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 tiny has merely shown to us and has not perniiited to reacli tlieir 
 full accomplishment. .. 
 
 , . .Ostendent Fata, nee ultra 
 Esse sinent ... 
 
 A prolonged cry of admiration followed the Angel of the 
 scJiool {.Doctor Angdicus), recalled to heaven. 
 
 Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thom- 
 as Aquinas, form among themselves, so to speak, a complete rep- 
 resentation of all the intellectual powers : they are the four doc- 
 tors who uphold the chair of philosophy in tlie temple of tlie 
 Middle Ages. Their mission was truly the re-establishmcnt of 
 the sciences, but not their final consummation. They were not 
 exempt from the ignorances and erroneous opinions of their day, 
 for Providence permits the errors of genius, lest men should be- 
 lieve that nothing further remains for them to do. Often, the 
 majesty, I may even sa}' the grace of their coi:ceptions. disap- 
 pears under the veil of the expressions in which they are clotlicd ; 
 but these imperfections are amply atoned for liy superabundant 
 merits. Those Christian philosophers did not admit within them- 
 selves the divorce, since their day become so frequent, Ix^tween 
 the intellect and the will ; their lives were luiil'ormly a laborious 
 api)lication of their doctrines. They realized in its plenitude llie 
 practical wisdom so often dreamed of by the ancients — tlie absti- 
 nenoe of the disciples (^f Pvthagoras. tlu' roiistanrv of tha stoics.
 
 /// the riiiytccntli Cintnij. 91 
 
 idgclher with Immility and cliarity, virtiioj; unknown to tlie an- 
 ti(iuc world. Albert tlic Great and St. Thon.as left the castles of 
 their noble ancestors to seek obscurity in the cloisters of St. 
 Dominic : the former alulicated. and the latter declined, the hon- 
 ors of the Churcli. Tt was witli the cord of St. Francis that 
 Roger Bacon and St. Bonaventnra girded their loins ; when the 
 last named was souglit that the Roman purple might be placed 
 upon his shoulders, lie begged the envoys to wait, and he finished 
 washing the dishes of the convent. Th\is they did not withdraw 
 themselves witliin tlie exclusive mysteries of an esoteric teaching; 
 they opened the doors of tlieir schools to the sons of shepherds 
 and artisans, and, like tlieir Master. Clirist, they said: "Come 
 all!'' After having hnikcn tlio bread of tlie word, the\- were 
 seen distributing the bread of alms The poor knew them and 
 blessed their names. Even yet, after the lapse of si.x hundred 
 vears, the dwellers in Paris kneel round the altar of the Angel of 
 the School, and the workmen of Lyons deem it an honor once a 
 vear to bear upon tlieir brawny shoulders the triumphant remains 
 of tlie Seraphic Doctor. 
 
 TV. Scholasticism, however, had not continued without re- 
 proach. Ill those belligerent ilays, many, whose profession for- 
 bade them to break lances and cross swords, carried the ardor of 
 battle into the tourneys of speech. Controversy became the pas- 
 sion of their lives: thev might be seen, shrivelled old men, still
 
 92 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 standing in the highways, discussing each syllable, each letter, of 
 a discourse or an essay. ' Tliey spread out arguments like nets, 
 they set syllogisms as ambushes, they multiplied combinations of 
 words as nature multiplies combinations of things, and, thanks to 
 iunnmerable distinctions, they proved and disproved in turn tlie 
 rrutli, the falsity, and the imeertainty, of one and the same prop- 
 osition. '■' But as the insurgent crowd described by the poet, 
 when it beheld a person illustrious tlirough liis services and his 
 virtues, calmed down and listened to the words of peace addressed 
 to it, so did this disputatious throng of scholars, young and old, 
 seem suddenly to forget its eagerness and its animosities when 
 tlie great masters of thought appeared in its midst : wonder im- 
 posed silence. But the disorder began again when they had 
 passed away. Another generation arose, and, to men of genius, 
 succeeded men of talent. 
 
 Raymond Lully (1244-1315), Duns Scotus (1275-1308), and 
 Ockham (died in 1345), opened the era of decadence. On one 
 hand, Raymond flattered tlie dangerous tendencies of the dialec- 
 ticians of his day by offei-ing to them in his combinatory art a 
 mechanical game, whereby could be deduced, without effort and 
 
 ' Salisbury, Metalogicus, lib. I., cap. VII. 
 
 = Walter of St. Victor, apiid Brucker. Hugh of St. Victor, Eruditiones 
 auiascalicic, lib. III., XI.X. Richard of St. Victor, de aratiacontempla- 
 tii)Ui.\ lib. II., II.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 93 
 
 without delay, all the consequences of a given principle. On the 
 other hand, this doctor, born under the sky of Majorca and in the 
 neighborhood of the Mussulman domination, had made extended 
 jom-neys along the coasts of Africa and to the Levant, and had 
 been inflamed by the full glow of Arabian and Alexandrian mys- 
 ticism : he emitted the perilous rays amid the eager crowd which 
 his adventurous life gathered about him. The Celt. Duns Scotus. 
 calmer perhaps, but not less desirous of throwing back into a 
 problematic condition, the doctrines of his predecessors, denied 
 the possibility of obtaining certitude in knowledge acquired 
 through the senses. Genus and species appeared to him to be 
 primordial realities : he peopled science with creatures of reason 
 arbitrarily conceived, and, renewing the opinions of the ancient 
 realists, he promulgated the most audacious idealism. Ockham. 
 who passed his days in a series of disputes, religious, political, 
 and literary, at Oxford in his youth, at Paris under Philip tlie 
 Fair, in Germany wiih Louis of Bavaria, the veiitable kniglu- 
 errant of controversy, look up the glove in the name of the nom- 
 inalists. From the a.xioni that beings ought not to be multiplied 
 without necessity, he was led not only to reject as phantoms the 
 creatures of reason, but to fail to recognize the objective value of 
 the idea of substance, to hesitate before the distinction between 
 spirit and matter, ihal is, to the extreme limits of sensism. These 
 very hesitations indicate the approach of scepticism, which was
 
 94 . Dante, ami Catholic Piiilosophy 
 
 about to re-appear, and which nothing so favors as the boldness of 
 dogmatic systems that one can neither beheve in nor reply to. 
 
 Thus did the exclusive schools re-issue from their own ruins. 
 They filled the fourteenth conturj' with their rivalries. Logic, 
 that system of learned gymnastics in llie practice of which the 
 European mind had acquired its vigorous temper, degenerated 
 into a skirmish of sophisms, a puerile and dangerous game : ques- 
 tions infinitesimally divided rose Hke dust under the feet of the 
 combatants.' Metaphysics lost itself in an unfruitful ontology, 
 where the Formalities, the Haecceities, and other capricious crea- 
 tions of the human mind occupied the place properly belonging to 
 the living creations of God.^ Experience was no longer inter- 
 rogated ; her replies were too .slowly obtained and too little pliant 
 to the will of the belligerents ; oracles more easily corrupted were 
 looked for in the teachings of antiqaity, which were pronounced 
 infallible. Then, amid the almost unanimous concert of Christian 
 teachers, was celebrated the apotheosis of Aristotle. The pagan 
 divinity was not always satisfied with incense: it required sacri- 
 fices, the immolation of every independent doctrine." Scholasti- 
 cism ended amid these orgies, like to the king of Israel, whose 
 
 ' Bacon, De DignUalc et Augincntis Scientiarum. 
 
 ' L. Vives, apud Brucker. 
 
 ' Petrarch, quotcfl by Tirfibo.sdii, vol. v.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 95 
 
 yoiitlifiil wisdom li.id ast<niislied tho world, and wlio profaned 
 his later days in the temples of foreign idols. 
 
 V. It was about the middle of the period just described, near 
 to the year 1300, between tlie apogee and tlio begiiming of the 
 decadence, during one of those solemn moments when even pros- 
 perity has something melauclioly about it, because it feels its end 
 approaching; — it was at that hour of the swan-song that the 
 philosophy of the Middle Ages was to have its poet. For, wliile 
 prose, especially the prose of a dead language, as was that of the 
 School, when put to the pi oof of years, speedily corrupts, and no 
 longer allows the idea enclosed in it to appear free from disfigure- 
 ment, poetry is like a glorified body, within which the thought 
 may remain incorrupt and recognizable. It is also a subtile form 
 which penetrates everywhere, and can render itself present in the 
 same moment at the most distant points. Immortality and pop- 
 ularity are the two divine gifts of wiiieli poets havebeeti made the 
 dispensers. The Greek philosopliy had its Homer in theper.<on of 
 Plato ; scholasticism, less happily endowed in some respects, and 
 menaced with a more speedy decline, experienced tea still greate:- 
 degree the need of a similar consolation. The poet wh" was to 
 come had then his place marked in time: we must look for I he 
 causes which allotted to liim liis place in space : his period 
 known, we have still to make inprehcnded the intellectual condi- 
 tion of I'.is eountrv.
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 3SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF 'TALIAN PHIL0S0PH7. 
 
 (-XTT^HREE inseparable things, the True, the Good, and the Btair 
 ^^jL^ liful, appeal to the soul of man, both through his feelinj: 
 of their actual absence, and through his hope of their possibl.'j 
 attainment. The desire for the Good was the first concern of the 
 first wise men, and philosophy in its origin as its name import? 
 (</'{yl«<7o^:'a), was the work of love. ' But, as the Good, to bo 
 accomplished, must first be perceived as the True, uncertainty iji 
 practice called for the aid of speculation : it was necessary to 
 study beings in cder to determine the laws which link them to- 
 eether. One could not approach the True without being struck 
 by its splendor, which is the Beautiful ; the harmony of being-s, 
 reflected in the conceptions of the learned, was naturally reprc'- 
 duced even in their discourses. The philosophy of the ear)i.^i- 
 till ^^■; i'ss, then, moral in its direction and poetic in its form. 
 
 Such, as the product of the Pythagorean school, did it first ap- 
 pear in Italy. Soon, cities asked from it laws for their guidance 
 and later, the metaphysicians of Elea and Empedocles of Agri- 
 
 > The A : U > word studium also has two senses, the one intellectual, and 
 
 i'r.f- other mom. 
 
 96
 
 Da7itc, and Catholic Philosophy. 97 
 
 {cemum sang liie mysteries of nature in the language of the gods. 
 Then Rome arose, and. as its name imported (Z'w/v.jj), Rome vvas 
 strength; that strength, put into action, became the en,»3ire of 
 the world. The Roman people were then pre-eminently endowed 
 with the genius of action. However, the feeling for art was not 
 lacking to them : they required harmonious words in their rostrum 
 and canticles for their triumphs. When they accepted philosopliy, 
 she was presented to them under the auspices of Scipio and En- 
 nius, and thus found herself pledged to serve and to please ' ; ia 
 after days she never ceased to avail herself of the patronage of 
 statesmen and of poets. She visited the retreat of Cicero, accom- 
 panied Seneca into exile, died with Thrasea, dictated to Tacitus, 
 reigned with Marcus Aurelius, and sat in the school of the juris- 
 consults who referred the entire science of things divine and hu- 
 man to the determination of good and evil.'- Slie had invited to 
 her lessons Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan.^ The 
 systems of Zeno and of Epicurus readily resolvable into mora.' 
 consequences, and the traditions of Pythagoras bearing tlic im- 
 press of ineffaceable beauty, alone obtained the right of citize":^- 
 
 > Polybius, Exempl. VM. et Vit. cap. LXXIII.— Pers., Sat., VI. la 
 * Lib. I., Digest., dt Justitid et Jure. " Veram phllosophlam, ova 
 
 simulatam adfectantes." 
 ' Virg., Aen.. 1. and VI. -Horat., lib. II. Ed., 3 ; lib I Ep., 4.— OvuL, 
 
 Metam., lib, XV.— Lucau, Pharsal.. Ah. !.. no. ii.
 
 98 Dante, and Catholic Philosopliy 
 
 ship in Rome. Christianity came again to fecundate tlie soil of 
 Italy, which so many illustrious travails seemed necessarily to 
 have exhausted. After Pautaenus, the Sicilian bco and the 
 founder of the Christian school of Alexandria ; after Lactantius 
 and St. Ambrose, the genius of the old Romans revived in the 
 sixth and seventh centuries in two of their most noble descendants, 
 Boethius and St. Gregory. The first named, a martyr to civil 
 courage, lent to philosophy a consolatory and harmonious diction; 
 the latter, an indefatigable pontiff, has left as monuments in the 
 history of the human mind his admirable treatises on the Holy 
 Scriptures, and the system of chant which still retains his name. 
 Jn later times, the Italian snn did not cease to shine upon genera- 
 tions of philosophers, moralists, jurisconsults, publicists, and poets 
 wlio esteemed it an honor to be accounted philosophers. We 
 find Marsilius Ficinus confounding in his nco-Platonic enthusiasm 
 science, art, and virtue; Macchiavelli, wliom it suffices to name;. 
 Vico and r4ravina tracing the fundamental laws of society, the 
 one with hieroglyphic symbols, the other with thesnmc ])en that 
 later will write out the statutes of the Arcadian Academy ; also 
 Petrarch, crowned at the Capitol, but descending its steps to 
 meditate by tiie light of his solitary lamii upon '• the remedies 
 against both kinds of fortune . " Tasso, restuig from tlio coml)ats 
 of the Jerusalem Ddivered in the composition of adniirablo 
 dialogues, and, if we may ln' iKM-miiird ti> cite celcliri-
 
 In tJic Thir/ic/it/i Century. 99 
 
 tics more recent and not less beloved, Manzoni and Pellico. 
 
 We may tlien recognize among the pliilosophers of the utlier 
 side of tlie Alps, a twofold cliaracler, ancient, pcrmancnl, and so 
 to speak, national; for the permanence of habits, which consti- 
 tutes personality with regard to individuals, constitutes also na- 
 tionality in regard to populations. We may then say that there 
 exists an Italian philosophy which has been able to maintain in their 
 primitive alliance, moral tendencies and poetic form, whether it 
 be that in that land so favored by heaven, in the presence of an 
 external nature so wonderfully endowed, man also carries into 
 his action a larger share of vivacity and felicity, or whether again, 
 a design from on high so made Italy, that it might be the chief 
 seat of the Catholic Faith, in which was to be found a philosophy 
 at once pre-eminently practical and poetical, a union and a realiza- 
 tion of the fundamental ideas of the True, the Good, and the 
 Beautiful. 
 
 II. In the Middle .\ges, Italian philosophy was neither less 
 flourishing nor less faithful to its twofold character. .Vl the 
 close of the ages of barbarian incursion, the Blessed I.aufraucand 
 St. Ansehn, who respectively went from Pavia and .Vosta to oc- 
 cupy the primatial see of Canterbury-, inaugurated the re\ ival of 
 the regenerated studies in northern Europe. I'eter llie Lomliaid 
 was borne V)v universal admiration from his professor's cliair to 
 the bishopric of Paris. Whilst John Ttalus made his name lion-
 
 100 Dante, atid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ored in the school of Constantinople, Gerard of Cremona, estab- 
 lished at Toledo, was interrogating the learning of the Arabs, and 
 teaching the Spaniards to enrich themselves \\ith the scientific 
 spoils of their enemies. Bologna was the seat of an instnictror. 
 in philosophy not lacking renown, even before the lessons in jur- 
 isprudence began, which conferred such celebrity upon that city. 
 Logic and physics continued to be assiduously tauglit there in the 
 thirteenth century. Padua had no reason to envy her rival.* 
 Milan numbered nearly two hundred teachers of grammar, logic, 
 medicine, and philosophy.'' Finally the fame of the thinkers of 
 the Peninsula was so great in all parts of the continent that it 
 served to account for the origin of newly arisen doctrines, for ex- 
 ample, to explain how Arnold of Villeneuve passed for an adept 
 of a Pythagorean sect disseminated through the principal cities 
 of Apulia and Tuscany.' But the exuberant vigor of Italian phil- 
 osophy showed itself especially in tlic memorable struggle which 
 began butweou the orthodox systems and opposing theories, a 
 struggle wliich, like tlie contest l>etwcen the priesthood and the 
 empire, lasted more than two hundred years. We might perhaps 
 find interesting matter for research in the doctrines of the Frati- 
 oelli, of Guillemin of Milan, and of the Spiritual Brothers, among 
 
 ' Tiraboschi. t. Iv.. lib. 11., cap. ii. 
 
 • Flamma, a Milanese chronicler, quoted by Tiraboschi, ibid. 
 
 » Vincent de Beauvais and Brucker, Ui»t. crit.. Vol. lit., Vi. i! ,chap. Ul.
 
 In the Thirteenth Cetiturv. J 01 
 
 whom the absolute community of all things, the emancipation of 
 women in regard to religion, and the preaching of an eternal gos- 
 pel, recall the modern efforts of Saint-Pimonism. But, restricting 
 ourselves to facts purely philosopliical, we meet with matters still 
 more surprising. In the year 1115, the Plpicureans were numer- 
 ous enough in Florence to form a faction to be dreaded ana to 
 provoke bloody quarrels ; ' later, materialism appeared tlicre as 
 the avowed doctrine of sundry prominent Gliibellines. The grand- 
 sons of Averroes were received at the Itahan court of the Hohen- 
 staufen - at the same time that a Saracen colony was founded at 
 Nocera, making Rome tremble. Frederic II. rallied around him 
 every perverted opinion, and seemed desirous of establishing a 
 school antagonistic to Catholic teaching. This school, silenced 
 for a time after the fall of the dynasty wJiich had protected it, 
 regained strength under another emperor, Louis of Bavaria, who 
 crossed the Alps to receive the crown from the hand of an anti- 
 pope. A little later, Petrarch, quoting St. Paul and St. Augustine 
 in his discourses, excited a disdainful smile on the lips of tlie 
 learned men by whom he was surrounded, adorers of Aristotle 
 and of the Arabian commentators. ^ These irreligious doctrines 
 
 1 Giovanni Villani, History, bk. iv. 
 
 ^ jEgidius Romanus, Qiiodlibcta, lib. ii., quaest. 30.— Cf. Relnaud, Ex- 
 traits des histoi'ietis arahcs, p. 4*5. 
 ^ Petrarch, quoted by Tlraboscbl. Vol. v.
 
 I02 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 made no delay in reducing themselves to learned pleasures of the 
 senses: they found poets to sing them. However, the truth did 
 not remain without defenders; two men were raised up in its 
 belialf, whom we have already met among tlie greatest of tlieir 
 day. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. BonavenUira, wlio must liere 
 again be called to mind as two of the glories of Ittdy. Profound 
 moralists, they were also poeticall}' inspired, one, wlieu he com- 
 posed the hymns whicli were one day to make Santeuil despair, 
 and tlie other, wlien he penned the canticle translated by Cor- 
 neiile. ^gidius Colonna also combatted Averioism with the 
 same pen which traced the lessons to kings. Albcriano of Brescia 
 published three treatises on ethics, in the vulgar tongue.' We 
 might cite still others, who were lauded in tlieir own day, and 
 who have experienced how far the plaudits of men are deceptive. 
 But, of all tlie cities seated at the foot of tlio Aj iieuines, none 
 could boast of a happier fecundity than the fair city of Florence. 
 Torn by intestine commotions, if she gave birlli amid pain and 
 sorrow, at least she brought forth immortal cliildren. "Without 
 counting Lapo Fiorentino, wlio taught philosopliy at Bologna, and 
 Saiidro of Pipozzo, author of a treatise on economy wliich had a 
 success of popularity, she numbered among lier sons Brunetto 
 Latini and Guido Cavalcanti. Brunetto, notary- of the republic, 
 
 ' DelVamore e diltzione di Din. Delia coiisdlaziniu- del consi{jliii. 
 AinmaeKtramfHiii di ditr c di tacere.
 
 In the ThirkcntJi Century. 103 
 
 had been able, witlioiil neglecting liis patriotic functions, usefully 
 to serve the cause of learning; lie translated into Italian the 
 Ethics of Aristotle; he prepared, under the name of TYesor, an 
 encyclop.'edia of the knowledge of his day, and in his Tesoretto he 
 gave an example of didactic poetry lacking neither precision of 
 thought nor grace of expression. Guido Cavalcanti was saluted 
 as the Prince of the Lyre: a sonnet on love, composed by him, 
 obtained tlie honor of several commentaries, to which the most 
 revered tlieologians did not disdain to lend a hand. He would 
 have been admired as a philosopher, if his orthodoxy had remained 
 irreproachable.' Two citizens of sucli ability sufficed to honor 
 a city already famous; and yet a third was to appear who would 
 make later times forget them both. 
 
 III. The philosophy of the thirteenth century was then to ask 
 from Italy the required poet : but Italy was to furnish him marked 
 with the national imprint, ('([ually provided with contemplative 
 and witli active faculties, and not less eminently endowed witli 
 the niural instincts than with the feeling and capacity for literary 
 creation. It was needful to find a soul in which these disposi- 
 tions, united by nature, should be largely developed by the trials 
 of a life providentially predestined, a soul which, faithful to im- 
 pressions received Ui^w] without, sliould, moreover, possess the 
 energy necessary to combine, and, in due season, l)ring them forth. 
 
 * Boccaccio, quoted bvSismondi. Hixtoire (Ififi refmhliques itaUeru*ej<, 
 Vol. iv., p. 199.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LIFE, STUDIES, AND GENIUS OF DANTE. — GENERAL DESIGN OF THE 
 
 DIVINE COMEDY. — PLACE OCCUPIED IN IT BY THE 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL ELEJtENT. 
 
 Jj-N the j-ear 1265, under sinister auspices, and in the Iionseof 
 [ an exile, a child was born — Dante Alighieri. Memor- 
 able events surrounded his cradle: the crusade of Tunis, the end 
 put to the second interregnum by the election of Rudolph of Haps- 
 burg, the second Council of Lyons, the Sicilian Vespers, the death 
 of Ugolino — such were the possible topics of conversation to which 
 his ears were first opened. He saw his country divided between 
 the Guelfs and the Ghibellines : the former were the defendei-s of 
 Italian independence and municipal liberties; the latter were the 
 ciiampions of feudal rights and the old suzerainty of the Holy 
 Empire. His family traditions and his own inclinations attached 
 liini to the cause of the Guelfs; ' he donned the garb of manhood 
 fighting in their ranks at Campaldiiio, where they were victorious 
 (1289). Soon after, he .shared in the dissensions which divided 
 the dominant party, when, under the stormy tribunate of Giauo 
 della Bella (1292), tlie constitutions of the city were modified, tlie 
 
 ' PeWi, Memnrle per laVitn di Dante; Llonardo Aretino, Vita rti 
 
 Dmite. 
 
 104
 
 Dante, and CatJiolic Philosopliy . 105 
 
 nobles excluded from the magistracy, and the interests of the re- 
 public placed ill the hands of the plebeians. Entrusted success- 
 ively with several embassies, vi'hen he returned to his own coun- 
 try the highest honors and the greatest perils alike awaited him. 
 When he was made prior, (1300), he found the nobles and the 
 plebeians re-commencing the struggle under the new names of 
 Neri and Bianchi ; his sympathy with the latter procured for him 
 the enmity of the former. While he was on the way to Rome to 
 oppose their influence, they called to Florence Charles of Valois, 
 brother to Philip the Fair; it seemed that a prince of a reigning 
 house was none too exalted a personage to be employed in the 
 struggle against a great citizen. The prince Qarried the day, but 
 he dishonored himself and the French name when he caused a 
 sentence of proscription to be pronounced against the chiefs of 
 tlie Bianchi. Under the shadow of the French lilies two solemn 
 iniquities, in the lapse of a few months, were accomplished in 
 Italy: the exile of Dante and the seizure of Boniface VIII.' 
 Dante uttered maledictions upon his judges, but not upon his 
 country ; the memory he retained of her accompanied him as he 
 wandered from city to city, and as he sat by the hearth-stones of 
 the Marquises of Lunigiana, of the Scaligeri at Verona, or of the 
 lords of Polenta, a sombre guest, always finding the bread of hos- 
 pitality bitter. Now by force, and anon by entreaty, by every 
 ' Gjov. Villani, lib. vii, ann. 1292 ; Dlno Compagni, ia Muratori.
 
 1 06 Dante, and CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 way except bj such as miglit imply a loss uf self-respect,' lie at 
 tempted to re-enter within tlie dearly loved walls, the fold that 
 had sheltered his early years.^ And, when his disappointed hoj^e 
 left him no other resource, if he seemed to pass into the camp of 
 the Grhibellines, it was because he thought there to find that very 
 cause of hberty to aid whicli he had fought against them : in fact, 
 the intervention of France, solicited through the imprudence of 
 the Guelfs, menaced Italy with a new peril. Or ratlier, these 
 two names of rival factious had several times changed meaning 
 amid intestine struggles; tliey continued as words of ominous au- 
 gurj^, inscribed on standards which thenceforth rallied round them 
 little more than selfish interests, passions, and crimes. Dante 
 never ceased to blend in a common reprobation the excesses of 
 both parties,' and to look to some loftier sphere for social doctrines 
 worth}' of his devotion. The urgent call he experienced to inter- 
 vene in the affairs of his time, which had brought upon him such 
 singular misfortunes, never left him ; he had just returned from 
 
 ' >ff monV.— M. Villemain was the first to make known in France the 
 admirable letter wherein the jxiet refuses to re-enter his ii;;liv(? pity under 
 humiliating conditions. But nowhere has the history of his exile been 
 traced in a livelier and more lucid way than in the biography is.sued by M. 
 Fauriel. See also the learned w.irk of Balho, Vila di Dante, and the Vie 
 df Dante, by M. Artaud. 
 
 = Paradise, XXV., 2, LfmRfpllow's Tr. 
 
 " The fair shcepfold, where a lamb I slumbered." 
 
 3 Paradiso, VI., 34 : 
 
 " So that 'tis hani to see which sins the most."
 
 hi the Thirteenth Cetrtury. 107 
 
 tlie fulfilmcnl of a diplomalic niisr^ioii lo Venice, when lie died at 
 Ravenna, (1321). The tumult of men and things was not lacking 
 to his later da^-s : there were the revolutions which changed into 
 seigniorial governments the greater nnniljer of the Italian repub- 
 lics, the popular triumphs in Flanders and Switzerland, the wars 
 in Germany, tlie strife between France and Kngland, the pontili- 
 cal majesty outraged at Anagni, the condemnation of the Tem- 
 plars, and the removal of the Koly See to Avignon. These tragic 
 spectacles, which would have left profound images in the mem- 
 ory of Dante if he had remained merely a witness of them, must, 
 whe?i lie look part in them, have powerfully affected his con- 
 science; for the moral sense, which is awakened by tlic aspect of 
 the just and the unjust, is exalted by adherence to the former, as 
 also b}- experiencing the oi>pre:«sion of the latter. 
 
 He had known evil through suffering, the chief school in which 
 virtuous men learn it; he had known good by the joy felt in do- 
 uig it; he had willed it with an ardent, and consequently with a 
 communicative will. In after years the remembrance of his gen- 
 erous intentions was for him as a comi)anion of exile, in whoso 
 converse he found the justilication of his political conduct, and 
 'I'C excuse for, as well as the consolation of, his misfortunes.' 
 
 II. But, to be conceived in exile and therein to die. to occupy 
 lofty positions and to undergo great misfortunes, has been the lot 
 
 ' Inferno, XXVIII., 39.
 
 io8 Dante, and Catliolic PJiilosophy 
 
 ol many; these arc the pohits wliich Dante lias m common wiih 
 the crowd of men, and he might be confounded with them if, amid 
 the agitations of his pulilic life, other circumstances had not pro- 
 cured for him a hfe of the heart, into the mj-steries of which wc 
 must penetrate. In fact, according to the laws regulating the 
 spiiitual world, to lift up a soul there is need of another soul; 
 diis attraction is called love; in the language of philosophj', it is 
 known as friendship, and in that of Christianitj', charity. Danto 
 was not to be exempt from the common law. At the age of 
 nine years, an age of which tlie innocence guarantees the purity, 
 he met at a family festival, a young cliild endowed with grace 
 and noblenesE.i The sight called forth in him an affection which 
 has no name on this earth, and which he preserved sdll more 
 and more tender and chaste through the perilous season of ado- 
 lescence. There were dreams wherein Beatrice showed herself all 
 radiant ; tliere was an inexpressible desire to find himself where 
 she w?,s about to pass; it was a salutation from her, an inclina- 
 tion of her liead, in which he had placed all his happine.ss; there 
 were fears and hopes, sadnesses and joys, which wrought upon 
 and purified Ids sensiliiliiy, until it reached an extreme delicacj', 
 disengaging it little by little from ordinary habits and cares. But 
 above all, when Beatrice quitted the earth in the full splendor of 
 youth, he followed her in thought into that invisible world of 
 
 Boccacio, ViUt di Dante ; Dante, Vita Nuova.
 
 In the 'niirteentJi Century. 109 
 
 which she had become an inhabitant, and delighted in ado, ning- 
 her with all the blooms of immortality; he surrounded her w 'h 
 the canticles of the angels ; he seated her on the highest ste^ 
 leading to the tlirone of God. He forgot her death while con- 
 templating her in this glorious transfiguration.' Thus the beauty 
 that had shown itself to liim under a real form became a real 
 type whicli interpenetrated liis imagination, that imagination 
 which was to mount higher and higher until it flowed over upon 
 the outside world. He knew how to tell what waspassirtg witli- 
 in him; he knew, according to his own expression, to take note 
 of love singing within : Dante had become a poet.^ When once 
 inspiration had visited him, he found, amid tlie favorable circum- 
 stances of liis position, no difficulty in retaining his visitor by 
 his side: the contemporary of Guido Cavalcanti, of Giacopo de 
 Todi, of Dante da Majano, of Cino da Pistoia, men whose poetic ut- 
 terances called forth similar strains from their fellows, and were 
 re-echoed among themselves as if in endless concert ; tlie friend 
 of the nmsician Casella, of the architect Arnolfo, and of the paint- 
 er Giotto, he lived in the days when Florence raised three of the 
 monuments wliich have caused that city to be surnamed "The 
 
 1 VVUx Nuova, C. E. Norton's translation : 
 
 " Unto the hieh heaven hath Beatrice pone, 
 Unto th .t realm where peace the angels have, 
 ******* 
 And dwelleth glorious In a fit abode." 
 
 ' Purgatorlo, XXIV., 19.
 
 1 1 Diuitc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Beautiful," the Pallazzo Yecchio, Santa Croce, and tlie Catlicilral. 
 and all this under an enchanting sk}- over-arching a land where 
 every art flourished. 
 
 irr. All this was not jet enough, and Dante was to offer him- 
 self to the wonder of posterity under still another aspect. Bru- 
 netto Latini, wlio had known liini from his birtli avid hail drawn 
 his lioroseope, felt dcsiious of verifying its predictions; he he- 
 came his master, and filled the place of the father lost at an early 
 age ; he taught hiin the rudiments of the different sorts of learn- 
 ing collected in his TresovA Through his care Dante was early 
 initiated into familiarity witli the languages. He was not v>holly 
 ignorant of Greek, and. if he had not acquired in it suffi- 
 cient proficiency to be able easily to read tlie original texts, 
 translations were not lacking.* Latin literature was familiar 
 
 ' Inferno, XV., 19, 38, 41. Gary's translation : 
 
 " ' If thou,' he answered, * follow but thy star. 
 Thou canst not miss at last a glorious haven ; 
 Unless in fairer days my .ludgment erred.' 
 
 * + * * 'In my mind 
 Is fixed, an<i now strikes full upon my lie irt, 
 The dear benign, paternal Image, such 
 
 As thine was, when so lately thou didst teach me 
 The way foi- men to win eternity.' 
 
 * * * 'I commend my T/-er(j<itrf to thee.'" 
 
 * He quotes Greek etymologies quite happily in his dedication of the 
 Paradiso to Can (irande, and in theConvito, lib. IV., cap. VI. See a vo the 
 sonnet LXIV., I'raticelli's edition; 
 
 " Morning and evening place thee at thy desk."
 
 In the rhirtcentJi Century. 1 1 1 
 
 to liiin ; among the authors \vho«o dail}- converse accompanied 
 liis solitude, he counted Virgil, whose ^Kien/ he knew from ho- 
 giuning to end, Ovid, Lucan, Statins, Pliny, Frontinus. and Paidus 
 Orosius. Tlie different Romanic idinms had dccuiiicd Ids atten- 
 tion; he (lunted Spanisli verses and winto Pi(jvcncal poetry;' 
 there is no doul)t that ho knew French, '■ the speaking of whicli 
 was already accounted delightful to hear, and the most conmion 
 lo all nations." '■ But it was especially in exploring the dialects of 
 Italy that he exerted his indefatigable perseverance; to have con- 
 secrated the use of the vulgar tongue was by no means the least 
 glorious of his achievements.-' Rhetoric and history, physics and 
 astronomy, which he pursued down to the latest discoveries of 
 the Arabian oijservers, claimed also a portion of his time. Obliged 
 to choose among the various arts under which the inhabitants of 
 Florence were classified, he inscril)ed himself in the corporation 
 t)f jiliysicians. This rank was not wrongfullv assumed, and yet 
 the varii'tv of his ac(|uirf'ments would have permitted him to taUi' 
 without injustice tlie title t)f j\u'isconsult.* Tlis youth had passed 
 away amid these wide-reaching preparations ; the death of Bea- 
 
 ' Dante, Dc Vulgari Kloquciitid passim. Ttie second canzone of book 
 II. of his colleclioa is in Provencal, Latin, and Italian. 
 
 - Brunette Latini, preface of the Ti I'sm: 
 
 ^ This is the special subject of his treatise, Dc Vulnaii Ekiqueutia. 
 
 ^ Mcmorie. Purgatorio. XXV. See the learned dissertation of Varchi 
 on this passage, and the whole book Dc Mimairhin.
 
 112 Dilute, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 trice (1292) induced him to seek consoling thoughts in the writ- 
 ings of Cicero and Boethius. He there found more — the first 
 vestiges of a science to wliich he had not yet attained, which 
 apparently was thus lying in wait for liini at the close of his pre- 
 liminary studies — philosophy. From that period he pursued this 
 study by attending the public discussions of such as were ac- 
 counted philosophers, in monastic schools, in reading so assidu- 
 ously that his eyesight was for a long time injured by his excess- 
 ive apphcation, and in meditations which no outside tumult could 
 distract' The two translations of Aristotle, perhaps some of the 
 dialogues of Plato, St Augustine and St Gregory the Great, 
 Avicenna and the book Be Causis^ St. Bernard, Richard of St. 
 Victor, St. Thomas Aquinas, yEgidius Colonna, — such were the 
 guides whose footsteps his indefatigable thought eagerly followed. 
 And yet, at the very entrance of metaphysics, the mystery of 
 creation stayed him a long while, occasioned him at first some 
 disquiet, and made him turn in preference to ethics.'^ 
 
 At the end of thirty months, philosophy had become his ex- 
 clusive mistress, to use his own form of speech, the lady of his 
 thoughts. Then he began to find the intellectual sphere wherein 
 he had essayed his first fiight too restricted; he visited the Uni- 
 versities of Italy and of tlie lands beyond the Alps, in search of 
 
 ' Dante. CoDvito, lib. II., cap. XIII. ; lib. III., cap. IX. 
 "■ Convlto, IV., I.
 
 In the TJiirteenth Century. 1 1 3 
 
 liiiit exchange of the hving word, the benefit of oral teaching, 
 which, belter than the dead letter of the most renowned writings, 
 possesses the gift of fccnndating the mind. Similar motives had 
 led tlie sages of Giccce to the scliuols of Phoenicia and Egyiit. 
 However, the dates and the limits of Dante's travels elude all 
 certain determination. Several cities of the Peninsnla, Padua. 
 Cremona, Bologna, and Naples, claim the honor of having counted 
 him in the number of their students, and the most illustrious 
 provinces of Christendom, Germany and France, Flanders and 
 England, have given testimony of their desire that he should have 
 passed their way. There is apparently a possibility of tracing in 
 his writings an itinerary which, passing through Aries, Paris, 
 Bruges, and London, may have extended as far as Oxford.' But 
 we can scarcely doubt the fact of his sojourn in Paris. There in 
 the i?ite de Fouarre^ and seated on the straw which served as 
 benches to the crowd of students, he, an immortal disciple, at- 
 tended the lessons of the professor, Sigicr, whom his mention 
 alone rescued from oblivion, until in our day, a learned hand ap- 
 peared to retrace the nearly obliterated memory.* There, doubt- 
 
 ' Inferno, IX., 38; XII., 4(); XV., 2; Paradiso, X., 47; etc., etc. 
 
 * Paradiso, X., 46 : L. 
 
 " It is the light eternal of Sigier, 
 
 Who, reading lecture.s in the .>;treet of Straw, 
 
 Did syllogize invidious verities." 
 
 The biography of Sigier, which Italian learning had despaired of eluci- 
 datinjf, has teen rtcovered with rare precision by the rescarche- f M.
 
 1 1 4 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 less after long vigils, wiieii he deemed he had won the right to 
 aspire to the honors of the school, he sustained, with the custoni- 
 ar}' solemnities, a theological dispute, (h qiiolihet wherein he re- 
 plied without interruption upon fourteen questions, drawn from 
 di\'ers suhjccts, and proposed, with their arguments for and 
 against, by skilful doctors. He also read and commented in pub- 
 lic the Master of the Sentences and the Holy Scriptures, passing 
 through all the probations required in the department of theology. 
 Admitted to the highest rank, he lacked the means necessary 
 to defray the cost of reception.' The doors of the University 
 were closed against him, as were the gates of his native citj-, and 
 thus '_,\eu science had for him a rigorous treatment. If he left 
 Paris without the title of which he had been judged worthy, he 
 was at least in possession of an incontestable erudition and a love 
 for serious study ; and if, as we may well believe, the lustre of 
 Academic triumphs was not indifferent to him, his wishes were 
 gratified in the end. After twenty years of exile (1320), grown 
 grey with age. surrounded by the twofold majesty of renown and 
 nf misfortune, we fuid him in the church of St. Helen, at Verona, 
 in presence of an admiring a\idience, sustaining a thesis de duohus 
 
 Victor Leclerc. president f)f the commi.ssion of the Academy of Inscripticns 
 and Belles-lettres for the coutiuiiatiou of the Histoirc JitdJinirc Ic 
 France. It is to be found in volume XXI. of that collection. 
 
 ' Boccaccio. Vita cli Dnntc. .John of Serravalle, Bishop of Imolr. in 
 his foinnientary quoted by Tiraboschi, vol. V.
 
 In the ThirtcoitJi Cc/itiny. 1 1 5 
 
 elementis aquce st ferrtc. One year later, when his obsequies were 
 celebrated at Ravenna, Guido Novello, Lord of Polenta, his last 
 protector, caused a crown of laurel to be placed upon his bier. ' 
 
 Dante had then lived, so to speak, a third life, which was de- 
 voted to scientific labors, and which also had its unequal phases, 
 its sad and its serene days. Political passions and the affections 
 of the heart had not sufticcd to occupy hia whole being ; there re- 
 mained in his soul a large place, inaccessible to the tumult of 
 opinions and the seduction of the senses, within which his intel- 
 lect retired as within a sanctuary, and rendered unto truth an ex- 
 clusive worship. This devotion was not restricted to the limits 
 of any single order of knowledge ; it embraced truth, absolute 
 and complete. Universality of knowledge and elevation of the 
 point of view — are not these the constituent elements of the phil- 
 osophic mind ? 
 
 IV. Thus in the person of Dante were found the three facul- 
 ties which, united in certain proportions, constitute genius, name- 
 ly, intellect to perceive, imagination to idealize, and will to ex- 
 cute. The task still rcniains to tell by what mysterious bonds 
 these faculties were interwoven into a perfect unity; how three 
 destinies weighed upon a single head which they might bow, but 
 could not crush. While our ordinary education, by giving to 
 each one of our faculties a separate and sometimes an exclusive 
 
 * Mcmorie.
 
 1 1 6 Dante, and Cathulic Philosophy 
 
 cultivcation, often divides and enfeebles them, Dante, a bold and 
 Independent genius, allowed liis to grow and develop all together, 
 to borrow resources from one another, and occasionally to intcr- 
 cliange roks in a way to present the most interesting contrasts. 
 Now it is the statesman who s])eaks witli the tongue of tlie sage 
 or the nmse to princes and to nations tliat have closed tiieir 
 ears to their customary counsellors. i Again, it is the jioet, \\lif>, 
 amid the austere occupations of science, lias not lost the delicate 
 sense of the beauties of nature, the quickness to generous emo. 
 tions, the ingenuous credulity which provokes a smile ; he bends 
 in loving reverence before the classic virtues of Cato ; he believes 
 in the bucklers which Numa saw falling from heaven, and in tiie 
 geese of the Capitol.^ But especially do we find him a philosopli- 
 er, bearing with him a religious gravity to aid in the accomplish- 
 ment of Ills poetic work, in tlie seclusion of studious habits, wait- 
 ing for inspiration, concealing a learned reminiscence or the con- 
 clusion of a long chain of reasoning mider the boldest images, 
 ready to give a reason for every line that has ever flowed from his 
 pen: his scruples carried him so far that he desired to exjuain 
 tx-jnofesso^hy a rigorous logical analysis, the ballads and sonnets 
 wherein his youthful vigor had made its first essay.* Strong 
 
 ' De Monarchia; Piirgatorio, VI.; Paradise, VI., etc. 
 "^ PurRiitorio, I ; Convito, IV., 5, 38 : " O most sacred breast of Cato, who 
 will dare to spitak of thee V " De Monarchia, II. 
 ^ Vila Ntwva, passim. Llouardo Aretino, Vita di Dante.
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. 1 1 7 
 
 with that real strength which is not rigidity, which is supple be- 
 cause it is living, Dante knew how to take his share in the needs 
 and duties of life, and then to make his wide experiences con- 
 verge in unwearj'ing devotion to his more especial occupations. 
 He never deemed that application to letters constituted a species 
 of priesthood exempt from public Ijurdens ; he did not deprive his 
 country of his time that he might make for himself a life of self- 
 ish leisure. Jlis eloquence, never prodigallj^ expended, flowed 
 freely forth in the councils, as did his blood under the standard 
 of his native city. It was this desire to multiply himself in a 
 certain fashion for the general good, ordinarily confided to inex- 
 pert hands, which niade him exclaim, when hesitating whether or 
 not to accept a certain di[!li)iuatic missit)ii : "If I.'^tay, who goes? 
 and if 1 go, who staj's ? " ' 
 
 He also knew how to fullil t]i(> gentle re(piirements of social 
 life. Friendship found him faithful to its denuuids : his melan- 
 cliolj' ctnuitenanre lirighlcned in the society of women and young 
 people; friends vaunted the graceof ids manners and the courtesy 
 of his speech amid such surroundings. As he did not hide him- 
 self in haughty retirement, ueitlier did he intrench himself in the 
 domain where he was sure of reigning; he did not disdain to 
 cultivate arts, fnicli as music and drawing, in which he could 
 readily meet with others more skilled than himself.^ However, a 
 
 ' Boccaccio, Vila di Dmtti:: " S'io sto clii vn ? o s'io vo clii sta ? " 
 
 2 Boccaccio, VitadiDaiitc. Villani homewbere mentioning bira. calls
 
 1 1 8 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 rare temperance, a sell-porisedsiuii that cuuld ^^e'ize upuu llie ii)0!?t 
 lieeting opportunities for leuniing. an attention su rapt that nolli- 
 ing- could deprive it of its prey, and finally, a menio'y to wiiicli 
 tlie mournful necessity of re-learning anything was unknown, 
 permitted him to pursue his favorite studies, and made it seem as 
 if time were less avaricious of liours to him than to other men. 
 Thus he was seen sitting in the principal street of Sienna, bending 
 over a book, totally absorbed during the entire continuance of a 
 public festival, of which he seemed not even to be aware. 
 
 But, as human nature must always betray in some spot the 
 original wound by which it has been weakened, the noble quali- 
 ties of Dante were occasionally dishonored by their own vciy 
 excesses. Amid ci\il feuds his hatred of iniquity became a blind 
 rage which could no longer grant pardon even to mistakes. 
 Under such circumstances it is said that, in the confusion of hi.s 
 thoughts, he would throw stones at women and children whom 
 he heard calumniating his part}'. Or again, wheninaphilosopliic 
 discussion he foresaw certain objections on the part of his adver- 
 saries, he gave vent to his indignation by saying: " Such brulal 
 doctrines ought to be met, not with arguments, but with a 
 
 him (History, Bk. IX., chap, cxxxiv.)," An ungracious philosopher." But 
 we may well believe that he represents the poet in his darker moments ; 
 those, for Instance, which he was objltfed to pass among courtiers and 
 buffoons, at the courts of some of the great lords. See also Mcmork per 
 la Vita di Dante, Pelli.
 
 Ifi the Tftirfcciifh CcnU(n'. 1 19 
 
 ictiife." ' Likewise, his extreme tfciisibiliiy, although protecteiniy 
 tlie memory of Beatrice, made but a feeble resistance to the se- 
 chictions of beaut.> : the collections of his lyrics has kept the 
 traces of these passing affections, which he vainly endeavored 
 half-way tx) veil by ingenious interpretations. - Even study, the 
 refuge of so many sore'iy tempted souls, had snares for him. The 
 knowledge of oneself, so highly recommended by antique wisdom, 
 is not without danger for great men ; it exposes them to share by 
 anticipation in the admiration of posterity. The friends of Dante 
 have regretted that he did not leave to them the entire care of 
 his fame ; we are pained when we sec him anxious for honors 
 scarcely worthy of him. It is impossible not to recognize in his 
 writings a learning sometimes inopportune, which solicits 
 applause by occasioning surprise, and locutions vohnitarily obscure 
 which humiliate the simplicity of the reader. These faults bear 
 their own penalty with them ; for by rendering their author less 
 accessible, they sometimes deprive him of the familiar and effec- 
 tionate homage proffered bj- the lips uf the masses of his fellow- 
 beings.'' 
 
 And yet these weaknesses, to make themselves forgotten, are 
 
 > Boccaccio, T^ta di Dante ; Convito. IV., 14. 
 
 - Canzoni, passim ; Convito, II. Dlonisl gravely maintains the hypothesia 
 which makes of the loves of Dante .so many allegories, and of Gentucca, 
 simply a figure of the party of the Bianchi. 
 
 3 fnferno, XXXIV.. 30: Purgntoiio. 11., 1. etc.. vtc.
 
 120 Daiitc, Olid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 possessed of u wouderfvil secret — repentance. In the thirteenth 
 century the art, now so connnon, of endeavoring to legitimate vice 
 by the advancement of easy-going doctrines, was but little known. 
 Men then came, sooner or later, to ask at the hands of religion, the 
 expiation and the grace of which she is the ever-enduring dispen- 
 satrix. And thus did our poet. In one of his most beautiful can- 
 tos he represents himself " with downcast eyes like to a child con- 
 fessing its faults," acknowledging in the face of all the ages the 
 errors of his youtli.' Later, he left as his last will and testament 
 the hymn to the Blessed Virgin, wherein he offers tears from liis 
 heart as the raus'jm for the evil days that he had lived. He 
 wished to be garbed on his bier in the habit of St. Francis.''' Any- 
 thing farther is the secret of God, who alone could judge that 
 character, one of the greatest that ever came forth from His crea- 
 tive hand to play its part here below. His contemporaries failed 
 . to comprehend him. Their wonder found expression in fabulous 
 tales, and Dante had his legend. A prophetic dream was spoken 
 of, sent to his mother on the eve of his birth ; tlie reality of his 
 journeys tlirough the realm of the dead was positively affirmed ; a 
 double miracle was said to have preserved his poem, twice lost; 
 several days after leaving the earth he was announced as having 
 
 ' Puri^atorio, x.xx., 36; xxxi., 12, 22, etc. See also i?)K?., 14. He con- 
 tesees himself inclined to pride, ihkl., xiii., 43; and to anger, xv. in fine. 
 
 " See the sonnet. "O Mother of Virtue!" See also Mcmorii)- per la 
 Vita di Dante.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 1 2 1 
 
 appeared, crowned with a luminous aureole.' If he was not per- 
 mitted to share in the incense offered to the saints, that due to 
 poets was never lacking to him 
 
 To the divers vicissitudes, political, poetic, and scientific, 
 through which Dante passed, correspond three sorts of works, re- 
 vealing liis indefatigable activity : 1st, the treatise Dv Monarchia, 
 a learned theory of tlie constitution of the Holy Empire, wliich, 
 binding the organization cif Christian l-]uropo to the traditions of 
 the ancient Roman Empire, looked for the ultimate origin of pow- 
 er and of society in the depths of the designs of Providence : 2d, 
 the Uiiin^, or lyric compositions, theT%t Nuova, an ingenuous con- 
 fession of the youthful life of the author, and the two Ijooks Dr 
 Vuhjari Eloquentia, a sketch of the philological labors by means 
 of which he was enabled to make of the vulgar idiom, until then 
 disdained, an instrument worthy of e.xpressing the noblest aspira- 
 tions : 3d. the Convito, or banquet, wherein he proposes to place 
 within the reaeii of the mass of men the bread, but too rare, of 
 knowledge, and scatters abroad with a liberal and beneficent hand 
 the philosopiiical ideas gathered l)y him in communion with the 
 sages of antiquity and the doctors of later times.^ These were all 
 
 » Boccaccio, Vita ; Benvenuto da Imola, Pnefatio ad Divin. Cnmoed. 
 
 5 We must add to these his Latin Eclogues, published by Dionis;. and 
 his thesis, de duobus Elementis, printed twice at Venice, in 1508 and 
 1708. These small works are nor iucluded in the edition issued by Zatta.
 
 122 Dante, (7 mi Catholic PJiilosophy 
 
 simply preludes or episodes. The entirety of his genius was to 
 be brought forth in a unique worl< : llie Dirine Comedy was con- 
 ceived. 
 
 v. The frame-Avorls of tlic T>irin<' Ciuncdy was to be drawn 
 from tlif usages of the period and the examples afforded by tlie 
 ancients, or ratlier. from the entire past of poetry. Poetry, in its 
 noblest flight, is an intuition of the infinite; it is the perception 
 of God in creation : tiie imchangeable destiny of man represented 
 amid the vicissitudes of iiistory 
 
 This is wliy it appears at its origin clothed with a sacerdotal 
 character, taking its part m prayer and in religions instruction ; 
 and this is, also, why. even in times of decadence, the em- 
 ployment of tlie marvellous remains one of the privileges, 
 even precepts, of the poetic art. Tluis, in pagan days, 
 the great Oriental compositions, such as the Mahabharata ; 
 I lie Greek cycles, such as those of Hercules, Theseus, Orpheus. 
 T^lysses, Psyche : the Latin epics of Virgil. Lucan. Statins, Silius 
 Itahcus; and finallj', works which may be called philosophical 
 poems, such as the Fepvhlic of Plato and that of Cicero, all had their 
 journeys to heaven, their descents into hell, their necromancies, 
 and their dead resuscitated, or reappearing to tell of the mysteries 
 of the future life. Cliristinnity naturally, and to a still greater 
 degree, favored the intcrvenlion ol" the supernatural in the litei-a- 
 ture formed luider its auspici-s. Fium tlie visions contained in the
 
 /// tJic Tliirtccntli Century. 1 23 
 
 Old and New Testaments descended the train of ideas whence 
 arose the first legends ; the martyrs were visited in their prisons by 
 prophetic visions ; the anchorites of the Thebaid and tlie monks 
 o{ Mt. Athos had narratives to proffer which found echoes in Irish 
 monasteries and the cells of Monte Cassino. The Provengal 
 Troubadours, the Trcnn-eres of France, the German Meistersingers, 
 and the later Scandinavian Skalds availed themselves of the data 
 furnished by the hagiographers, and added to them the charms of 
 rhythm and of song. Nothing was more famous in the thirteenth 
 century than were tho dreams of St. Perpetua and St. Cyprian, 
 the pilgrimage of St. Macarius the Ronum tn the terrestrial para- 
 dise, the trance of tho young Alberic. tlie piirgatorj-of St. Patrick, 
 and the miraculous voyages of St. Brendan. Thus, numerous ex- 
 amples and contemporary literary usages corresponded with the 
 Faith, wliich shows us tlie eternal regions as the country of tlie 
 soul, the natural dwelling-place of thought. Dante understood 
 this, and, overstepping the limitations of space and time to enter 
 into the triple kingdom of which the gates are opened by death, 
 he placed the scene of his poem, from its primal conception, in 
 the realm of the infinite.' 
 
 There he found himself on the meeting-ground of all genera- 
 
 » On the poetic antecedents of the Divivie Comedy there exists an in- 
 teresting but too brief dissertation by Foscolo, Edinburgh Review, vul. 
 
 X.".X
 
 124 Dantr, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 tions, in possession of a horizon wliieli will be that of the Last 
 Judgment, embracing witliin its hmits all the families of the hu- 
 man race. He was present at the final solution of the enigma of 
 revolutions. He judged the nations and the leaders of the na- 
 tions; he stood in the place of Ilim who will one day cease to be 
 patient, and he dispensed, according to liis own will, the awards 
 in the treasury of recompense and punishment. He took the op- 
 portunity of setting forth witli epic grandeur his political theories, 
 and of executing, witii that rod of satire which prophets have not 
 disdained to wield, his scheme of pitiless retribution.' And there, 
 as a traveller whose ariival is duly awaited, he was met by Bea- 
 trice, who had pi-eeeded him l)ut a short time; he beheld her such 
 as his fairest dreams had represented her; he had his share in 
 her triumpli. This celestial triumph had, perhaps, been the 
 primal and generating idea of the Divine Comedj', concei'-ed as 
 an elegy wherein should lie reflected the sorrows and the con- 
 solations of a pious love." In short, all things appeared to him 
 fi-om their pi-(j[)er point of view ; he overlooked creation, of which 
 no corner, however obscure, could escape his glance; he felt im- 
 pelled to show the prodigious variety of his learning and the pro- 
 
 1 Psalms, pas^m ; Isaias, xliv., 12 ; etc. 
 
 2 Dunte, Vita Niuwa^infiiie. " A wonderful vision appeared to tne, 
 in wlii(rl) I .saw things that made tne le.solve to .speak no more of t>!''- 
 blessed one (Beatrice) until I could more worthily treat of her,"
 
 In tJiL Thutccnth Century. 125 
 
 fundily oX his views; as a diclactic poet, lie could here sketeh 
 out the entire system of an adinirahlc i)liilosophy. 
 
 Now, philosophy, witli the se\erily of its learned forms, could 
 oecnjjy only a restricted space, and did not readily unite with the 
 other elements of the poem ; some means was needed by the aid 
 of whicli it might be transformed, and, by an intimate transfu- 
 sion, he felt in every part of tlie whole. This means was symbol- 
 ism, a philosophical method of procedure, since it rests upon the 
 incontrovertible law of the association of ideas, and it is, besides, 
 eminently poetical ; for, while prose places immediately under the 
 sign of the word the thought to be conveyed, poetry places there 
 imoxjcs, which are themselves signs of a still higher thought. 
 But the image destined thus to serve as a middle term between 
 the word and the thought, ought not to be carelessly chosen ; 
 still less ought it to be composed of fantastic features, capriciously 
 combined. The required image must be sought for in the order of 
 realities, that it may offer a faithful analogy with the idea which 
 it represents, that indeed, according to the original force of the 
 word {ffbti6nh)o) one may really find it a symbol — that is, a 
 throwing or bringing together. Combinations of this sort are 
 abundant in nature— the song of the birds is the sign of the day, 
 and the first blooming of a flowering plant that of the season ; the 
 shadow of a reed on the sand measures the height of the sun in 
 tlu; heavens. The poets of the olden times felt these universal
 
 126 Da?ife, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 harmonies ; everything appeared to tliem environed by all its re- 
 lalions ; for them every companson was a serious matter ; they 
 regarded as positive beliefs the mytlis to which they gave ingen- 
 ious interpretations. So, likewise, in the Holy Scriptures, each 
 event recorded has both a real existence and a figurative significa- 
 tion : each one of its most illustrious personages fulfils at the 
 same time a historic part and a prophetic function. The genius 
 of Dante, nourished on the traditions of the Bible, naturally 
 proceeded in the same manner. The persons whom he places 
 on the scene are real in his thought and significative in his inten- 
 tion ; they are incarnate ideas, living symbols.' The actions which 
 he imputes to them express the relations of the ideas under the 
 name of which they act. In short, the whole of the Divine Com- 
 edy is penetrated by an allegorical teaching which forms its inner 
 life. He himself declares this in the dedication of the Paradise to 
 Can Grande della Scalar "It must be understood that the sense 
 of this work is not single, but multiple. The first sense is that 
 
 ' Thus Kachel and Lia, Mary and Martha, represent for him contempla- 
 tion and action (Purgatorio, xxvli. 33 ; Convito iv. 17). Also Peter, James, 
 and John are figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity (Paradise, xxiv.— xxv.). 
 In the same way, even in his prose writings—as, for instance, in the Con- 
 vito— he Is fond of rendering his idea more striking by taking as types cer- 
 tain poetical personages. He borrows from Statins, Virgil, Ovid, and Lu- 
 can, four heroes, that he may the better represent in their persons the char- 
 acteri-stlcs of the four ages of life. (Convito, xxv.— xxviii.)
 
 /// the Thirteenth C 'cntury. 1 2 
 
 / 
 
 wliichis showu under the lellcr; the tiecond is Uiat wlik-li i.s !iid- 
 dcn under the lliings expressed liy the letter: the first is calii'd ht- 
 eral, the second aliegorical or mural. According to these consid- 
 erations, it is evident that thesuliject must lie twofold, that it .ua\ 
 lend itself alternately to the two senses indicated. The suliject 
 of tli.c work, liierally taken, is the state of souls after death; this 
 is tlie pivotal idea of the poem throughout its entire course. In 
 the allegorical sense, the poet treats of the hell of tliis world, 
 through which we are journeying as pilgrims, with the power 0/ 
 meriting and demeriting; and the subject is man, inasmuch as by 
 his merits and his demerits he is subjected to the divine justice, re- 
 munerative or retiibutive. The species of philosophy which the au- 
 tiior has embraced, is moral philosophy or ethics, for the end which 
 iie has proi)osed to himself is a practical one, and not mere idle 
 speculation ; and if in some passages he seems to speculate, it is 
 with a view to application, according to what the philosopher 
 (Aristotle) says in the second book of his Metaphysics : Practical 
 men sometimes indulge in speculation, but in a passing manner, 
 and with a view to subsequent application." ' 
 
 Giacopo di Dante, as heir to the paternal traditions, develops 
 still more cleariy the moral purpose of the poem in the preface of 
 the commentai-y undertaken by him, the correctness of which is 
 guaranteed by his filial piety: '"The whole work is divided into 
 
 ' Epist. dedicat. ad Can Gnuidc.
 
 1 28 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 three parts, of wliicli the first is named Hell; the second, Pnrga- 
 t,ory; the third and last, Paradise. 1 will begin explaining ma 
 general way, the allegorical character, by saying that the principal 
 design of the author is to sliow figuratively the three modes of 
 being of the human race. In the first part he considers vice, which 
 he calls Hell, to make us understand that vice is opposed to virtue 
 as to its contrary, as the place chosen for its punislimcnt is named 
 Inkro, by reason of its low position, its remoteness from tlie 
 heights of heaven. The second part has for its subject the tran- 
 sition from vice to virtue, wliich he names Purgatory, to show 
 the transformation of the soul which is purged of its faults in time, 
 for time is the medium in which every transformation must take 
 place. The third and last part is that wherein he treats of men 
 made perfect, and he calls it Paradise, to express the loftiness of 
 tl 'ir virtues and the greatness of their happiness, two conditions 
 ■without which we could not discern the sovereign good. Thus is 
 it that the author proceeds in the three parts of the poem, always 
 by means of tlie figures employed progressing toward the accom- 
 plishment of his design." The earliest commentators adopt and 
 reproduce this explanation. * 
 
 ' Giacopo di Dante comprises in his commentary only the ilrst part of the 
 Divine Comedy. Thi.s commentary, valuable through the biographical in- 
 formation it may contain, ought to he broufrht to light. We found the pre- 
 face to it, interesting in divers respt^rts, in a manuscript contained in the 
 ISihUi:th<quc du Rot. It bears the number T7ti5.
 
 /// tJw 'I'liirlccnth Century. 129 
 
 VI. Before proceeding fiirthor, we .sluill do well to glaMce back- 
 ward for a moment. Wc liave seen how the general transitional 
 movement which was accomplished in European society, from the 
 tiiirtccnlli to the fourteenth century, was to make itself felt in 
 ihc progress of the h\miau mind; how philosophy, having reached 
 tlic higliest point of its scholastic period, felt the need of popular- 
 
 Another beautiful manuscript, numbered 7002, contains the Divine Com- 
 eily, preceded by the prefaces of Benvenutoda Imola, and accompanied 
 by the commentary of Giacopo della Lana, the two earliest interpreters 
 who undertook a complete explanation of the poem. The following ex- 
 tracts relate to the subject cccupying our attention at the present moment. 
 
 Benvenuto da Imola: " The matter or subject of this book is the state of 
 the human soul, both as connected with the human body and as separated 
 from it. As the state of the whole is threefold, so does the author divide 
 his work into three parts. A soul may be In sin ; such a one, even while 
 it lives with the body, Is, morally speaking, dead, and hence is in the 
 moral Hell ; when separated from the body, if it died incurably obstinate, 
 it is in the actual Hell. Again, a soul may be receding from vice ; such a one, 
 while still in the body, is in the moral Purgatory, or in the act of penance 
 in which it purges away its sin ; if separated, it is in the actual Purgatory. 
 Yet again, a soul may dwell in the perfect habit ot virtue; even while 
 living in the body it is already, in a manner, in Paradise, for it exists 
 in as great felicity as is possible in this life of misery ; separated from the 
 body, it is in the heavenly Paradise, where there is true and perfect happi- 
 ness, where it enjoys the vision of God." " 
 
 Giacopo della Lana : "' And since our author, Dante, considers human life 
 to exist in three conditions— the life of the vicious, that of the penitent.
 
 130 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 izing itself, and of taking 011 an ciuluring form in tlie .songs of a 
 poet; how it fouurl llie required singvr among ihu [nipils of thai 
 old Italian school in which the scr\ ice of llie true was ne\er 
 separated from the service of tlic lieautifiil and the good; how. 
 finally, the vicissitudes of Dante"s life developed in him the three- 
 fold sense: moral. ;esthetic. and intellectual. This triple germ, 
 
 and that of the virtuous— he has divided his book into three parts, namely. 
 Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise." 
 
 One might perhaps object to these testimonies the example of Tasso, who 
 also wished to apply to the Actions of the Jousaleni Delivered an allegori- 
 cal sense, justly set aside by his admirers. But this afterthought of Tasso, 
 a caprice of his later days. can. by nn means, be compared to the tenacious 
 habits of mind influencing the poet of tlie thirteenth century, habits be- 
 trayed in the first writings of liis youth ( Vifn Nuova). .set forth witho-.n 
 circumlocutiou in those of his maturity (L'oiiviloK and several times referr- 
 ed to in the course of the Divine Comedy (Inferno, ix. ; Purgatorio. viii.' 
 as if indeed, by a fortunate solicitude, to meet any possible hesitation on 
 the part of future readers. 
 
 We will not concludf iliis note witliout iiM-tifyiiig an iiiniss'<iu wliicli 
 would be unjust. When we were presuming the poetic intentions of Dante 
 to have been almost entirely misimderstood by Fieneh critics, we were not 
 acquainted with the dissertation of tiie late M. Biich ou tlie state of souls 
 after death according to Dante and St.Thomas, nor with the interesting 
 chapter which M. Delecluze devoted to Dante considered as a philosophical 
 poet. (Fhirrner et sr>i Mrimtudes. vol. II.)
 
 In the Thiykeiitli Lcntioy. 131 
 
 which obtained its growtii under ilic induenee of a persistent 
 course of cuhurc. was destined to liear wondrous friut — tiie 
 Divine Comedy, and this fruii. laid op'jn liy analysis, was to 
 liberate from its briUiant and oduruus en\ ulopi' the seeds of pldloso- 
 phy therein enclosed. 
 
 Thus have we watched the advent of a j;real man. Like tu one 
 of the double- visaged divinities adored by the Romans, he has ap- 
 peared to us as if looking in two directions — toward the past, of 
 which he is the representative, and again toward the future, of 
 which he is the precursor. His is a generous nature, giving out 
 more than it has received. Pie is the epitome of an epoch and of a 
 country — to speak in the language of the scholastics, the period 
 and the land are the matter composing him — but he epitomizes 
 them in a powerful personality, and this is the form which con- 
 stitutes him. We have followed the formation of an inunor- 
 tal book; such works last as long as humanity itself, which they 
 never cease to interest, because they have given expression to an 
 entire phase of human history, and are connected with all that is 
 immutable in the thoughts and affections of the human race. 
 While pointing out some of.the sources of the Divine Comedy, we 
 have found them extending back into the farthest depths of his- 
 tory ; but we likewise find in the poem the expression of all the 
 subjects of interest— political, literary, and scientific- of contem- 
 poraneous society. Also, in the princi[)al work, and in the lesser
 
 13- Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 writings tluit form its eomplemeul, we have traced the presence of 
 a wide philosophical system, the detailed exposition of whicli 
 must now occupy us, and of which we may lay down bcforeliaiid 
 the general characteristics according to the correlated facts wliicli 
 have been the object of our preliminary researches. This pliilosophy 
 will be eclectic in its doctrines, as were all the most illustrious 
 teachings of the time ; poetical in its form and ethical in its direc- 
 tion, as was required by the habits of thought of the nationality 
 to which Dante belonged; it will be like the mind of its autlior, 
 bold in its flight and enc3-clopedic in the extent embraced by it. 
 For a philosophical system may be compared to a placid spring of 
 living water: the genius of him who professes it is like the basin 
 containing it and giving to it its configuration, while the circum- 
 stances of time and place resemble the atmosphere which environs 
 it. intluencing its temperature, and supplying the currents of air by 
 which lis surface is ruffled.
 
 Exposition of Dante's Philosophical Doctrines. 
 
 C II APT E R I. 
 
 Prolegomena. 
 On the threshold of every philosophical system, one inevitable 
 question must be met, and that is, the definition of philosophy 
 itself. To define philosophy, is to determine the place it occu- 
 pies iu the order of our knowledge, the relations it bears to such 
 departments of that knowledge as seem to be most nearly allied 
 tu it, the parts of which it is composed, and the method which it 
 
 pursues. 
 
 I. 
 
 Dante believed in the maxim common among sages of all peri- 
 ods, and especially dear to poets — that there exists a preestablish- 
 ed harmony between the works of God and the conceptions of 
 men, and that man is an abridgment of the universe. He did not 
 wholly reject confidence in the speculations of astrology which 
 songlii to develop this idea by establishing sundry correspondences 
 between the phases of the revolutions of celestial bodies and those 
 of our terrestrial life. As, in the Ptolemaic system, nine heavens, 
 
 superposed one above the otiier, environed the earth, throwing 
 
 133
 
 1 34 Dante y and Catholic PJiHosophy 
 
 liglit upon all material things, exerting divers influences on the 
 generation of beings, on temperaments, characters, the passions, 
 and other phenomena of the moral world : so, according to the ency- 
 clopedic system of Dante, did nine sciences enclose the human 
 niitid, illuminating intelligible things, and diffusing fecundit.y and 
 variety throughout the world of thought. To the seven heavens 
 of the seven planets correspond, by analogies too elaborate to Vic 
 here treated of, the seven arts of the trivium and quadriviuru. 
 The eighth sphere, with its brilliant stars and its milky way, its two 
 poles visible and invisible, its two motions, brings to mind physics 
 and metaphysics, blending with one another, notwithstanding 
 tlicir uneciual lights and their differing tendencies. The crystal- 
 line lioavcn, ov jtrimwn mobile, wliich carries along with it all the 
 rest, is like to ethics, whence starts the impulse which moves all 
 the other intellectual spheres. And as beyond these material orbs 
 extends the empyrean heaven, pure light, immutable in its repose, 
 so, above all profane sciences, is found theology, whei'c truth re- 
 poses in radiant and peaceful obviousness. Physics, metaphysics, 
 and ethics, arc, then, the last rounds of the scientific ladder to 
 which ^ir natural povv-ers can attain: we luiitc the three under 
 the name of philosophy. ' Philosophy, in the entire sense of 
 its etymology, is still more: it is a sacred affection, a holy love, 
 of which the object i.s wisdom. And as wisdom and love no- 
 
 ' Convito, ii. 14.
 
 /// the iliirtccntJi Century. 135 
 
 wlieie exist more pcrftctly united tliaii in God Himself, it is jicr- 
 
 initted to say that iihilosoiiliy is of tiic divine essence, thai it is 
 
 the eternal thoiifjht, the e'.ernal eoniplaeoncy reflected back npon 
 
 itself, the dauuhter, the sister, the spouse of the sovereign ruler 
 
 (if the universe. ' 
 
 11. 
 Tliis idea of philosophy will take shape, and. brought face to 
 
 face with theology, it will lielter show us what are the points of 
 contact, and what the points of distinction. "In the midway o\ 
 this our mortal life,'" m a dark and lonely forest, wherein througli the 
 intoxication of the senses he had goneastra}-. at the foot of a hill 
 from whose ascent he is barred by tlio appearance of three mons- 
 ters, the poet becomes alarmed : the Queen of heaven has seen hi.s 
 plight, and has taken pity on iiim: she speaks to St. Lucy, who 
 calls upon Beatrice ; Beatrice descends from heaven, and Virgil, at 
 her invitation, quits the lower regions; tlie two will save the 
 wandering poet, by each in turn conducting him on his way through 
 
 » Convito, ii. 16; lii. 12,14, 15.— Cf. Hugh of St. Victor; Eniditionisdi- 
 (Jascalicac, lib. I. 3;n. 1. (Throughout Part II. of this work, the reader 
 is asked to hear in mind that the object of the author is to present as 
 exact an analysis of Dante's philosophy as he can gather from the 
 various writings of the Florentine poet. The translator has deemed this 
 ri'inindiT useful, from the fact that occasionally the author might be 
 thought to be speaking from himself, whereas he endeavors to be merely 
 the mouthpiece of Dante. Tr.)
 
 1 36 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 the regions of eternity. ' The main features of this narration 
 are historical : the wanderings of Dante from tlie riglit patLi, his 
 special devotion towards the Virgin Mother, and the blessed Lucy 
 (formerly so dear to Italian piety) ; the place which lie had award- 
 ed to Beatrice in his affections, and to Virgil in his studies. But 
 these real persons are also figures : the poet himself is a complete 
 image of humanity, with its sublime instincts and its inexpressible 
 weaknesses ; the Blessed Virgin Mary, so tenderly merciful, rep- 
 resents the divine clemency. This example of contemporary hag- 
 iographers, accustomed to look for mysterious virtues in the very 
 names of the saints, authorized the use of the name of Lucy to 
 express illuminating grace. - Bui especially Beatrice, who had 
 happily acquired so great an ascendency over the soul of Dante, 
 who had separated him from the crowd of ordinary minds, who 
 later, by dying, had lifted him in tiiought to the dwelling-place of 
 the elect, who had appeared to him as a ray of the divine beauty 
 —Beatrice was no longer to be for him a simple daughter of men, 
 but an inspiring intelligence, a tenth muse, the muse wlio in tiiat 
 age overtopped all the rest. Theology. » Last comes Virgil, at 
 
 ■ Inferno, i. and ii.; Convlto, iv. 24. " The wildertng wild-wood of this 
 life." 
 
 ' Tliis is the interpretation of all the commentators. 
 
 ' Passages in which Beatrice is taken as the symbol of Theology. Infer- 
 no, il. 2C, 35; Piirgatorlo, vi., 16; xviii., 16. L.
 
 In the Thirtc€7ith Century. 1 37 
 
 that period considered under an aspect not at all familiar to us, as 
 one of the precursors of religious truth in the midst of the pagan 
 world (by reason of his fourth eclogue), and likewise, owing to 
 the exaggerations of his commentators, as the depositary of all the 
 learning of antiquity. ' 
 
 Virgil, in the eyes of Dante, was master of all human science, 
 that is to say, of philosophy. - Thus in the relations of the twi> 
 
 O Lady of virtue, thou alone through whom 
 
 The human race exceedelh all contained 
 
 Within the heaven that has the lesser circles I 
 
 Beatrice, the true praise of God. 
 
 In so deep a questioning 
 
 Do not decide, unless she tell it thee, 
 
 Who light 'twixt truth and intellect shall be. 
 
 What reason seeth here. 
 
 Myself can tell thee; beyond that await 
 
 For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of faith. 
 See also Purgatorio, xviii. So; xxx. 11; xxxl. 12, 37, 41; xxxil. 32; 
 xxxiii. 39; Paradise, i. 19, 24; iv. 22,39; xviii. 6; xxviii. 1; xxxi.28. 
 
 • See the fragment of a commentary by Bernard de Chartres on the first 
 six books of the ^neid, at the end of the works of Abelard, issued by 
 M. Cousin. 
 
 2 Virgil represents Philosophy: Inferno, i.; iv.; vii.; xl.; Purgatorio, 
 vi.; xviii. L. 
 
 Famous Sage. 
 
 O thou who honorest every art and science.
 
 I T,8 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 poetical personages, we must recognize those of the two orders of 
 ideas personified in them. 
 
 Now, the divisions of knowledge are like those found in nature ; 
 they constitute a chain of which each link closes only after an- 
 other one has been clasped within it. There is a natural theol- 
 ogy which belongs in the domain of philosophical studies ; there 
 are philosophical studies, the aid of which is borrowed by theol- 
 ogy. Or rather, philosophy has two parts : the first is the preface 
 to, and the second is the commentary on, theology; the first is 
 the anticipation, the second the development, of faitli by i-eason. 
 In the history of the individual man, as in the history of liumau- 
 ity, faith is the primitive fact. It descends by the word into the 
 darkness of our ignorance, it there awakens reason and causes it 
 to pass from potentiality to act; faith, then, by an insensible and 
 continuous influence sustains reason in its unsteady onward way. 
 until, at length, when reason has reached the end of its natural 
 course, faith, making itself visible, receives from it, with its rev- 
 erential homage, its acquired ideas and its customary forms of 
 
 . . .That benignant Sage, wlio all tbings knew. 
 
 Sun, that liealest all distempered vision. 
 
 O light of mine 
 
 The lofty Teaclier 
 
 What reason seeth here, 
 
 Myself can tell thee ; 
 
 Explanation of the prophetic sense of the si.\th eclogue. Purgatorio, 
 
 xxli., 34,
 
 In the Thirteejitlt Ccjitury. 1 39 
 
 procedure. Thus, by an admirable coueurrcnee. ihc education nf 
 ilie intelligence is accomplished. It is according- to this broad 
 conception of pliilosophy that we may explain, in a satisfactory 
 way, the parts played by Virgil and Beatrice. We see why Bea- 
 trice, clothed with the authority of faith, descends into the infer- 
 nal night to bring forth from it Virgil, who represents reason. 
 We understand the functions of the pagan sage when he pene- 
 trates into the depths of hell or climbs the heights of purgatory, 
 when he stops at the entrance to the celestial regions, -when the 
 secrets of the material world or of the moral life seem familiar to 
 him. or when he recognizes and proposes problems of a higher 
 order, and, although ordinarily declining their solution, sometimes 
 cannot lielp allowing the solution to be divined. We know wiiy 
 the Christian damoscl afford.^ a secret and constant assistaiue. 
 until she, at length, appears in all her glorv on the contines be- 
 tween heaven and earth : and why, while ever rising in the re- 
 gions of space, and drawing nearer and nearer to ihe Divinity, she 
 does not disdain to suspend her contemplations and to solve the 
 questions propounded by him who had preceded her. Finally, 
 we clearly conceive the marvellous association of Virgil and Bea- 
 trice to conduct the poet, that is to say, man, to peace, freedom, 
 to that spiritual health which is the germ of eternal life.' 
 
 > Inferno, il., 17; Purgatorio, i., 18; vil., 8; xxi., 11; xxUi., 43; 
 zxvii., 46 ; xxx., IT. Paradise, ii.. 21 ; xxxi,, 29,
 
 140 . Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 III. 
 
 While we thus recognize the external relations of philosophj', its 
 internal constitution may be determined. We have already seen 
 that it comprises physics, metaphysics, and ethics; in fact, the 
 teachings of the two allegorical personages embrace man, nature, 
 iuid the beings that are beyond both of these. In this enumera- 
 tion, logic is apparently left on one side. It would almost seem 
 as if the bold poet disdained it (plainly not in its proper use, but 
 in certain everweening pretensions made for it. Tr.) ; he rises up 
 against sundry of tlie questions with which the School loved to 
 play : " What is the number of the motors of the heavens? if 
 tlic 7iecessary and the contingent are given in the major and the 
 minor, can the necessary be found in the conclusion? if we must 
 admit the existence of a primuiii mobile'^ if in a semicircle any 
 triangle other than a right-angled triangle can be inscribed ? " ' 
 lie estimates freely the value of the formulas of reasoning in whicli 
 the majority of his contemporaries placed unlimited confidence ; he 
 distinguishes the concatenation of truths from that of the terms 
 which are their signs; and, if the true is found in the conclusion of 
 the syllogism, he says it is there found because it was already pres- 
 ent under the words of the premises. He leaves the art of reas- 
 oning, comprised under the name of dialectics, in the second de- 
 gree of tlie trivium ; and, following the system of analogies pre- 
 
 ' Paradise, xUi., 33.
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. 141 
 
 vioiisly indicated, he compares it to the second planet, Mercury: 
 as Mercury is the smallest of the stars, and the one most com- 
 pletely veiled by tlie brightness of the sun, so dialectics is of all 
 the sciences, tliat whicli is reduced to the narrowest proportions, 
 and can the most easily be hidden under the specious veil of .soph- 
 istry.' Finally, he endows tlie evil spirits with a knowledge of 
 this science, and makes a demon boast of being a logician.^ How- 
 ever, the wise precepts which must temper the labors of thought, 
 are not neglected by him; lie connects them with the study of 
 the intellectual phenomena whence they are derived, thus with 
 the whole of psychology, under the denomination of ethics or 
 moral philosophy. In fact, the practical point of view is that to 
 which all his tendencies lead him. Moral philosophy is, in his 
 eyes, the lawgiver of the human mind, the regulatrix of its econ- 
 omy ; she prepares the place, and arranges for the admittance of 
 the other sciences, which could not exist Avithout her; in the 
 same way that legal justice, the ruler of cities, protects in them 
 the cultivation of the useful arts.-' And, as it is in ethics tiiat 
 the excellence of philosophy is shown, it is, also, from ethics that 
 the beauty of philosophy results; for beauty is liarmony, and the 
 
 I Convlto. ii., 14.— Cf. St. Bernard, Strm. ll.,t/i Pentecost. 
 " Inferno, xx\ii., 41. L. 
 
 " Perad venture 
 
 Thou djdst not think that I was a logieian ! " 
 * ConTito, ii., 15.
 
 142 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 most complete harmony found here below is that of the virtues. 
 From the pleasure experienced in knowing them, results the de- 
 sire of practicing thorn ; and this desire restrains the passions, 
 breaks up vicious habits, and gives rise to interior happiness, 
 which always accompanies the legitimate exercise of the activity 
 of the soul.' Hence the humble and courageous dispositions of 
 tlie real sage ; hence the docility and simplicity that he will ask 
 from his disciple, tlie abhorrence of every stain, and the struggle 
 with self-indulgence of which he will expose the secret corrup- 
 tion."^ Hence, moral truths are considered as the noblest inherit- 
 ance bequeathed to the world by those who, through the exercise 
 of '-easoning have descended to the depths of things.^ Hence 
 also the maxim that certain ideas are not to be reached by genius 
 until it has passed through the flames of love.* 
 
 IV. 
 Such ideas regarding the starting point and the end of philoso- 
 pliy must liavc had their influence on the choice of a method. If, 
 in the legislation of tlio intelligence, the initiative belongs to God : 
 if ilo acts through grace, and His first work in us is faith; it is 
 not in an artificial, systematic doubt that reason will find the con- 
 dition of its progress. All truths have been implicitly given to it 
 
 ' Convito, ill., 15. 
 
 - Inferno, ii., 1.5. Purgatorio, i., 32; il.. 10; xix., 10. 
 
 ' Purf?atorio, xvill., 23. 
 
 * Paradise, vii., 20.—Cf. St. Bernard, Scrnui df Dro lUligcndo.
 
 In tlic Thirteenth Century. 143 
 
 by the way of superior instruction ; it has only to disengage them 
 from confusion, error, and uncertainty ; it has not to seek, it has 
 to verify and to state ; it does not propose to itself problems to be 
 solved, but theorems to be demonstrated ; its conclusions are rem- 
 iniscences: it proceeds by synthesis. On the other hand, if the 
 ui'iiius of the poet disregards the attractions of a merely technical 
 logic, if ho passes without effort from the study of the superna- 
 tural world to that of nature, and from the study of nature to that 
 of humanity, it is because these divers orders of ideas appear to 
 him correlative. Man. in particular, is truly for him a microcosm, 
 a siminiarj- of the creation, and an image of the Creator; each 
 moment of his life is the result of his past days and the fore- 
 shadowing of his future existence. Thenceforth, all science 
 seems only a series of bold equations and rapid deductions ; all is 
 explaiuf'd by way of juxtaposition, of eompurisou ; beings are eou- 
 sidcrod in their living and concrete reality, and abstraction shows 
 itself only at long intervals. Now, since practical utility is the 
 (■ml of all liis investigations ; since there is haste, impatience, to 
 cMiicr nito action ; since study itself is presented as a moral olili- 
 gation, and science as a duty, we cainiot he surprised if all the 
 knowledge attained come 10 be classed under the notion of good 
 and evil. There will be a liody of doctrines which will comprise, 
 first, evil alone : then evil struggling with, or in relation to. good ; 
 and finally, good itself, in man. in society, in the life to conje. in
 
 144 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 the exterior beings to whose influences human nature is subjected. 
 The invisible world will be taken for the main field of these ex- 
 plorations, since there only do the problems of the visible world 
 find their ultimate solution ; there are contemplated face to face 
 the substances and llie causes admitted here below on tlie faith 
 of tlieir phenomena and their effects. Thus the learned concep- 
 tions of the reason will enter spontaneously into the poetic frame 
 afforded by religious tradition : Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.' 
 
 Such a method might seem at first sight to present the appear- 
 ance of a paralogism: for, if it makes of intellectual labor a pre- 
 cept, whence can result the proof of such a precept, if not from 
 the labor itself? It rises, and again descends through the series 
 of beings; it concludes from time to eternity, as from the depths 
 of eternity it perceives the things of time. It accepts a |)/'io?7 the 
 dogma of tlie future life, it makes it the pivotal point of this en- 
 tire study whence it would seem as if it ought to be deduced a 
 posteriori. There is then a circle at tlie foundation of Dante's 
 thought; but it is not a vicious circle; tliere is a similar circle at 
 the base of every origin : at that of certitude in logic, at tliat of 
 moral duty, of powers and rights in matters i)olitical, of the word 
 in literature ; because, at every origin we encounter Him who is 
 the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, the circle of which 
 the centre is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere. 
 
 ' Gravlna, RagUm poetica, lib. ii. I, 13.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Evil, 
 
 T the moment of entrance into the realm of evil, the soul 
 is filled with dread ; it hesitates in the presence of its 
 own weakness. It comprehends all that there is of 
 sorrowftil or of terrible in thus being initiated into the mysteries 
 of human depravity, and that this experience is at once a privilege 
 and a trial, reserved to those marked out for the fulfilment of 
 some lofty and uncommon destiny.' It would even stop in the 
 way, were it not for two reflections which lend it aid, the first 
 causing it to realize the impossibility of issuing from its own 
 aberrations except by this means, and the second, to remember the 
 divine assistance assured to the execution of a divinely inspired 
 undertaking.'^ It is for those who, already dead to truth and jus- 
 tice, enter upon the knowledge of evil, and descend into its 
 abysses, impelled by a culpable avidity ; it is for such alone that 
 
 ' Inferno, li. 4. 
 
 'Inferno, 1. 38; Purgatorlo, i. 21; xxx. 46.— Cf. Virgil; .Excid, 
 vi. 130.
 
 146 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 the writing stands inscribed in sombre characters upon the gate : 
 " All hope abandon, ye who enter here." ' 
 
 Evil is not simply the absence of good, it is the deprivation of 
 good, (iood is perfection. Alsolute perfection is heiny^ carried 
 to its highest power — that Is, God. God calls His creatures to 
 draw near to Him according to the divers proportions of power, 
 according oven to tlie diversity of the powers, with which- He has 
 endowed them: this is the measure of their relative perfection. 
 Their resistance to this divine call, their turnmg away from their 
 proper tendency, is that which constitutes their perversity. This 
 fact, easily recognizable in tlie individual man, is exhibited on a 
 larger scale in the history of nations or societies, increases in its 
 proportions when it is reproduced outside of the conditions of 
 terrestrial life, and reaches its acme in beings more than 
 hiiman. 
 
 Evil in Individual Man in this World. 
 
 1. As truth is tlie supreme good of the intellect,- ignorance and 
 error constitute intellectual evil. Ignorance and error vary ac- 
 cording to their causes ; of such causes, some are within man, and 
 others are external to him. The first class is divided into four 
 categories. There are first, bodily defects of which we must dis- 
 
 Inferno, 111. 3. « Inferno, 111. 6.
 
 /// ///(■ ThirtccntJi Century. 147 
 
 tiiiguish two kinds : disorders of the organism derived from the 
 mysterious sources of generation, and deteriorations of tiie brain 
 occasioned by accidental causes. From these proceed dumbness 
 and deafness, plireusy and alienation of mind.* Then come the 
 native and universal inlirniities of the soul: weakness of the 
 senses, feebleness of tlie reason. If tlie testimony of the eye or 
 uf the car, on sensible (lualities which i)ertain to their sphere, 
 rarely deceives, tlie multiple seusations which are awakened by a 
 single object, and which miist be embraced together, arc not al- 
 ways rightly combined.'^ Besides, the sphere of the senses is 
 restricted, and if reason shuts lierself up within the limits of 
 that splicre. she makes to herself very short wings. Even 
 when she is able to take her whole llight, she reaches bound- 
 aries which she is forbidden to overpass : at the end of her 
 laborious route, she sees opening before her the infinite way of the 
 mysteries, which rise higher and higher, until they reach the very 
 topmost heights of heaven.^ There are other species of infirmity, 
 
 > Convito, i. 1 ; iv. 15. 
 
 ^ Convito, Iv. 8; Purftatorio, .xxix. 16. The common object which the 
 sense deceives. Cf. Aristot. Be Anima, ii. 6. 
 3 Paradise, ii. 19. L. Purgatorio, xxxiii. 30. L. 
 
 * * * * For as much as following the senses. 
 Thou seest that the reason has short wings: 
 
 * * * * Behold your path from the divine
 
 148 Dank, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 less general, but more serious, because they are voluntary ; vain- 
 glory, pusillanimity, and levity. Vain-glory makes many rely up- 
 on their own strength until they go so far as to take their individ- 
 ual conceptions for the measure of all tilings ; they disdain to 
 learn, to listen, to ask questions ; they dream without sleeping, 
 and go along philosophizing by rash ways which each one makes 
 according to his own will, isolating himself that lie may be the 
 more conspicuous.' Pusillanimity causes many to fancy science 
 to be above the reach of man ; incapable of seeking it for them- 
 selves, careless of the researches of others, obstinate in their inertia, 
 like certain timid animals, they remain in the blindness of a gross 
 way of Hfe because tliey have despaired of truth.- Levity car- 
 ries away the too lively minds who always go beyond the bounds 
 of logic, who conclude before the}' have reasoned, fly from one 
 conclusion to another, deny or affirm without distinguishing, and 
 
 Distant as far as separated is 
 Fiom earth the heaven that highest hastens on. 
 I Convlto, iv. 15.-Cf. Hugh of St Victor, £n((h7io)i is f?/rf«sca!icae, 
 lib. v. 9. Paradiso, xxix. 27. L. 
 
 So that below, not sleeping, people dream * * * 
 Below you do not .iourney by one path 
 Philosophizing ; so trausporteth you 
 Love of appearaace and the thought thereof. 
 
 Cf. St. Thomas, Contra Oent., 1. 5. 
 
 - Convito, Iv. 15. Inferno, il. 15.
 
 In the Thirteenth Ceyitury. 149 
 
 fancy lliay are subule because ihey urosuperflciaL' Finally, if 
 we choose to peuetrute lu the innermost recesses of human cor- 
 ruption, we meet with the vices of the heart, the foes of all good 
 thoughts; we perceive shameful pleasures fascinate the soul to tlie 
 point of making it hold for naught everything except themselves : 
 the intelligence is seen a captive held in chains by the sensibilities 
 in revolt.^ 
 
 The second class, comprising such impediments as are external 
 to man, may also be divided into two distinct categories. First to 
 be noted are the necessities of domestic and civil life, the ditfi- 
 culties of times and places, the absence of means for study, of ad- 
 vice and good examples, the influence of common opinions.^ 
 But beyond these circumstances, material so to speak, and easily 
 recognized, which prevent our attaining to truth, other foes are 
 hidden, perfidious and unreachable ; spirits jealous of a science 
 which tiiey have lost, desirous of making others share in the dark- 
 ness which has become their appanage. The action of such ex- 
 
 ' Convito, iv. 15. Paradise, xiii. 30. L. 
 
 For very low among the fools is he 
 
 Who afHrms without distinction, or denies. 
 'Convito, i. 1. — Cf. St. Bonaventura, Compendium t/ieoIO(7(ae. Ili. 5. 
 St. Thomas, prima secuudiB, q. 85, art. 3. 
 3 Convito, i. 1; iv. 8. Paradise, xiii. 40. L. 
 
 * * * * It happens that full often bends 
 
 Current opinion in a false direction.
 
 1 50 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ternul and lualevoleul powers alone explains those involuntary, 
 nnavoidable facts, which exercise so baleful an influence, and which 
 we call leiupialions. Temptation, in the logical order, takes on two 
 forms. It calls up in the waj- of our researches phantoms which 
 seem to block our progress, fears, unreasonable melanchoh', a pain- 
 ful discouragement, which, driving us back from our onward course, 
 would make us re-enter into the shameful night of ignorance. Or, 
 if it cannot destroy in us the desire of knowing, it seeks to lead it 
 astray by lying appearances, it lures us in a direction the term of 
 wliich is error.* 
 
 Now the end of these divers maladies of the understanding is 
 death, for life is that mode of being proper to living creatures ; 
 vegetative in plants, sensitive in animals, in man essentially ra- 
 tional. And as things borrow their names from that which is es- 
 sential to their being, to live, for man, is to reason ; and to de- 
 part from the legitimate use of his reason is to die. If any one 
 
 ' Inferno, viii. 28 ; xxiii. 47. In canto ix. (terz. 18). tbe Furies threat- 
 en Dante with the appearance of Medusa ; and he himself alludes to the 
 alleRorical interpretation which he attaches to this myth (terz. 21). Gia- 
 copo di Dante, in his unpublished commentary, completes his father's 
 thought by explaining the three Gorgons to signify three sorts of fear, of 
 which the last and most terrible, repre.sented by Medusa, petrlfles in some 
 way the faculties of the soul, and sometimes strikes them with an eternal 
 lmmot)iIity. This passage offers an undeniable reminiscence of the Odys- 
 sey, lib. xi. line 633.
 
 In the Thirtcentli Century. 1 5 1 
 
 should say : How can we call him dead whom we 3'et see acting? 
 the reply must be, that lie is dead, as a man, but the animal still 
 remains alive.' 
 
 2. The perfection of the will consists in virtue. Moral evil 
 then is vice: vice is any disposition of our will contrary to the 
 divine will. 
 
 Theraare three dispositions which Heaven does not allow : in- 
 continence, malice, and bestiality.2 Under the name of incon- 
 tinence are included lust and gluttony, which subject the reason 
 tolhe appetites of tjie. flesh : avarice; and prodigahty, both the re- 
 sult of ah unregulated use of teraporiil goods ; anger and that cul- 
 pable melancholy which enervates the soul and keeps it in a state 
 of slothful inaction. Malice is more odious ; the end which it 
 proposes to itself is injustice, tlie means it eraplo3-s are violence 
 and fraud. We may exercise violence towards three sorts of per- 
 sons, God, ourselves, and our neighbor ; and in two ways, accord- 
 
 » Convito, iv. 7.— 2bid. li. 8. 
 ' Inferno, xi. 27. L. 
 
 Hast thou no recollection of those words 
 
 With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses 
 The dispositions three that Heaven abides not,- 
 Incontinence, and Malice, and insane 
 Bestiality? * ♦ * * 
 Of. Arlstot. Ethics. Buok vii. Chap. i.
 
 152 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 iiig as we attack them in their existence or in the things wJiicli 
 belong to them.' The violence which attacks one's neighbor may 
 hence be murder or robbery ; that which one turns against oneself 
 has its outcome in suicide or in dissipation ; and that which is 
 aimed at the Divinity is exhibited either by blasphemy, which is 
 a moral deicide, by lubricious actions outraging nature, or by 
 usury, which implies contempt for industry, the child of nature, 
 as nature is the child of God.' 
 
 Fraud, which is still more criminal, can be employed against 
 those with whom one is united only by the general bond of hu- 
 manity, or against those whose confidence is due to the closer 
 bonds of relationship, nationality, benefaction, or legal subor- 
 
 ' Inferno, xl. 8. L. 
 
 Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven, 
 Injury is the end ; and all such end 
 Either by force or fraud afflicteth othere. ♦ ♦ ♦ 
 To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbor can we 
 Use force ; I say on them and on their things. 
 Cf. Cicero, de Offlciig, i. 12.— St. Bonaventura, Compendium, lii. 6. 
 - Inferno, xi. 33. L. 
 
 Pbilojophy, he said, to him who heeds it, 
 Noteth, not only in one place alone. 
 After what manner nature takes her course 
 From intellect Divine, and from its art ; etc. 
 Cf. Aristot. Physics, 1.
 
 In the ThirtcoitJi Century. 153 
 
 dinalion : in the latter condition, fraud, having reached its most 
 odious degree, is called treachery or treason. We have seen 
 man, by abdicating Ids reason, descend to the level of tlie 
 brutes. Now is not a renunciation of empire over oneself, 
 and the consequent succumbing to the slavery of the pas- 
 sions, equivalent to such an abdication ? As tlion. beyond tlio 
 ordinary limitations of human nature, there is a lofty ijoint where 
 virtue becomes heroism, so is there also a point of degradation 
 at which vice becomes brutishness. Such is the meaning of the 
 fable of Circe, so celebrated in antique poetry. But the enchant- 
 ress, although no longer visible, has not ceased to exist, or at 
 least, her magical transformations have not ceased to be accom- 
 plished under other aspects. Beneath exteriors wliich would seem 
 to hold a thinking soul, are developed the low and groveling in- 
 stincts of brute nature ; we need not penetrate very far into the 
 manners and customs of the various peoples to recognize tliese 
 hideous types — the filthy habits of the hog, the snappish liumor 
 of the dog, the cunning of the fox.* If we go back from the ef- 
 
 • Purgatorlo, xlv. 14. L. 
 
 On which account have so transformed their nature 
 The dwellers in that miserable valley. 
 It seems that Circe had them in her pasture. 
 Cf. Cicero, de Offlciis, i. 12.— Especially Boethius. dc Cunsolatione, lib. 
 Iv. pros. 3.— Richard of St. Victor, de Ei-uditioiie iiiterioris hominis, lib. 
 lil. cap. ii.
 
 154 Dante, and Catholic PJiilosophy. 
 
 fects of vice to its causes, we meet with iinotlier and perliaps 
 more scientific division. Love, the necessary principle of all ac- 
 tivity, can err as to its object by straying toward evil ; it can also 
 err in tiie excess or in ilie insufficiency of its energ}', even while 
 continuing to be directed towards good. Now, u.s love cannot 
 cea.^e to tend toward the welfare of the being in which it dwells, 
 no one can hate himself; and as we can conceive of no being en- 
 tirely detached from the eternal essence wlience everything ema- 
 nates, a feeling of haired toward God is also liappily an impossi- 
 bility. There remains then no other evil to be loved except evil 
 to our neighbor, and this corrupt love may be fasliioned in the 
 clay of the heart in three different ways. At one time it is tlie 
 liope of his own elevation wliich makes a man desire tlie abase- 
 ment of a neighbor ; again, it is the fear of losing power, honor, 
 or renown, whicli makes him grieve over the success of another ; 
 or still again, it is a wound left in liis soul by some unmerited 
 offence. Pride, envy, anger ; tliese are the three modes of the 
 love of evil. Love feels confusedly the existence of some real 
 good, in which it would tind I'est ; it seeks to attain it; if the ef- 
 fort be insufficient, sloth is the proper name of the resultant dis- 
 position. Finally, there -aw other apparent goods which do not 
 yield true happiness : riches, sensual delights, ])leasures lliat ))ring 
 ablush to the countenaiici': ihc love whicii gives itself up. with- 
 out reserve, to tliese enjn^ incnts, becomes ciiminul, and we know
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 155 
 
 it us avarice, gluttony, ami lust. Now, as these seven capital sins 
 descend from one and the same origin, so in like manner are the 
 crowd of lesser vices related to them by a direful genealogy. 1 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xvii. 32; Gary's Tr. 
 
 " Creator, nor created being, e'er. 
 
 My son," lie thus began, " was without love. 
 
 Or natural, or the free spirit's growth. 
 
 Thou hast not that to learn. The natural still 
 
 Is without error : but the other swerves. 
 
 If on ill object bent, or through excess 
 
 Of vigor, or defect." * * * * 
 
 " The evil must be another's, which is loved." 
 
 " Three ways such love is gendered in your clay." 
 
 "All indistinctly apprehend a bliss 
 
 On which tlie soul may rest ; " * * ♦ 
 
 If ye behold 
 
 Or seek it witli a love remiss and lax, 
 
 This cornice, after just repenting, lays 
 
 Its penal torment on ye. Other good 
 
 There is, where man llnds not his happiness : " 
 
 " The love too lavishly bestowed on this. 
 
 Along three circles over us, is mourned." 
 This classiQcation of the capital sins, different from the one generally 
 received, and also from that of St. Thomas, prima secunda?, q. 84, a. 7, is 
 found In St. Bonaventura, Compendium, iii. 14.— Hugh of St. Victor, 
 AnegoricB in Matthceum, .3, 4, 5.— St. Gregory, Momlium, xxxi. 31 ; and 
 with some slight differences, Cassiuu, di Tnstitut. la-noh., lib. v. cap. i.
 
 1 56 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 But, although nothing is more free than love, its first move- 
 ment does not depend upon itself. This movement, when it Is 
 evil, is called concupiscence, and of this we may distinguish three 
 kinds: the concupiscence of the senses, which is luxury; the 
 concupiscence of tlie mind, which is ambition ; and the last 
 species, cupidity, which has something of the other two, in so 
 much as it has for its object the means of satisfying them. 
 These are the three menacing monsters which a man meets as he 
 goes deep into the forest of life. Voluptuousness, under the 
 semblance of a flexile and wanton panther, never ceasing to 
 fascinate the gaze that she has once captivated ; ambition, com- 
 jmrable to the proud lion ; and cupidity, lilvc a wolf, whose leanness 
 betrays its insatiable desires ; thiy last counts the largest number of 
 victims. But these formidable beasts did not originate in the 
 world vi^hich we find them ravaging ; they are the children of 
 hell, and envy opened for them the nether gates ; ' or rather, to 
 speak more exactly, concupiscence is anothor of those facts, im- 
 
 ' Inferno, i., 11, 15, 17, 32, 37. L. 
 
 And a she-wolf, that with all hungerlngs 
 Seemed to be laden in her meagreness, 
 And many folk has caused to live forlorn. 
 * * * * Back to Hell. 
 
 There from whence envy first did let her loose. 
 
 See also r'urgatorlo, xz., 4.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 157 
 
 personal, universal, and continual, whose presence bespeaks the in- 
 fluence of some external power. This power is uiicqnall}- exer- 
 cised, at first as a simple inspiration, ugain.«t which resistance is 
 easy ; then as an over-ruling possession, when the will has been 
 surrendered to it. And when the will has permitted itself to be 
 led to the lowest abysses of vice, it seems in some sort to perish 
 therein ; the moral life expires before the physical life has reached 
 its final hour : we may say that the soul is already buried in the 
 infernal prison to which it has condemned itself. The body in 
 which it dwells is thenceforth as if possessed by another spirit, 
 another life, another will, each and all Satanic. This is not sim- 
 ply death, it is an anticipated damnation ; in the place of the man 
 who has departed, it is no longer a brute that remains, it is a 
 demon.' 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xiv., 49. L. 
 
 ****** The book 
 
 Of the old adversary draws you to him. 
 Inferno, xxvii.. .39. xx.xiii.. 43. L. 
 
 * * * * As soon as any soul betrays 
 As I have done, his body by a demon 
 Is taken from liini. who thereafter rules it. 
 Until his time has wholly been revolved. 
 Cf. St. Thomas, p. sect., q. 114, a. 1.— St. Bonaventura, Serm., in feri- 
 ami v.. Pentecostes.
 
 158 Da?itc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 II. 
 Evil in Society. 
 
 The multiplication of the individual in space, forms societj-, and 
 the evolution of societ}' in time, is the subject of history. The 
 same facts w^liich have just been studied in the heart of the hu- 
 man personage, ought then to be found on the stage of history, 
 but with vastly enlarged proportions. The evil of the intelligence 
 and that of the will, error and vice, are there again brought forth, 
 the one in philosophical and religious teachings, and the other in 
 the temporal and spiritual government of the nations. 
 
 1. The aberrations of the human race begin in its very cradle, 
 in the confusion introduced within his own being by the sin of 
 our first father. Deprived of the happiness of conversing here 
 below, face to face, with his creator, man sought to find the divin- 
 ity in the stars of the firmament, of which he admired the bright- 
 ness and felt the influence. This is why tlie names of Jupitur 
 and Mercury, Mars and Venus, were hailed with vows and sacri- 
 lices. This was a potent factor in the rise of idolatry, the first 
 error of the first peoples. ' In time, the need of the truth not 
 
 1 Paradise, iv., 21 ; viii., 1. L. 
 
 The world used in its peril to believe 
 That the fair Cypria delirious love 
 Rayed out in the third epicycle turning; 
 
 Wherefore not only unto her paid honor 
 Of sacrillces and of votive cry 
 The ancient nations in the ancient error. 
 
 But both Dione honored tlwy and Cupid.
 
 In the Thirteenth Cejitury. 1 59 
 
 possessed seized upon sundry noble intelligences. After the seven 
 illustrious Greeks who received the title of Wise Men, another 
 sage arose, Pythagoras, who, more deeply penetrated by the feel- 
 ing of human infirmity, desired to be known as a Friend to Wis- 
 dom. Schools arc formed, and philosophy is born, i These efforts 
 do not remain without result, but they arc powerless in regard 
 to the very questions the response to which is of the uttermost 
 importance. The sovereign reason will not fully reveal itself until 
 the coming of the Son of Mary. '^ God, misknown by the major- 
 ity, does not receive from those who have some proper knowledge 
 of Him, the homage which is His due. ^ While this general dim- 
 ness envelopes all the schools, several are surrounded by obscur- 
 ities peculiar to themselves. It would require a long time to 
 enumerate all their aberrations : from Parmenides and the pre- 
 sumptuous Eleatics, v/ho plunge into the depths of reasoning 
 without knowing whither they are going, down to Epicurus and 
 
 > Convito, lii., 11. 
 
 ' PurKatorio. iii., 13. L. 
 
 Mortals, remain contented at the Quia; 
 For if ye had been able to see all. 
 No neod there were for Mary to give birth ; 
 And ye have seen desiritiR without fruit. 
 Those whose desire would have been quieted. 
 Which evermore is given them for a grief. 
 I speak of Aristotle and of Plato, 
 And many othere. * * ♦ ♦ 
 ^ Inferno, iv., 13, 43; Purjratorio, viii., !>.
 
 i6o Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 his followers, vvlio make the spirit perish with the body ; ' from 
 Pythagoras, who makes souls descend through all the grades of 
 creation, to Plato^ who sees them remonnt to the stars whence 
 they emanated. " The modern world is not willing to leave to the 
 antique world the sad privilege of believing and teaching false- 
 hood : false doctrines find theological expression in heresy, and 
 philosophical expression in numerous systems. Great citizens 
 of the Christian republics, sovereigns of the Holy Empire, and 
 even cardinals who serve them as counsellors, have professed im- 
 pious doctrines. ^ The multitude, ignorant and sordid as it is, 
 deserting the arts known as liberal, because service to such arts 
 must be disinterested, hastens to the lessons of the decretalists, or 
 follows in the train of physicians who point the way to fortune. * 
 
 ' Inferno, x., 5. 
 
 With Epicurus all his followers, 
 Who with the body mortal make the soul. 
 Ibid, xii., 14 ; Paradise, xili., 42. 
 
 Parmendes. Melissus, Brissus are. 
 And many who went on and knew not whither. 
 ' Cionvito, Iv., 21 ; Paradise, iv., 8. 
 
 Again for doubting furnish thee occasion 
 Souls seeming to return unto the stars 
 According to the sentiment of Plato. 
 ■■ Inferno, x., 11, 40. 
 ' Convito, Hi., 11 ; Paradise, ix., 1, 5 ; xl., 2; xil.. 28.
 
 /// tlic Thirtee7ith Century. i6i 
 
 The Scriptures and the Fathers remain buried in the dust. Fables 
 and rash speculations find their way even into the pulpit, and ask 
 as their reward the stupid wonderment or sacrilegious laughter 
 of an audience worthy of them. ' 
 
 2. But, afflicting as the errors touching the rationality of the 
 public may be to the poet-philosopher, he at least finds a sort of 
 consolation in being able to point out the fragility of our fallen 
 nature as their cause: he reserves his chief mourning, and all his 
 anger, to deplore the corruption of morals, of which he recognizes 
 the origin in the corruption of the laws and of the powers behind 
 the laws. He sees the shepherds of the people lead their flocks to 
 gross pastures where they forget the justice for which they had 
 hungered. - He enumerates the small number of good kings, the 
 tumults in cities ruled by the people, the intestine strife, and the 
 blood poured forth. ^ And, as if his words were defied and van- 
 quished by these direful spectacles, he borrows the language used 
 by the prophets of the Old and New Testaments. The govern- 
 ment of the nations, considered in its successive changes, may be 
 compared to the vision of Daniel. It is figured by the gigantic 
 statue of an old man, with a head of gold, chest and arms of sil- 
 ver, a trunk of copper, legs of iron, and feet of clay. Standing in 
 a hollow of Mt. Ida, he turns his back on Egypt, and looks toward 
 
 ' Paradise, xxix., 28. "^ Purgatorio, xvi., 34. 
 
 ^ Inferno, xii., 36.
 
 1 62 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Rome. Each one of tlie parts of whicli lie is composed, except his 
 head, is furrowed by a gasli, wiience tears distil ; these streams of 
 tears, uniting, find a passageway down from the cavern, and give 
 rise in the interior of the earth to the four rivers of the infernal 
 regions. The statue is monarchy, such as bad princes liave made 
 it. Egypt is the figure of the institutions of the past ; Rome is 
 the type of later times. The succession of the metals repre- 
 sents that of empires, of political forms, of the ages wliich have 
 becortie more and more degenerate. The wounds of the social 
 body are truly the sources of the fiood of crimes and woes of 
 which the overflow is to aid in filling liell. ' 
 
 ' Inferno, xiv., 31. 
 
 In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land . . . 
 A grand old man stands in the mount erect. 
 
 Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta, 
 And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror. 
 His head is fa.shioned of reflned goki, etc. 
 The interpretation here Riven of this allegory is that proposed by Costa 
 In his commentary on the Divine Comedy. We have thought proper to ad- 
 mit it, since we And the dream of Nabiichodonosor explained in an almost 
 identical manner by Richard of St. Victor, dc Erudit. int. horn. 1. i., cap. 
 1. Our last remaining doubts were dispelled when we read in the manu- 
 script commentary ascribt>d to Giacopo dl Dante, the following gloss : " It 
 Is to be considered that this old man signifies and represents the entire em- 
 pire and course of the world, the wtuili' I'lnpiic with the lives of the rulers
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 163 
 
 The religious decadence is presented under a no less sinister as- 
 pect. The Romaa court has become like to the woman seen by the 
 prophetic Evangelist, seated by the waters^ and dallying with 
 kings. Formerly, the Pontiff, her lawful spouse, faithful to the laws 
 of virtue, was able to control the beast with the seven lieads and 
 the ten horns, that is, sin, which in our day is no longer restrained.' 
 Gold and silver are made into idols which do not lack priests. 
 The apostolic keys have been clianged into armorial bearings : they 
 have been seen on the standards of men fighting against true be- 
 Uevers. War is carried on in our day by depriving Christian peo- 
 ples of the spiritual bread which our Heavenly Father has pre- 
 pared for all.'- However, let those who are afflicted by these 
 scandals await the providential hour which is to end them. 
 
 and princes from the beginning of the reign of Saturn down to our own 
 times. . . The author purposes showing how the empire being among 
 pagans and in the Orient, was transported among the Greeks. . . then was 
 the empire transported from among the Greeks to the Romans ; and there- 
 fore does the author say that this old man has his back turned toward 
 Damletta, which is in the East, and looks at Rome, that is, toward the 
 West." 
 
 ' Inferno, xix., 36. 
 
 The Evangelist you pastors had in mind, etc. 
 
 It is again from the commentator Costa that we borrow the explanation 
 of this difficult passage.— Cf. Richard of St. Victor, .xi/p. /Ipocafyps. 
 
 2 Inferno, xix., IW; Paradiso, i.\., 44 ; xviii., 41 ; xxvii., 10.
 
 164 Dante, and CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 Schism rends asunder, and does not cure ; and they prepare for 
 themselves eternal remorse who profit by the dark nights of tlio 
 Church to sow tares in her field.' But the depravation of the 
 two powers, ecclesiastical and temporal, is less perillous than their 
 confusion. The cross and the sword have been united in the 
 hands of the violent ; mutual respect bas been lost in a forced 
 conjunction.'- If order is the highest good of society, confusion, 
 disorder, is for it the lowest expression of evil. 
 
 III. 
 Evil in Lost Souls in the Other World. 
 
 Thus far, evil has revealed itself only in a manner doubly im- 
 perfect, limited in man by liberty, which never entirely perishes, 
 and in society by the protestations, always to be heard, of the 
 public conscience. Now we must behold it freed from the ob- 
 stacles opposed to it by the possible return to, and the simultane- 
 ous presence of, good ; we must see it in a condition of isolation, 
 of immutability. The city of the wicked, invisible in this world 
 where it is confounded with the city of God, is to become visible 
 in the world of the dead. 
 
 1. Popular tradition, inspired perhaps by volcanic phenomena. 
 
 ' Inferno, xx\ili., 13. See for explanations more complete, and correo 
 tlve of the bitterness of the preceding reproaches, Part III., Chap. V. 
 ^ Purgnlorio, xvi., 37.
 
 In the Thirtee?ith Century. 165 
 
 placed hell in the interior of the terrestrial globe. The science of 
 antiquity represented that situation as the lowest in the universe, 
 Mud the farthest removed from the Empyrean : it was natural to 
 banish to such a place the souls cut off by sin from the abode of 
 the Divinity. 1 Hell still retains some marks of the divine omni- 
 presence. Power, Wisdom, and Love prepared it from of old ; 
 even Love, for it is just that eternal sorrow should be the lot of 
 those who have despised eternal love ! "■ 
 
 If hell is the accomplishing of the work of reprobation, the out- 
 line of which has already been traced upon the earth, the princi- 
 pal features ought to be the same, and the same divisions be suit- 
 able to botli. The condemned in the other world will then range 
 themselves in the same categories as do sinners in this. The 
 abyss is hollowed out by nine circles, whit!h become narrower as 
 
 ' Inferno, passim. This opinion was also that of the Middle Ages.— Cf. 
 Hugh of St. Victor, £>-Mdif.didascrt/., 1,3.— St. Bonaventura, Com\)(n- 
 diiim Thcolngia', viii., 21. 
 
 2 Inferno, iii., 2 ; Gary's Tr. 
 
 Justice the founder of my fabric moved : 
 To rear me was the task of power divine, 
 Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. 
 
 Ibid., 42, Paradise, xv., 4. 
 
 He hath in sooth good cause for endless grief 
 Who, for the love of thing that lasteth not, 
 Despoils himself forever of that love.
 
 1 66 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 they lie deeper. Tlie lir.st receives within its wide circumference 
 men who were never really living, souls that passed away without 
 infamy, and without glory, neutral between God und His enemies, 
 ever acting solely for themselves. Beneath these appears the throng 
 who, outside of Christianity, led good lives, but were lacking either 
 in knowledge of the truth or in courage to serve it. The absence 
 of an infinite bliss which they constantly desire without the hope 
 of attaining, throws a veil of sadness over their destiny, which, 
 in other respects, is neither without consolation nor without 
 honor. The four circles that follow contain the victims of incon- 
 tinence; on the confines between incontinence and malice, is 
 chastised heresy, which partakes of both. The seventh circle, 
 subdivided into three zones, contains the violent. The eighth is 
 furrowed by ten wide ditches wherein fraud is punished. In tlie 
 ninth, groan the traitors.' 
 
 2. It is within these bounds that is to be set forth the sol- 
 emn exhibition of suffering, physical, intellectual, and moral. 
 Suffering, the progeny of sin, keeps its primitive character, and 
 remains an evil when it is not expiatory. But physical suffering 
 supposes the existence of the senses, which seem inconceivable 
 if separated from their organs. Hence, until the general resur- 
 rection shall have restored to the reprobate the flesh in which 
 
 " Inferno, pfwsim ; but especially xl., «.
 
 In the TJiirtccnth Ceiitiiry. 167 
 
 they grew corrupt, provisional bodies are given to them : shad- 
 ows, when compared with the Uving members they have replaced, 
 and yet visible realities ; not displacing the foreign objects that 
 tliey encounter, yet liiding from sight those before which they 
 are interposed; vanitks in themselves, but capable of feeling tor- 
 ture. They sometimes lose the luunan form, to assume more sin- 
 ister shapes ; they crawl as serpents, throw out branches from 
 ln'ueath a delusive covering of bark, or flicker in whirling eddies 
 of flame.' Thus, all that nature holds of most terrible, the most 
 fi'ightfnl horrors that the liunian imagination has been able to in- 
 vent, all that divine retribution has reserved to itself in the way 
 of unutterable severities, are conjoined in chastisements, each 
 
 ' Inferno, vi., 6, 12; xvii., 2it, :)3; xii., 27; xix., 15, 43; xxiii., 13; 
 xxlv., 8 ; xxxii., 27, etc. 
 
 He rends the spirits, flays, and quarters them. . . 
 
 * * * We placed our feet 
 
 Upon their vanity that person seems. . . 
 Within hi.s arms encircled and sustained me. 
 
 * * * Walljing 'mong the heads 
 
 I struck my foot hard in the face of one. . . 
 He said to his companions : are you ware 
 That he behind nioveth whate'er he touches? 
 Thus are not wont to do the feet of dead men. 
 St. Augustine (dc Civit Dei xxl., 10) seciii.s to express a doubt on the 
 point (if knowing whether the danmed have bodies.
 
 1 68 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 one of which, a helhsh symbol, represents the vice to which it 
 correspouds. 
 
 These sufferings vvih again increase when the opened graves 
 shall have restored the dead to a life that will have no end. For. 
 the more complete a being is, the more completely are its func- 
 tions fulfilled: the closer the union of the soul with the body, the 
 more intense must be the resulting sensibility.* And now. how 
 shall the punishment of intelligences be set forth ? Memory of 
 the past remains ; but the memory of crime, without repentance, 
 is only an additional woe.'^ The present is not known to them, 
 although the future is open to their view — like to the case of 
 some aged persons whose enfeebled vision can perceive objects 
 a great way off, but fails to distinguish them as they come nearer. 
 But this prophetic illumination, tlie only ray from the eternal 
 light which falls upon them, will lie eclipsed, when, time having 
 come to an end, the gates of the future shall be closed. Then. 
 in them, all knowledge will be extinct.^ Even the ideas wliich. 
 
 ' Inferno, vi., 40. 
 
 * * * Return unto thy science, 
 
 Which wills, that as a thing more perfect is, 
 
 The more it feels of pleasure and of pain. 
 
 This maxim is borrowed from St. Augustine, who got it from Aristotle. 
 
 « Inferno, X, 16, 96, etc.— Cf. St. Thomas, Snmma TJieuI. p. 1. q. 89, art fi. 
 ' Inferno, vi., 22 ; xv., 21 ; xxvUi., 2fi ; x., 33.
 
 I?i the Thirteenth Century. 169 
 
 for the time being, still subsist, are dim ahd confused, are not in 
 the state of science, uiucli less iu that of philosophy ; for phil- 
 osophy is compounded of knowledge and of love, and in that place, 
 all love dies. The infernal spirits are then deprived of the con- 
 templation of that beautiful object which is tlie beatitude of the 
 understanding, and the deprivation of which is full of bitterness 
 and sorrow. * 
 
 The absence of love is the uttermost punishment of wicked 
 wills. Thence the mutual hatred which makes them curse one 
 another,' that hatred of themselves which spurs them on to throw 
 themselves in the way of torments,^ and the hatred of the Divin- 
 
 It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly. 
 
 Beforehand whatsoe'er time brings with it, 
 
 And In the present have another mode. 
 We see, like those who have imperfect sight. 
 
 The things, he said, that distant are from us ; 
 
 So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler. 
 Cf. St. Thomas, ?oc. ci\., art. 8. 
 
 ' Convito, ill., 13. The intelligences exiled from theirsupernal country 
 cannot philosophize ; because love is dead in them, and to philosophize, 
 love Is necessary ; whence we see that they are deprived of the presence 
 of this most beautiful one ; since she is the beatitude of the intellect, to 
 be deprived of her is most bitter and filled with every misery. 
 
 - Inferno, yiassim. ^ Inferno, iii., 40,
 
 I/O Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ity whom they are braving in the very midst of tlieir punishments.' 
 Thence, the ceaseless blasphemy against the Creator, against the 
 human race, against tlie time, the place, the authors of their 
 birth, and that desire for annihilation which will never be 
 granted. Their passions of this world have accompanied them : 
 greedy as of yore for praise, pleasure, and vengeance, they never 
 cease to merit the chastisements which they never cease to suffer, * 
 and these sufferings which by their endless duration are akin to 
 infinity, are also related to it by their intensity, since they all pro- 
 ceed from the loss of the sovereign good, which is God. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Demons. 
 
 We have recognized in the errors and transgressions of life the 
 origin of the chastisements which follow death. Evil has shown 
 itself as in turn cause and effect, under its voluntary, and under 
 its penal form. Outside of this alternation of death and life, 
 iliere are beings in whom are more closely imited the cause and 
 llie effect, the evil disposition and its pimishment, beings who in- 
 fluence guilty humanity, who preceded it in guilt ; instigators to 
 
 ' Inferno, xiv., 18; xxv., 1. 
 
 2 Inferno, v., 20; xxxi., 26.— Cf. St. Thomas, 3», 2ao, q. 15. art. 3. 
 Suwima contra ocntr.s, xv., 92-95.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 171 
 
 the sins of men in this world, and executors of his punishment in 
 the next, finished types of perversity : such are the demons. 
 
 It would seem as if in falling from llie heights of the spiritual 
 world, where they stood in the lirst rank, these fallen angels have 
 undergone the humiliation of a material transforraatLon, and that 
 bodies have likewise been given to them. At the same time, an 
 almost sovereign empire over nature is attributed to them.' 
 Storms obey them, the waters and the lightnings gather at 
 their beck ; '^ they sometimes wreak llicir vengeance on the 
 bodies of the dead, when the souls have escaped their power. 
 With this supernatural intervention is connected the iniquitous 
 pursuit of magic. But they exercise a still more constant and 
 general influence over human destinies: temptation is their work. 
 We have seen them lay snares along the perilous paths of 
 science ; we have seen them open the gates of hell to the 
 three species of concupiscence. Like to fishers who never 
 weary, they hide under deceitful baits the hooks wliich catch 
 wavering wills. They pursue ihcir prey even beyond the tomb : 
 they do not fear to dispute with the angels for its possession, and 
 thus renew their combats of the olden time. * 
 
 ' Inferno, passjm. Especially xii., xvil., xxxi.— Cf. St. Augustine, de 
 Qiviiaie, Dei, ix., cap. xxili.; and Sup. Genesim. 
 2 Purgatorio, v., 37.— Cf. St. Thomas, p. q. 110, art. 3. 
 ^ Inferno, xxvil., 38 ; Purgatorio. v., 36.
 
 1/2 Dante, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Their second office is the administration of punishments. They 
 reign over lost souls in the infernal regions, each division of 
 which is placed under the auspices of certain ones among their 
 number. Thus, in tlie vestibule, amid the throng of egotists, 
 are found the ungrateful angels who remained neutral during the 
 revolt in the heavens.' Thus also, by a reminiscence of pagan 
 poetry which theology did not condemn, Charon, Minos, Cerber- 
 us, Pluto, Phlegias, the Furies, the Centaurs, the Harpies, Ger- 
 von, Cacus, the Giants, all transformed into demons, are estab- 
 lished as guardians of the successive zones.^ Innumerable le- 
 gions are scattered, either upon the ramparts of the dolorous city, 
 or in its divers parts, and pursue their unhallowed sports amid 
 the terrible spectacles therein presented. =* But these legions are 
 all slaves of one master. He was the first in rank, and once the 
 most beautiful of spirits; now, he is the Evil Will, who seeks ill 
 alone ; he it is from whom all woes proceed, the ancient enemy 
 iA mankind.-* A wretched and lying parody of Divinity, the ruler 
 of the realm of pain, he has his icy throne at a point which is at 
 
 ' Inferno, ill., 13. 
 
 "^ Inferno, ill., v., vi., viii., ix., xii., xiii., xvil., xxv., xxxl., xxxiv.— 
 Virgil JEncid., vi.— Cf. St. Thomas 21 2n- p. 94. 
 3 Inferno, vili., 28; xxi.— Cf. St. Thomas, la p. 03, art. 9. 
 ■• Inferno, xxxiv.. 6; Piirgatorio, xiv., 49.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 173 
 
 once the centre and the bottom of the abyss : around him are 
 graded the nine hierarchies of reprobation ; on hina rests the en- 
 tire system of iniquity.' Sin and suffering, which are for souls 
 
 1 Inferno, xxxlv. L. 
 
 The emperor of the kingdom dolorous 
 
 From his mid-breast forth issued from the Ice ;. . . . 
 Oh, what a marvel it appeared to me. 
 When I beheld three faces on his head 1 
 
 The one in front, and that vermilion was ; 
 
 And the right hand one seemed 'twixt white and yellow ; 
 The left was such to look upon as those 
 Who come from where the Nile falls valley-ward. 
 In the bold portrait that Dante draws of Lucifer, we cannot help re- 
 marking the three faces attributed to him, recalUng the triple Hecate of 
 ancient mythology. A still deeper intention seems to underlie the idea 
 of the three colors given to this triple face, and contrasted to the three 
 colors of the mystic circles whereby later we shall find the Blessed Trinity 
 represented. The commentary of Giacopo di Dante offers on this point a 
 symbolic explanation which by reason of its originality seems worthy rf 
 notice : " These three faces signify the three impotences pertaining to Lu- 
 cifer, whence all ills arise, and which are opposite to the three attributes 
 possessed by God. The first attribute which God has is prudence, by 
 which He foresees and co-ordinates all things : in contrast to this, Lucifer 
 has ignorance, that is, he neither knows nor discerns anything ; and this 
 is signified by the black face. The second attribute that God has, is love, 
 which made Him make the world, and rule and sustain it : in contrast to
 
 1/4 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 what weight is for bodies, have forced him to the spot which is 
 the very centre of the earth, toward which all heavj- masses 
 lend. The general gravitation envelops him, weiglis upon him, 
 presses him down on every side: his crime was to wish to draw 
 all creatures to liimself ; his punishment is, to be crushed under 
 the wei<^ht of creation.' 
 
 this, Lucifer lias tiatred and envy, by wbicli lie corrupts the world and 
 promotes the doing of evil ; this issigQilled by the red face. The third at- 
 tribute of God is power, by which He rules all things, whether eternal or 
 of this world, as is pleasing to Him, and as reason and justice require ; in 
 contrast to this, Lucifer has weakness and powerlessness, that is, be can do 
 
 nothing, and this is signified by the face 'twijt white and yellow." 
 
 ' Inferno, xxxiv., etc. 
 
 And if I then became disquieted. 
 Let stolid people think who do not see 
 What the point is beyond which I had passed. 
 Paradiso, xxix., 18. 
 
 . . .That one, whom thou hast seen 
 By all the burden of the world constrained. 
 Cf. St. Bonaventura, compejidmra, ii., 23.— St. Thomas, la, q. 64, art. 4.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Evil and Good, in Conjunction and in Conflict. 
 
 '^l, ^ viL in all its deformity, and Good in all its purity, can display 
 ^iLiij themselves thoroughly only at their origin and at their term, 
 both these points being placed beyond the liorizon of time. But Good 
 and Evil meet in time as in a free field, and there encounter one 
 another, now sharply opposed, and again confounded together. 
 Wc must examine into the circumstances and the effects of this 
 encounter, whether in the vicissitudes of life, individual or social, 
 iu that continuation of life wherein efficacious e.xpiations may be 
 ai'c'oniplished, or in nature, wliich is the theatre in which occur 
 all temporal incidents, and wliich always, in some sort, bears the 
 impress of their passage. 
 
 I. 
 1. We here llnd tlie proper place to make known the innermost 
 constitution of man, the common subject of these various in- 
 fluences (propitHOHS or detrimental), the instrument alternately 
 
 of Good or of Evil. We are not in this connection permitted 
 
 175
 
 176 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 to recoil before any secret, whether of generation, of the union of 
 the soul with the bod}', or of their separation. 
 
 Three powers concur in the work of generation. First, the 
 stars exercise the potency of their radiation upon matter, disen- 
 gaging, under favoring conditions, from the combined elements, 
 the vital principles which animate plants and animals. Then, 
 there is in man a power of assimilation which is communicated to 
 the digested elements, which power is distributed with the blood 
 to all the members of the body, and bears fecundity with it, even 
 externally. Finally, woman holds within herself a constitutional 
 power which prepares the matter destined to receive the benefit 
 of birth. The thirsty veins do not, in the work of nutrition, ab- 
 sorb all the blood that is given to them. A portion of this ali- 
 mentary fluid, purified, remains in the heart, and is there still 
 more deeply impregnated with an assimilative energy; it passes 
 off into channels wherein its elaboration is completed, then at the 
 proper moment, the blood of the father, active and capable of or- 
 ganizing, fecundates the passive and docile blood contained in the 
 womb of the mother. There are fashioned tlic elements of the 
 future body, until a sufficient preparation has enabled them to lend 
 themselves to the celestial influence which produces life in them. 
 This life, at first vegetable, but progressive, is developed by its own 
 exercise ; it causes the organism to pass from the state of plant 
 to that of zoophyte, finally to reach complete animality. And here
 
 In the Thirtee?ith Century. 177 
 
 ends the action of the powers of nature : they are (to repeat) the 
 mother wlio furnislies the matter, and the fallier who gives tlie 
 form, the stars whence emanates the vital principle. To enable 
 the creature to overpass the interval wliieii separates animality 
 from humanity, we must have recourse to Him who is the Primal 
 Mover. As soon as the organism of the brain has reached its 
 term, God casts a glance filled with love upon the great work 
 which has just been accomplished, and touches it with a potent 
 breath. The divine breath draws to itself the principle of activity 
 •which it encounters in the body of the child ; of the two is made 
 one substance, one soul, which lives, feels, and acts upon itself. ' 
 The soul is then, single in its essence, for the exercise of one 
 of its faculties in a certain degree of intensity suffices to absorb it 
 entirely. * In it, distinct among themselves, yet united and mu- 
 
 ' Convito, iv., 21.— This doctrine is further developed In the celebrated 
 passage, Purgatorio, XXV., 13. Cf. Arislot. De Qenerat. Animal., il., 3. St. 
 Thomas, 1", q. 119, art. 2.— St. Bonaveutura, Compendium, ii., 32. 
 ' Purgatorio, Iv., 2. 
 
 Whenever by delight or else by pain. 
 That seizes any faculty of ours, 
 Wholly to that the soul collects Itself, 
 It seemeth that no other power it heeds ; 
 And this against that error is which thinks 
 One soul above another kindles in us. 
 Cf. St. Thomas, 1«, q. 76, art. 3. The argument is literally the same.
 
 178 Dante, and Catholic Pliilosopky 
 
 tually implying oue another, three powers exist, vegetative, ani- 
 mal, rational ; taken together, they may be compared to a pentagon, 
 which is composed of superposed figures.' The soul, present in 
 the members, in all the atoms of living dust of which they are 
 compounded, reveals itself in them Ijy the very exercise of their 
 functions. It is united to the body as cause is to effect, act to 
 potentiality, form to matter.* AVc call it Substantial Form, because 
 it alone constitutes a man that wliich he is. and its departure causes 
 this wonderful coinliination to lose its existence and its name. 
 It has its seat in the lilood : ^ nevertheless it makes of the brain a 
 species of treasury, wherein it deposits tlie images which itdesires 
 to retain. It has chosen the face whereby to make outward 
 manifestation of itself: tliere it works; it fashions the flesh to 
 render it transparent to the interior lights of thought ; it moulds 
 the features with infinite delicacy, creates the physiognomy, and 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxv., 26 ; Convito, ii„ 8; iv., 7.— Cf. Aristot. de Anxma, 
 ii„3: iii., 12. St. Thomas, 1», q. 78. St. Bonaventura, Compendium, ii., 
 32. 
 '•' Inferno, xxvii., 25; Paradise, ii., 4.5. 
 
 While I was still the form of bone and pulp, etc. 
 Convito, Ui.. 2.—ct. Aristot., dc Anima, II., 1. —St. Thomas, 1«, q. 75, 1. 
 •■• Purgatorio, xvlii.. 17. — Cf. St. Thomas, la, q. 76. 4. 
 * Purgatorio, v., 26. 
 
 ■ • • The blood wherfiu I liad my seat.
 
 In the Thirteenth Centnry. 179 
 
 puts forth its utmost efforts in adorning and embellishing the two 
 features through which it more especially reveals itself — the eyes 
 and the mouth. They may be called the two balconies whereon 
 the queen tliat dwells within the human edifice often shows her- 
 self, although veiled.' Finally, the queen's ministers are the 
 spirits of the senses, vapors formed in the heart and distributed 
 through all the members, subtile fluids which keep up the communi- 
 cations between the cerebral organ and the organs of the senses. ' 
 But the queen may become a slave. There are certain constitu- 
 tional defects which oppose themselves to the free development 
 of the soul ; there are gross and darkened natural dispositions in- 
 to which the light from God penetrates with difficulty. ^ The rev- 
 olutions of the heavens, also those of the seasons, by means of 
 the physical dispositions which they induce, exert an undeniable 
 influence over the moral faculties. And, as to the four ages of 
 human life correspond in the body four temperaments which re- 
 sult from the combination of the watery, the hot, the dry, and the 
 cold, .so does the soul pass tlirough four phases, of which eacli 
 
 ' Pursatorio, xxxiii., 27 ; Paradiso. i., 8.; Convlto, iii., 8.— Cf. Bnmetto 
 T-Hilnl, Tresor, 1., 1., cap. xv., and especially St. Bonaventura, Compeii- 
 djum, ii., 37-59, where may be found curious anticipations of Lavaterand 
 of Gall. 
 
 - Convlto, il., 2, 14 ; Hi.. 9. Vita Nvova, 3, 6. Paradiso. xxvi., 24. 
 
 ' Convito, iv., 20.
 
 1 8o Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 one has its own distinct character, its charms, and its drawbacks, 
 its more familiar vices, and its favorite virtues.' 
 
 Death interrupts this harmony. But among all the brutal 
 opinions current among men, tlie most insensate, the vilest, and 
 most dangerous, is that which denies the existence of another 
 life.'' It finds its condemnation in tlie teaching of the most il- 
 lustrious schools, in that of all the poets of antiquity, of all the 
 religions of the world, of every society which has lived subject to 
 law ; in the hope of a future existence placed by nature in the 
 depths of every soul, and which could not be deceptive without 
 supposing an impossible contradiction in the heart of the most 
 perfect work of creation; in the experience of dreams and visions 
 wherein men have held intercourse witli immortal beings; and 
 finally, in the dogmas of the Christian faith, which faith furnishes 
 US witli the highest degree of certitude, because it emanates from 
 Him who has bestowed upon us that very immortality. When 
 then the soul is separated from the dying Hesh, it bears with it 
 
 ' Convito, iv., 2, 33-28. — Cf. Albert. Magn., Metaurorum, i¥. — ^gid. 
 Columna, de Regimine vrincip. 1. i., part 1, cap. vi. 
 
 '^ Convito, ii. 0. I say that of all brutal opinions, that is tbe most stupid, 
 vile, and pernlc4ous, which believes that after this life there is no other; 
 because if we turn over the writings of philosophers, as well as of other 
 wise writers, all agree that there is in us a part which is immortal, etc. . . 
 This Is also certined by the most true doclrlDe of Christ.
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. i8i 
 
 all the divine and all tlie lunnan faculties wliicli properl)' per- 
 tain to it : tlic divine, as memory, intellect, and will, grown still 
 more active ; the human, including all that may be ranged under 
 the term sensibility, temporarily inert. The soul's merit or its 
 demerit, as an impelling force, determines the place of chastise- 
 ment, of expiation, or of recompense, which it will occupy. As 
 soon as ii reaches the place assigned to it, it exercises around it- 
 self, in tlie ambient air, the formative power with which it is en- 
 dowed. And, as the humid atmosphere becomes colored by the 
 rays that are reflected within it, so does the air take on the new 
 form impressed upon it ; thence results a subtile body, wherein 
 each sense has its organ, each thouglit its exterior expression^ 
 wlierein the soul recovers the functions t)f its animal life, and re- 
 veals its presence by words, smiles, or tears.' This is what was 
 
 • Purgatorlo, xxv. 27. L. 
 
 It separates from the fle.sh, and virtually 
 Bears with itself the human and divine ; 
 
 The other faculties are voiceless all ; 
 The memory, the intelligence, and the will 
 In action far more vigorous than before . . . 
 
 Soon as the place there circumscribeth it, 
 The virtue informative rays round about. 
 As, and as much as. In the living members . . . 
 
 So there the neighboring air doth shape itself 
 Into that form whirii doth Impress upon It
 
 1 82 Dante, and Catholic Philosopliy 
 
 meant by the ancients when they peopled the kingdom of death 
 with shades ; and this is the opinion of several more recent philoso- 
 phers who cannot conceive the possibility of sufferings and enjoy- 
 ments without the possession of some corporeal envelop.' But the 
 shadow must one day pass away in presence of the reality. anJ 
 these temporary bodies will give place to those which, reanimated 
 arise from their tombs : for. if corruptibilitj- is the common law of 
 creatures, it is that of those only which are the product of the ac- 
 tion of other created beings : thus perish things that are produced 
 by the concurrence of the primal matter and the influence of the 
 stars, but thus do not perish those that issue directly from the 
 hands of the Creator. The Eternal does not communicate a life 
 
 Virtually the soul that has stood still ... 
 Since afterwards it takes from this Its semblance, 
 It Is called shade ; and thence it organizes 
 Thereafter everv sense, even to the sight. 
 ' Convito, ii. 9. I say corporeal and incorporeal, from the divers opin- 
 ions that I find on this subject.— Cf. St. Augustine, Epist, 13, 159, 162, 
 where he rejects this opinion as rash, but still allows of the doubt.— See 
 also Origen and St. Ireua^us, cited by Brucker (Bist. crit. Phil., in Pla- 
 tans), as having admitted the existence of a subtile body accompanying 
 the soul after death. We find it again, with curious developments, in the 
 fragments of the commentary of Proclus on the 10th book of Plato's Re- 
 public, published by Cardinal Mai.— /I wtores cUtssici,!. See also the 
 Thesis on Proclus by M. Berger,
 
 In the ThirtecntJi Coitniy. 183 
 
 that can be exhausted ; humanit}' is His work ; humanity entire. 
 soul and body, was formed by His hands, animated by His breath, 
 on the sixth day of the creation of tlie world : on the last day, it 
 will live again, whole and entire, body and soul.' 
 
 2. A detailed analysis will lead us farther into the knowledge 
 of ourselves. 
 
 Among intellectual phenomena, the first, which we may call 
 elementary, are the sensations ; and among these, the most com- 
 plicated are those pertaining to the sense of vision. Objects do 
 not really come in contact with the eye : it is their forms which 
 are transmitted by a sort of impulsion through the diaphanous 
 air : they are arrested in the liquid of the pupil, where they are 
 reflected as if in a mirror. There, they are received by the spir- 
 its employed in the service of the sight, which in their turn trans- 
 mit and present them to the brain: and thus it i.s that we sec. 
 Every sensation is thus accomplished by a communication from 
 the object to the brain, across a continuous medium or series of 
 
 ' Paradlso, vii. 23-49. L. 
 
 Whate'er from this immediately distils 
 
 Has afterward no end, etc ... . 
 And thou from this mayst argue furthermore 
 Your resurrection, if thou tliink again 
 How human flesh was fashioned at that time 
 When the flrst parents, both of them were made. 
 Cf. St. Bonaventura, Compeiulitan. i. 1.
 
 1 84 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 media." The lower portion of the cerebral viscus is the common 
 source of sensibility. There dwells that common sense wherein 
 all the impressions received by the organs are collected and com- 
 pared. Yet, the predominance of one of these impressions effaces 
 the others : the soul, when held by the charm of a spectacle en- 
 chanting the eyes, takes no note of the flight of time which the 
 faithful clock announces to the tars.- Sensibihty is in a manner 
 prolonged by the assistance of the imagination. Nevertheless, 
 the imagination, freed from the influences of the earth, may be 
 enlightened by a celestial splendor. Often does it ravish us out 
 of ourselves to such a degree that we may remain deaf to the 
 sound of a thousand trumpets blaring beside us.' Finally, sen- 
 sations primarily indicate only sensible qualities, and yet they 
 make known certain dispositions in the object whence they em- 
 
 ' Convlto, lii., 9. A detailed description of the phenomenon of sensation. 
 * Purgatorlo, iv., 3. L. 
 
 And hence whenever aiif^ht Is heard or seen 
 Which keeps the soul intently bent upon it. 
 Time passes on, and we perceive it not, etc. 
 ' Purgatorlo, xvii., 5. L. 
 
 thou. Imagination, that dost steal us 
 So from without sometimes, that man perceives not. 
 Although around may sound a thousand trumpets. 
 Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not? 
 Moves thee a light, whifh in tlie heaven takes form.
 
 /// tlic Thirkcnth Century. 181; 
 
 anate ; they are accompanied by a feeling of usefulness or of peril. 
 There is then a faculty which takes hold of them, disengages and 
 seizes upon the relations implicitly perceived, and proposes them 
 to the operation of the understanding : we call it, thus restoring 
 to its primitive valuea word long debased, Apprehension.' Thus, 
 the sensible fact is the necessary element of every intelligible no- 
 tion. This initiative of the senses in the operations of the human 
 mind, is one of the fatalities of our nature, the principal source of 
 o\\\ weakness ; it is, at the same time, strange to say, the condi- 
 tion of our rational perfectibility, and consequently of our great- 
 ness.2 
 
 Imagination and Apprehension mark two points of transition 
 between passivity and activity. Above this first, lower region of 
 the soul, disturbed by importunate and often deceptive appear- 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xvlii., 8. 
 
 Your apprehension from some real thing 
 An iiDBRe draws, and In yourselves displays it 
 So that it makes the soul turn unto it. 
 2 Paradise, iv., 14. 
 
 To speak thus is adapted to your mind, 
 Since only through the sense it apprehendeth 
 What then it worthy makes of intellect. 
 Cf. for the whole of this paragraph, A ristot., de Anima, ii., 7 ; lii., 3. 4,8. 
 -St. Thomas, U, q. 78, 4; q. 84, 5, G.— Boethius, lib. v., metr. 4.-St. Bon- 
 aventura, Gonipejidiuni. ii., 45.
 
 1 86 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 auces, rises the .superior region, where all is spontaneous, pure, 
 and huninous. The ancients called it mens: by it is man disting- 
 uished from the animals.' We find in it divers faculties: that 
 which constitutes science, that which gives counsel, that which in- 
 vents, and that which judges. We may contrast with one another, 
 the intellect, which marches boldly in search of the unknown, 
 and the memory, which returns upon the traces left by the other 
 faculty, without being able to follow them to the end.- We may 
 still farther distinguish the active and the passive intellect. The 
 active intellect elaborates and combines the perceptions received ; 
 it raises them to the condition of ideas, and, in their turn, com- 
 bines the ideas. Thought thinks itself, yet is unconscious of it- 
 self at its first beginning ; "' it is by prolonged labor that it acquires 
 the Knowledge and possession of itself ; activity, carried to its 
 highest degree, becomes I'cdection. The passive intellect contains 
 
 ' Convlto, Hi., 2. Onl> of man and of the divine substances Is this mind 
 predicated.— Cf. Boethlus, lib. i., pros. 4. 
 ' Convlto, Hi., 2: Inferno, li., 3 ; Paradise, i., 3. 
 
 * * * * In drawing near to its desire 
 
 Our intellect ingulphs itself so far. 
 
 That after it the memory cannot so. 
 Cf. Aristot., dc Anima^ ill., 3, 4. 
 '^ Paradise, x., \t. 
 
 I was not censclous, saving as a man 
 
 Of ft first ihouffbt Is conscious ere it come.
 
 In the Thirtee7ith Century. 187 
 
 in potentialit}' universal forms, such as they exist in act in the 
 Divine Thought. Through this faculty is it that all things may 
 be comprehended ; it hence remains necessarily indeterminate, 
 susceptible of divers modifications, and it is also called the possi- 
 ble intellect. ' 
 
 ^(^ must recognize in the human mind still other elements 
 which present a passive character. We perceive in it primitive 
 ideas of which we cannot explain the origin, self-evident truths 
 which are believed without being demonstrated. ^ And, if we re- 
 fuse to confess such ideas innate, we are at least obliged to admit 
 as such the faculties which form the verv foundation of our be- 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxv., 31. Allusion to an error of Averroes. 
 
 * * * * In his doctrine separate 
 
 He made the soul from possible intellect. 
 Convlto, iv., 31. Cf. Aristot., de A?iima, ill., 5, 6 ; and for the refutation 
 af Averroes, St. Thomas^Sifm. 0. Ge»if., ii., 73; and the two treatises of 
 Albert the Great and St. Thomas, Cmitra Averrhoestas. 
 2 Purgatorio, xviil., 19. 
 
 But still, whence coineth the Intelligence 
 Of the first notions, man is ignorant, etc, 
 Cf. Aristot., Anal., post., 1., 31. 
 Paradise, li, 15. 
 
 * * * * Self-evident 
 
 In guise of the first truth that man believes. 
 Cf. Aristot.. de Anima. lil.. 9. Tunic., l. \.
 
 1 88 Dantt\ and Catholic PhilosopJiy 
 
 ing, ' - .There are then principles that have not come to us from 
 without, and that we have not gotten for ourselves. There is a 
 continuous interior creation which proclaims the invisible pres- 
 ence of the Divinity. 2 At tlie upper term of his nature, as at the 
 lower, by his reason as by his senses, man touches upon that 
 which is not himself, and finds the limits which restrict his inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 These facts well established will serve to mark the way that 
 leads-frora ignorance and error to true science. The first act of a 
 conscientious study will be to fix the limits where such studj' 
 must come to an end, and beyond whicli it would lie rash to wish 
 to pursue the rationale of things. The second will be to get rid 
 of prejudices previously imbibed ; for they wlio have learned 
 nothing attain lo really philosopliical habits of thought more 
 easily than do otliers, who, together with long training, have re- 
 ceived many false opinions.* Tliese preliminary conditions ful- 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xviii., 31. 
 
 Innate within you is the power that counsels. 
 
 ^ Convito, Iv., 31 : In this soul are present the power proper to itself, the 
 
 intellectual, and the divine.— Cf. Plato, — Cicero, rfe Senectute, 31.— Lib. 
 
 cie Cauxis, 3 : Omnis anlma nobilis habet tres operationes. . . operatic anl- 
 
 malis, intellectualis, etdlvina. 
 
 • 3 De Monorchia, lib. i. Facillus et perfeotius veniunt ad habitum 
 philosophicai veritatis qui nihil unquuin audlvcrunt, quain qui audivcruut 
 per teinpora et falsis opinionibus imbuti sunt. . . Paradlso. xiii. 41.
 
 In the Thirtccfitlt Century. i8g 
 
 filled, it is permissible to begin effective researches. The wise 
 man will first drink deeply at the sources of observation, and will 
 then slowly advance by the way of reasoning ; he will wear lead up- 
 on his feet; never, without seeking the aid of a helpful distinc 
 tion, will he make the two different steps of affirmation and nega- 
 tion.' He will not allow himself to be detained by the distrac- 
 tions he may meet upon the wa}-: if new thoughts come athwart 
 the path of the old ones, they mutually delay one another in their 
 onward course, and all recede from the goal.'^ Three words sum 
 up these precepts : experience, prudence, and perseverance. By 
 this means may we enter into that calm possession of the truth 
 which constitutes certitude. Certitude rests upon different bases, 
 
 ' Paradise, ii., 32. 
 
 * * * Experiment, ***** 
 
 * * * which is wont to be 
 The fountain to the rivers of your arts. 
 Jbid., xiii., 38. 
 
 And lead shall this be always to thy feet. 
 To make thee like a weary man. move slowly 
 Both to the Ye» and No thou seest not. 
 ' Purgatorlo, v., 6. 
 
 For evermore the man in whom is springing 
 Thought upon thought, removes from him the mark. 
 Because the force of one the other weakens. 
 Cf. Hugh of St. Victor, In^txt. Monast., iv.
 
 I go Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ■ according to the different orders of knowledge in wliich it is to 
 be acquired. It is in the testimony of the senses when it relates 
 to objects proper to any one of them ; it is in the indemonstrable 
 axioms which have already been pointed out; it is in the unani- 
 mous consent of men on questions lying within the domain of 
 reason : for the hypothesis of universal deception, enveloping the 
 human race in an invincible blindness, would be a blasphemy 
 horrible to utter.' And yet, at the feet of known truths, new 
 doubts are always springing up, as new shoots start from the 
 bases of trees. Certitude remains always surrounded by the ob- 
 scurity inherent in all things human. The only light in which is 
 no darkness, is the light of faith.-' 
 
 3. In the moral order, the first facts wc encounter are again in 
 the number of those in which the soul shows itself passive ; this 
 is why they are called passions. It would take long to enumer- 
 ate them, but they may all be referred to anterior dispositions 
 which we may call appetites. There are three sorts of appetites. 
 The first, natural, which is unconscious of itself, and which is in- 
 deed the irresistible tendency of all physical beings toward the 
 
 ' Convlto, iv.,8; ii., 9.— Cf. Aristot. Topic, lib. i.,cap. I.— St. Thomas, 
 prima, q. 85, art. 6. 
 
 » Paradise, iv., 44.— Convito, ii., 9 ; iv.. 15. The Christian judRment is of 
 superior force, and Is the overthrower of every false imputation, thanks 
 to the supreme light of Heaven by which it is illumined.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 191 
 
 satisfying of their needs ; the second, sensitive, which has its ex- 
 ternal uiotor in sensible thing'-, and wliich is by turns concupis- 
 ciblc or irascible ; the third, intellectual, of which the ol>ject is 
 appreciable only by the thinking faculty. These appetites again 
 may be reduced to a single common principle, love.* From ilie 
 Creator down to tiie humblest of creatures, nothing escapes this 
 great law.'- Simple bodies tend by attraction, which is a sort of 
 love, to the point in space destined to receive them. Composite 
 bodies have a sympathy, a love of the same kind as the preced- 
 ing, for the places where tliey were formed : they there acquire 
 the plentitude of their development, they draw thence all their 
 powers. Plants show a preference, a marked aifection, for such 
 climates, exposures, and soils as are best suited to tlieir constitu- 
 tions. Animals give signs of a livelier species of attachment, ft 
 love easily recognizable which mutually attracts them to one an- 
 other, and sometimes attracts them to man. Finally, man is en- 
 dowed with a luve, proper to liimsolf. for all things virtuous and 
 
 " Couvlto, iv., 21, 26. -Cf. St. Thomas, !« Sf, q. 36, 1. 
 '^ Purgatorio, xvil., 31. Gary's Tr. 
 
 Creator, nor created being e'er 
 
 was without love. 
 
 Or natural, or the free spiiit's growth, etc. 
 Of. Plato. Banquet.— Boethius, lib. ili.. pr. 2 ; lib. iv.. met, 6.
 
 1 92 Dante f and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 perfect ; or rather, as his nature partakes both of the simplicity 
 and of the iinnieiisity of the divine nature, man unites in himself all 
 these various kinds of love. Like to simple bodies, he yields to 
 attraction, which acts on him as weight ; he borrows from com- 
 posite bodies the sympathy which he feels for the place of his 
 l)irtli ; like the plants, he has preferences for the ailments favor- 
 able to his health ; like the animals, he is attracted by appearances 
 which flatter his senses ; and finallj', and this is his human, or 
 rather, his angelic prerogative, he loves truth and goodness. > 
 Xow, the first three sorts of love are the work of necessity ; only 
 in the last two, which emanate from the senses and the intelli- 
 gence, is the moral being discoverable. Here, on closer examina- 
 tion, we shall find the point where passive existence ends and 
 activity begins. 
 
 As soon as an object capable of pleasing presents itself, it 
 awakens in us the sensation of pleasure. The faculty we have 
 named apprehension enters into exercise, it perceives the relation 
 of tlie said object to our needs, it develops this relation until the 
 soul turns toward it and bows to its influence : this inclination is 
 love; and the new pleasure accompanying this modification ren- 
 ders it dear to us and at the same time enduring. Then the soul 
 which has been thus thrilled enters into movement, this spiritual 
 movement is desire; this desire can find no repose except in the 
 
 ' Convito, iii., 3.
 
 /// tJie ThirtcentJi CoiUtry. 193 
 
 enjoymt'iit of, that is, the possession of, the object loved.' Sucli 
 is the universal fact ; such is, to speak the language of the school, 
 the matter of love, always good in itself, for it is the work of a 
 specific, natural disposition, only revealed by its effects, and of 
 wiiich the first act, instantaneous and not reflected upon, is de- 
 serving neither of praise nor of blame. - But love becomes vir- 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xvili. 7, 11. 
 
 The soul, which is created apt to love. 
 Is mobile unto everything that pleases. 
 Soon aa by pleasure she is waked to action, * * * 
 
 And if, when turned, towards it she incline. 
 Love is that inclination ; it is nature. 
 Which is by pleasure bound In you anew. * * * 
 
 So comes the captive soul into desire. 
 
 Which is a motion spiritual, and ne'er rests 
 Until she doth enjoy the thing beloved. 
 Cf. Arlstot., de Anima, iii.— St. Thomas, !« 2«', q. 26, 2. 
 
 "^ Purgatorio, xvlll. 17, 20. 
 
 Every substantial form, that segregate 
 From matter is, and with it is united, 
 Speciflc power has in itself collected. 
 
 Which without act is not perceptible 
 
 '»**** And this first desire 
 Merit of praise or blame containeth not. 
 JMd., 13. 
 
 * * * Its matter may perchance appear 
 
 Aye to be good ; but yet not each impression 
 Is good, albeit good may ^e the wax.
 
 194 Dante, and Catliolic PJiilosopJiy 
 
 tiioiis or blameworlliy according to the choice whicii it nutlves 
 among the things that soHcit ir. Before tlic soul toolc on tlif cor- 
 poreal form under which it was to become a child, God looked vipoi' 
 it with complacency. Happy Himself. He communicated to it tlu' 
 impulse which makes it turn to Him in its search for liappiness. 
 He continues to attract it by causing the rays of His eternal glory 
 to shine out before it. It, in turn, could no more help loving Him 
 than it could hate itself.' If the soul participates more than any 
 other terrestrial being in the divine nature, and if it is a property 
 of the divine nature to will to exist, the soul also wishes to exist, 
 it desires this with all the energy inherent in it, and, as its exist- 
 ence depends altogether upon (rod, it naturally desires to lie 
 united to Him in order to insure its own existence.^ Then, the 
 attributes of God being reflected in human qualities and human 
 virtues, when the soul linds them in another soul like unto it.self. 
 it unites itself spiritually with that soul, it loves italso.^ Finally, 
 
 > PiirRatorio, xvi. 29. 
 
 Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it 
 Before it is. like to a little girl 
 Weeping and laughing in her childish sport, 
 Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows, 
 Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker, 
 Gladly It turns to that which gives it pleasure. 
 « Conviio, ili. 2.— Plato, Phoedras.-St. Thomas, 1« ga-, q, lo, i, 
 ^ rWrt., iil. 2.
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. 195 
 
 the whole of creation appears to the soul as a field which retains 
 traces of the Eternal Husbandman, .md each creature as worthy 
 U) bo loved according to lliu mea.-urL' of good which He has be- 
 stowed upon it.' Such is Iho legitimate form of love; it consists 
 \\\ that ju.st proportionment of our affections which primarily bears 
 them on toward the supreme good, and then makes them duly 
 measure themselves out toward lesser goods.' Love may take on 
 forms less piue. The ignorant soul is deceived by the tirst and 
 lowest plea.sures which it encounters, and ir pursues them witli 
 rash ardor. '^ Again, it may grow lax in the pursuit of real good. 
 or worse, it may turn toward evil. "Wc have already seen liow 
 the seven capital sins arc derived from these three species of aber- 
 ration.'' It is then true to say that love is the common seed of 
 justice and of sin.^ How enumerate all the good and all the evil 
 
 ' Paradise, xxvl. 2"3.— Cf. Hugh of St. Victor, AiXnoiAilianzs in Ecclesi- 
 astem. 
 2 Purgatorio, xvii. 33. 
 
 ■While In the flrsl it well directed is. 
 And in the second moderates itself. 
 It. cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure. 
 ^ Purgatorio, xvi. 31. 
 
 •' See above. Chap. li. 
 
 > Purgatorio, xvii. 35. 
 
 Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be 
 The seed within yourselves of every virtue. 
 And every act that merits punishment.
 
 ig6 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 fruit that it may bear : loyalty, the care of the welfare of the be- 
 loved object, zeal for its glory, tiually, union with it, a union which 
 mutually assimilates to beings and blends them into one ? ' How 
 describe the beneficent, regenerative effect of a chaste affection ? 
 And how explain the reciprocal contagion of sensual affections? 2 
 By working such wonderful revolutions in the secret places of the 
 heart, love, however passive it may be in its origin, shows itself 
 active in its results. 
 
 But, if this activity is determined only in presence of the 
 incitements of the exterior world, can we say that it is free ? 
 A common and misleading opinion attributes all our actions to the 
 stars, as if the spheres bore along all beings in a necessary direc- 
 tion. Doubtless, the spheres exercise a sort of initiative over the 
 majority of the movements of our sensibility : but this initiative 
 may encounter in us a resistance which, difficult at first, becomes 
 unconquerable after we have faithfully struggled. ' A still greater 
 
 Cf . Plato, Banquet.— St. Augustine : Bonl aut mall mores sunt bonl aut 
 mall amores. 
 
 > Purgatorlo, xxx. 13.— Convito, ill. 2 ; iv. 1 . . . . Onde Pittapora dice 
 Nell 'amlsta si fa uno dl piu. Cf. Cicero., dc Offleiis, 1. 16.— St. Thomas, 1: 
 2*. q. 28, 1. 
 
 " Inferno, v. 34.— Purgatorlo, xxx. 41 : xxxl. 8.— Convito. ill. S.— Vita 
 nuova, pcUisim.—Ct. Plato, Banquet, Pliaedrus. 
 
 3 Purgatorlo, xvl., 23. 
 
 Ye who are living every cause refer
 
 In the ThirtccntJi Century. 197 
 
 power, tliat of God, acts upon us without compelling us. He 
 created in us tliat better part of ourselves which is not subject to 
 the influences of tlie spheres. ' He endowed us with free will : 
 and this gift, the most excellent, the most worthy of His good- 
 ness, the niost precious in His eyes, all intelligent creatures, 
 and they alone, have received. - The will can yield only by it^^wii 
 
 Still upward to the heavens, as if all things 
 They of necessity moved with themselves. * * 
 The heavens your movements do initiate, 
 I say not all ; but granting that I say it, 
 I-ight has been given you for good and evil. 
 And free volition ; which if some fatigue 
 
 In the first battles with the heavens it suffers 
 Afterwards conquers all, if well 'tis nurtured. 
 Cf. Plato, Timaeus. St. Thomas, la, q. 83. 1 ; la 2*, q. 9, 5. 
 ' (The substitution of the term envxronmcnt for influences of the 
 spheres, will suffice to give a modern turn to many of the passages relat- 
 ing to this subject,— Tr.) 
 ' Purgatorio, xvi.,27. 
 
 To greater force and to a better nature. 
 Though free, ye subject are, and that creates 
 The mind in you the heavens have not in charge. 
 Ibid. xvUl., 23.— Paradlso, v., 7. 
 
 The greatest gift that in his largess God 
 Creating made, and unto His own goodness. 
 Nearest conformed, and that which He doth prize
 
 igS Da7ite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 fk'terniiiiation ; it is lilte a flame, wliich repeated efforts of an ex- 
 terior force cannot constrain to descend contrarily to that natural 
 bent which causes it to ascend. Often, it is true, the will seems 
 to yield to violence ; but this is still in virtue of its own choice, 
 it is an evil to which it submits through fear of some still greater 
 ill. 1 It is also true that instinctive movements escape from its 
 control, and that often, in its despite, smiles and tears betray the 
 most secret thoughts. ■ But, outside of these circumstances, the 
 will remains the arbiter of its choice : placed in presence of two 
 objects exercising over it equal attraction, it would remain unde- 
 cided to the end ; ^ we must then admit with the will a faculty 
 which may counsel it, which, as the poet says, keeps watch upon 
 the threshold of assent, to receive or to reject affections good or 
 
 Most hiRhly, is the freedom of tbe will, 
 Wherewith the creatures of intelligence 
 Both all and only were and are endowed. 
 Cf. Arlstot. Ethics, iii., 5. Boethius, 1. v., pr. 2.— St. Thomas, prima, q. 
 59.3. 
 ' Paradise, iv., 26-34. 
 - Purgatorio, xxi., 35. 
 
 But yet the power that wills cannot do all things. 
 3 Paradlso, iv.,1. 
 
 Between two viands equally removed 
 And tempting, a free man would die of hmiger 
 Ere either he could bring unto his te»th.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 199 
 
 ill. ' Thus, even supposing that an unavoidable necessity pre- 
 sides in us at the beginning of love, there is also in us a power 
 competent to restrain its progress. 
 
 Now, the counsel which assists in our decisions, is disceru- 
 rneut. This is the faculty which seizes upon the differences be- 
 tween actions in so far as they are co-ordinated to an end ; we may 
 call it the eye of the soul, and the fairest oil-shoot springing from 
 the root of reason, '^ By it is the moral connected with the intel- 
 lectual order: in fact, the will cannot act without the concurrence 
 of the understanding; but this concurrence could not be complete 
 without a perfect equahty of the two powers, an equality not to 
 be looked for in our falk'u nature. ^ Discernment, when it is ap 
 plied to the distinction between good and e\il, receives the name 
 of conscience, and then one also finds in it a something passive, 
 extraneous to tlie human personality. For the wicked man, there 
 is in it a gnawing worm which allows him no repose, a scum 
 wiiicii lie would willingly cast far away from him: for the good 
 man. the feeling of his innocence is like a solid suit of armor or a 
 
 ' Purgatorio, .Kviii..21. 
 
 Innate within you is the power that counsels. 
 And it should keep the threshold of assent. 
 
 C'f. St. Thomas, la 3a>. (\. 14. 2. 
 
 ' Convlto, ill., 2; iv., 8.— Cf. St. Thomas. Pmlng. in Ethie. Aristot. 
 
 ' Paradfso. v., '?: vll.. 20; xv.. 27.
 
 2O0 Da?ite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 faithful companion whose presence reassures him in the midst of 
 dangers. ' 
 
 Here again we must dulj' consider the observations which have 
 been adduced, and deduce from them practical consequences. 
 The antagonism between vice and virtue had been made the sub- 
 ject of a fable dear to the poets and philosophers of antiquity, as 
 a symbol, and as a lesson. The Italian poet appropriated and 
 rejuvenated it. Two women appeared before him. The one was 
 pale, mis-shapen, and a stammerer, but, when the eye rested up- 
 on her, it seemed to give to her beauty, color, and voice: she 
 sang, and, a harmonious syren, she at once captivated imprudent 
 ears. The other, in turn, showed herself simple and wortliy of 
 veneration ; casting a lofty glance upon her rival, she caused her 
 garments to be rent asunder, and exhibited her tainted by an in- 
 fectious corruption. Of these two women, the first was Volupt- 
 uousness, the second. Wisdom. ' 
 
 But the struggle is easy for him who has not fallen ; to con- 
 template it in all its interest, we must consider it at the doubtful 
 moment when the soul, long held under tlie sombre sway of vice, 
 escapes from it by a happy deliverance, and strives to re-enter the 
 
 ' Inferno, xxviii., IW.— Purgatorio, xiii., 30.— Cf. Plato, Repub., passim. 
 — Clcer. : Mea mihi conscientia pluris quam omnium sermo.— St. Thomas, 
 la, q. 79,13; In, 2«, q. 94. 1. 
 
 ■•' PurKat(jrlo, xl.x.. 3.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 201 
 
 domain of virtue. .The poet has chosen to describe under an al- 
 legorical veil of transparent tissue ' this expiatory pilgrimage, 
 this pathway constructed by mercy wliich leads from the city of 
 the wicked, to the city of God. Man, in his return to good, may 
 be hindered by obstacles of more than one kind. The first is is- 
 olation ; this is the fate of him, who, by his fall, lias cut himself 
 off from religious society, which alone could offer him the start- 
 ing point necessary to enable him to begin to rise again. Then 
 comes negligence, which causes men to delay untQ their last mo- 
 ments, the formation of salutary aspirations ; death may come un- 
 expectedly, breaking ui upon sterile regrets; or again, the multi- 
 tude of temporal occupations may leave to spiritual interests a 
 narrowly restricted and sorely disputed place. Still, all these ob- 
 stacles united cannot autliorize despair. Up to the last hour of 
 life, the stem of hope remains green ; the Muwer of repentance 
 may always burst into bloom upon it. - Three preliminary con- 
 
 ' Purpratorio, viii., 7. 
 
 Here, Reader, fl.\ tliiiie eyes well on the truth. 
 For now indeed so subtile is the veil. 
 Surely to penetrate within is easy. 
 2 Purgatorio, iii., 46; iv., 38 ; v., 19; vii., 31. 
 * * * * * iji not so lost 
 Eternal Love, that it cannot return. 
 So long as hope has anylhinp of green.
 
 202 Dante, and Catholic PJiilosophy 
 
 ditions form, as it were, the three steps that lead to the threshold 
 of expiation. AVe must have a faithful conscience which shall 
 reflect in its bright transparency, the image of past faults ; a po- 
 tent sorrow which shall rend and reduce to ashes, the hardness 
 of our hearts ; and a firm resolution to satisfy eternal justice by 
 a spontaneous chastisement. But the offender could not be the 
 proper judge of his own sincerity, the arbiter of the amount of 
 tears he ought to shed, the sole executor of the punishment in- 
 curred by him. Thence the necessity of an external ministry, of 
 a tribunal for souls, of which the judge, holding in his hand the 
 two keys of science and of authority, may open and shut, accord- 
 ing to desert, the gateway of reconciliation.' This gate opens the 
 way to a humiliating and laborious career, but one in which the fa- 
 tigue diminishes, and the ignominy is effaced, in accordance with 
 the diminution in the number of steps still remaining to be trod- 
 den ere the goal be reached. But woe to him who should cast a 
 glance backward ! for him would vanish the fruit of the trials al- 
 ready happily ended.- He who wishes to walk in the way even 
 
 ' Purgatorio, ix., 43. 
 
 I saw a portal, and three stairs beneath. 
 Diverse in colour, to go up to it, 
 And a gate-keeper, who yet spake uo word. 
 Cf. St. Gregory, Homilki, xvl., in Ezechklcm. St. Bonaveutura, Com- 
 pendium, vl., 25. 
 - Purgatorio, ix., 38, 44. 
 
 ♦ * * Forth returns whoever looks behind.
 
 In the TJiirtcentJi Century. 203 
 
 to the end, must first apply himself to tlie iiieditatiou of the ex- 
 amples furnished him, by profane history and the Holy Scriptures, 
 of the vices to which he had been addicted, and of the contrary 
 virtues. Thus regarded in the living types wherein they have 
 found their most complete expression, vice and virtue cannot be 
 compared without calling forth an energetic preference.' From 
 that moment, he will betake himself to the practice of acts con- 
 trary to those of which he wishes to obliterate the traces witliin 
 liis soul. Habit, by an equal force, will destroy the pervese dis- 
 positions formed by habit, and. itself a second nature, will neu- 
 tralize the evil tendencies of nature.- These efforts, and the re- 
 sistances they encounter, lead to the employment of voluntary 
 suffering as a means of repressing, or. to speak the language of 
 asceticism, of mortifying, of anniliilating unregulated appetites. 
 The image of God winch dwelt in the innocent soul has disap- 
 peared in the presence of sin : it has left a void which reparative 
 sorrow alone can till.^ The combined resources which the most 
 
 ' Purffatorio, ija»sini, especially xili., 13. 
 
 - Purgalorio, pa«sim. Coavlto, ill., 8. 
 
 Cf. Aristot., Ethics, 11., 1. 
 
 3 Purgatorio, xix., 31.— Paradiso, vii., 28. 
 
 And to his dignity no more returns. 
 Unless be fill up where transgression empties 
 With righteous pains for criminal dellghU* 
 
 Cf. St. Bonaventura, Com^cndixxm. vii.. 2,
 
 204 Dante, a?ui Catholic Philosophy 
 
 profound knowledge of the human heart can put at the service of 
 the most steadfast courage, would still prove insufficient. There 
 are secret horrors which return to trouble the memory. The de- 
 mon of fear comes gliding athwart the paths of peniteuce.i Be- 
 sides, the work of moral regeneration is a second creation; it 
 could not be accomplished without divine intervention. It is to 
 be solicited by prayer ; prayer does violence even to the Al- 
 mighty, because the Almighty has made to Himself a tender law 
 of permitting Himself to be overcome by love, that He may in 
 His turn overcome by beneficence.'' Finally, at tlie term of the 
 expiatory course, as at its beginning, to quit it as well as to en- 
 ter upon it, we must render submission to a religious authority, 
 and fulfil the conditions without which God does not treat with 
 lis : confession for oblivion, tears for consolation, and shame for 
 definitive rehabilitation.'' Rehabilitation replaces man on the lofty 
 
 ' Piirgatorio, viii., 31. 
 
 2 Purgatorlo, ix., 38 ; xi., 1 ; etc., etc. 
 
 Purgatorio, vi., 10.— Paradise, xx., 33. 
 
 Re^ium cceUjrum suflfereth violence 
 From fervent love, and from that living hope 
 That overcometh the Divine volition ; 
 Not In the guise that man o'ercouieth man. 
 But conquers It because it will be conquered. 
 And conquered, conquers by benignity. 
 
 Cf. Boethius, 1., v., pros., G. 
 
 " Pijrgalorlo, xxxi., 1, etc.— Cf. St. Thomas, 3a q. 84-90,
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 205 
 
 [ilaiio which he occupied in tlie beginning: it remakes him suci; 
 ;ts iic was when lie came fruni tlie hand of his Creator; it re- 
 ennslrncts for liiin in the joys of liis conscience a sort of moral 
 l-'.iicii. the highest degree of blessedness that can be tasted upon 
 earth. This terrestrial lieatitude consists in the virtuous exercise 
 of the human faculties, in a constant activity which witnesses 
 to itself as In the legitimacy of its actions.] Xevertheless, this Is 
 not the last limit whieh has been set to the happiness of man; or 
 rather, this was the limit set by reason, but revelation has car- 
 ried it beyond.'^ 
 
 II. 
 The same drama that we have seen unfolded in regard to the 
 individual, will be represented also in history, only with other 
 events, and under more solenni forms. The poet contemplates, 
 under figure of a magnificent vision,'' the religious, and conse- 
 quently the moral and intellectual destinies of the luunan race. 
 The scene opens in the terrestrial paradise, a sojourn of ineffable 
 delights, first-fiiiits of the love of God, the abiding-place of that 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxvii., and following, Dc Monarchiu, lii. . . . Beatitudi- 
 nem hujus vitas quie in operatione propria virtu t is conslstit, et per terres- 
 trein paradisum Oguratur . . .— Convito, iv., 17'.— Cf. Aristot., Ethics, i., 8. 
 
 ? Convito, iv., 23.- Cf. Plato, Epinomis, Bepub. vi. 
 
 ^ PurKatorio, xxix.-xxxiii.
 
 2o6 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 golden age of which the imperfect remembrance still charmed the 
 dreams of the antique world. But, in presence of the recent marvels 
 of creation, and of tlie universal obedience which heaven and earth 
 yielded to their Author, woman alone, a creature that had just 
 emerged from nothingness, refused to endure the veil of happy 
 ignorance which covered her eyes. Man became her accomplice : 
 banished, he exchanged joys without a toucli of bitterness for 
 misery and tears. And yet, another age of gold was to flourish, 
 and the fallen race to re-enter into its inheritance.' Tliis trium- 
 phal return is figured by the miraculous procession which comes 
 to take possession of the re-found Eden. Amid Apocalyptic 
 splendors, preceded by twenty-four ancients, who are the writers 
 of tlie Old Law, surrounded by the four prophetic animals, sym- 
 l)olizing the four Evangelists, and followed by seven other person- 
 ages, in whom wc recognize the authors of the other books of the 
 New Law," Christ advances under tlie form of a griffon, whose 
 toirestrial body and ierial wings denote the hypostatic union of 
 
 1 Purgatorio, xxix., 9. 
 
 For there where earth and heaven obedient were. 
 The woman only, and but ju.st created. 
 Could not endure to stay 'neaih any veil. 
 Paradise, xxvl., 39.-Cf. Hugh of St. Victor, Erudit. thcolog., 1. 6.-St. 
 Bonaventura, Comprndhim, li. fi5. 
 
 - Purgatorlo, xxix., 28, 31, 15.— Cf. Richard of St. Victor, super Apoc- 
 nlypmim.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 207 
 
 the two natures, human and divine.' He draws a car, emblem of 
 the Church, on which stands a lady clothed in symbolic garments ; 
 this is Theology : ^ three nymphs on her right hand, and four upon 
 her left, represent the theological and the cardinal virtues passing 
 on together with harmonious steps. As the hymns resound, sung 
 by the angels, the train progresses and approaches the tree of the 
 knowledge of good and evil, which, according to a beautiful Ira- 
 ditioii. has become the tree of salvation, tlie redeeming cross. ^ 
 The car remains attached to tiiis tree. and. while the glorious lad\', 
 with licr seven conii);(ni'>iis. is left to guard it. the griffon departs 
 with the ancients ; Christ, quitlini: tlip eartli. leaves the Church 
 under the care of knowledge and virtue. ^ But suddenly, an 
 
 1 Purffatorio,xxix.,3r..—Cf. St. Bona Ventura, n)P.saJni., 90; i» Lvcam, 
 
 xili., 34. 
 
 - Purpatorio, xxx., 11. 
 
 Over her snow-white veil with olive cinct 
 
 Appeared a lady under a green mantle. 
 
 Vested in color of the living flame. 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxxli.. lo.-Cf. St. Bonavenfura, Senn.. 1. dc Invent. S. 
 
 Cnnix. There is also in this allegory a reminiscence of the tree In the 
 
 vision of Daniel, which is likewise a flgure of the cross. St. Bonaven- 
 
 tura. Compendium, iv., 21. 
 
 ■' Purgatorio, xxxii., 17-30. Dean Plumptre's Tr. 
 
 Alone she sat, on ground of truth the base. 
 
 Left there as guardian of the mystic car.
 
 208 Dante, and Catholic Pliilosopliy 
 
 eagle falls like lightning upon the tree, from whicli he tears the 
 bark, and upon the oar, wliich bends beneath his weight. Then 
 comes a fox which finds its way within, and tlien a ]iortion is 
 torn off by a dragon tliat issues from the gaping earth. Tlius far 
 it is easy to recognize the persecutions of tlie Roman emperors 
 which so harried the Church, tlie lieresies by which it was deso- 
 lated, and the seliisms by wliicli it was torn. Soon, tlie eagle re- 
 appeared, less menacing but not less dangerous ; he shook his 
 plumes above the sacred car, which speedily underwent a mon- 
 strous transformation. From divers parts of it arose seven heads 
 armed with ten horns ; a courtesan was seated in the midst ; a 
 giant stood at her side, exchanging with her impure caresses 
 which he interrupted to scourge her cruelly. Tlien, cutting loose 
 the metamorphosed car, he bears it away, and is lost witli it in 
 the depths of the forest. Is not this again the Cliurch, enriclied 
 by the gifts of princes who have become her protectors, sadly 
 marred in appearance, sundry of her members defiled by the taint 
 of the seven capital sins, and herself ruled overby un worth }• pon- 
 tiffs? Is not this the court of Rome, exclianging criminal flat- 
 teries with the temporal power, which flatteries are to be followed 
 by cruel injuries, when the Holy See, torn from tlie foot of tiic 
 cross of the Vatican is transferred to a dislanl land, ou the banks 
 of a foreign river?' But these ills will not bo wiiliout end nor 
 
 ' Purgatorlo, xxxli., 37-53.— We here repeat tliat we cannot acquiesce 
 In the severity o( these judgments, dictated by anger and penned in sor- 
 row.
 
 /// tJic Thirteenth Centiity. 209 
 
 without retribution. The tree that lost timl tluit saved the world 
 canuot be touclied with iaiputiity. ;ind if tiie Church lias been 
 made uiilitaut here below, il is uitli tlie liabilitj' of suffering from 
 passing reverses, but also w itii the assurance of final victory.' 
 
 III. 
 
 Pursuing this species of induction, with whicli we have to make 
 ourselves familiar, and which concludes from the varied facts of 
 the visible to the invariable laws of the invisible world, we are 
 led by our thought into the places where expiations begun here 
 below, an.id many trials and interruptions, are finished under the 
 operation of an unalterable law. At the same time that souls are 
 there purified from the stains of earth, they are initiated into the 
 joys of heaven. A.nd the sufferings, be they as rigorous as they 
 may in their intensity, find an incomparable solace in the certainty 
 of their finall}' coming to an end. 
 
 1. "We may represent to ourselves Purgatory as a mountain, of 
 wliich the base is laved by the dcean. while the summit touches 
 the heavens. Conical in its structure, it is divided into nine parts. 
 The first division is a sort of vestibule, the inhabitants of which 
 expiate by a proportionate delav the detriment to their souls oc- 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxxii., 15; xxxlii., 12.— Cf. St. Bonavenlura, in Psalm. 
 1 ; in Lucam, xiii., 19. The Church militant is figured by the terrestrial 
 paradise.
 
 2 1 o Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 casioned b}' the tardiness of their repentance. Then follow seven 
 concentric circles, one above anoilicr, each zone narrower than the 
 one below il : in these is wrought llio iHiriricaliun from the seven 
 principal vices, the seven culpahle forms of love. Finally, at the 
 top, at the termination of the region of expiations, the terrestrial 
 paradise extends its nmbrageons solitndes, into which enter only 
 the regenerated sonls who come to drink from two springs, for- 
 getfnlness of their errors and remembrance of their merits.' 
 
 2. They who dwell in these melancholy regions show them- 
 selves invested with the subtile bodies of wliich we have already 
 explained the formation ; bodies impalpable, eluding liim who 
 would embrace them, not intercepting the light, and yet so organ- 
 ized that suffering may be possible within and Aisible without. -' 
 This is why material torments are prepared for them, exactly pro- 
 portioned to the faults they are to rep;iir: enormous burdens bow- 
 
 ' Purgatorio. passim. 
 * Purgatorio, ii., 27. 
 
 O empty shadows, save in aspect only ; 
 Three times behind it did I clasp my hands. 
 As oft returned with them to my own breast ! 
 Purgatorio, v., 0. 
 
 When they became aware I gave no place 
 For passage of the sunshine through my body, 
 They changed their song into a long, hoarse " Oh ! " 
 Ihid., xxi., 49 ; xxv., 35; xxvi., 4.
 
 /// the Thirteenth Cefitury. 2 1 1 
 
 ing the backs of the proud : Imir shirts and blindness for the en- 
 vious: dense smoke enveloping such as have given way to anger; 
 the incessant nnward motion of the slothful : the ignoniiuions pos- 
 tuic (if the avaricious, groveling upon the earth, the treasnres of 
 which they had loved too dearly: hunger emaciating the visages 
 of the gluttonous : the tlame whence the voluptuous is.nie puri- 
 fied. To these pangs are united other penitential means of which 
 Christian asceticism had already made essay in this life — medita- 
 tion, prayer, and confession.' 
 
 3. In this rigorous state in which they have been placed by 
 death, the suffering just preserve the memory of their past life, 
 and. if the knowledge of the present is lacking to them, a respect- 
 able, because widely spread, opinion attributes to them a knowl- 
 edge of the future. They then find themselves with their previ- 
 ous faculties, inclinations, and affections, except that all which 
 savored of evil has been eliminated.- For them, terrestrial riv.'il- 
 ries have vanished with the terrestrial distinctions of which they 
 were the result. If they keep up an interest in the affairs of this 
 nether world, it is through a mnlual interchange of compassion 
 and pra3'ers. Initiated into all the mysteries of sorrow, they ask 
 that Heaven may spare such pains to us; and, on oiu" side, our 
 
 ' Pnrgatnrio, p«s,sim.— Cf. Bonaventiira, Compendium, vii., 3, 3.— Cf. 
 Boethius, lit), iv., pros. 4. 
 2 Purgatorio, ii., 36; viii., 42; .\iv., 24, 3:3.
 
 212 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 prayers and pious works asccml to God whom they incline 
 toward us, to descend again in blessings upon tlie just whose 
 term of penance they abridge.' But canscience, which was giv- 
 en to man to control the impatience of liis desires, justifies in 
 their eyes the rigors wliich they endure ; it makes them accept 
 and almost hold dear tliese reparative sufferings." Tlie tliought 
 of the accomplishment of the eternal decrees ; the certainty of the 
 happy impossibility of sinning thenceforth in which they find 
 themselves; the hope of tlie glorious inheritance the possession 
 of which cannot be deferred for them beyond the last day of the 
 world; finally love, which never leaves them; then too the fra- 
 ternal canticles chanted together, the sacred texts repeated in 
 frequent converse, the peace of cloudless days, and the nights 
 passed under the guardianship of angels ; ^ tlio unity of tlie suf- 
 fering Churcli witli the Church militant and tlie Church trium- 
 phant : these are surely consolations suflficient to sustain the soul 
 until the hour of deliverance comes. At that liour, the soul sud- 
 denly experiences within itself the feeling of recovered purity and 
 
 1 Purgatorio, vii., 46 ; xix., 45; xi., 7 ; iil., 48; iv., 46; v., 25, etc.— Cf. 
 St. Bonaventura, Cnmpendium, vii., 4. 
 
 ^ Purgatorio, xxi., 27 ; xxvi., .'j ; xlx., 26. 
 
 ' Purgatorio, viii., 9.— Cf. St. Bonaventura, Compendium, vii., 3. In 
 maoist.sent., lib. iv., Dist. 20. )). 1. q. i"). Angels and demons present 
 within the limits of Purgatory.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 213 
 
 re-conquered freedom : it wills to make trial of its liberty, it finds 
 itself joyous in having tlius willed, and, whilst the sacred moun- 
 tain trembles and innumerable acclamations are heard, it rises, 
 borne only by its own will, toward the spheres of eternal bless- 
 edness.' 
 
 IV. 
 
 After having accompanied humanity through all the phases of 
 this existence, compoimded of good and evil, which it has tra- 
 versed, we must make ourselves acquainted with the medium in 
 which they are accomplished. For. if man rcHects within him- 
 self nature, as a diminished but yet living image, he, in turn, leaves 
 in nature a reflection of himself, feebler and less animated but 
 more extended. These are two foci, which mutually exchange 
 luminous rays: the first named concentrates, the second, disperses 
 them. 
 
 1. The incompleteness of contemporary knowledge reduced to 
 a small number the really scientific explanations of the successive 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxi., 25. 
 
 It trembles here, whenever any soul 
 Feels Itself pure, so that it soars, or moves 
 To mount aloft, and such a cry attends it. 
 
 Of purity the will alone Rives proof. 
 Which, being wholly free to change its convent, 
 Takes by surprise the soul, and helps it ply.
 
 2 1 4 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 facts in nature. Rain, lightning, volcanoes, the ebb and flow of 
 the sea,' all the phenomena which, by their grandeur or b}' their 
 frequent occurrence, called forth a livelier attention, gave rise to 
 hypotheses unequally satisfactory, rarely connected by any logical 
 bond, and forming among themselves no body of doctrines. On 
 the contrary, the ensemble of physical phenomena, the plan, the 
 relations, the reciprocal action of the larger bodies in creation, the 
 system of the visible universe, readily lent itself to general views, 
 to deductions from analogy, to the divinations of the higher met- 
 aphysics, to reasonings based upon the consideration of final 
 causes. Philosophy there found itself in its own domain. 
 
 2. An inexact but universally admitted cosmography fixed 
 the dimensions of the terrestrial globe, making it 6,500 miles in 
 diameter, and consequently 20,400 miles in circumference.'' The 
 configuration of this globe was scarcely more accurately known. 
 Jerusalem, the moral centre of humanity, was regarded as also 
 the geographical centre of the continent set apart for the habita- 
 tion of men.'' From the sources of the Ebro to the mouths of the 
 Ganges, from the extremity of Norway to the end of Ethiopia, the 
 
 ' Purgatorio, v., 38.— Paradise, viii., 25 : xvi., 28. 
 
 And as the turning of the lunar heaven 
 Covers and bares the shores without a pause. 
 
 Paradise, xxiii.. 21. 
 
 * Convito, 1i., 7, in fine. ' Purgatorio, xxvii., 1 ; ii., 1.
 
 /;/ the ThirtccJith Century. 2 1 5 
 
 inhabited world filled up nearly one hemisphere ; ' the ocean em- 
 braced the other ; and yet. a prophetic idea made men dream of 
 distant regions beyond the pillars of Hercules, protected against 
 the daring of navigators by a superstitious fear kept up through 
 old legends.'' Then antipodal regions, placed outside of actual 
 exploration, became the abode and asylum of mystical imaginings. 
 It was natural there to find the site, henceforth inaccessible, of 
 khe terrestrial paradise. It seemed a noble thought to place 
 the spot where the first father came into being and lost his race, 
 diametrically oppo.site to that other sacred .spot where the Son of 
 Man died to save that race. Thus the mountain of Eden and the 
 mountain of Jerusalem were as the two poles of the world, and 
 sustained the axis on which it accomplished its revolutions. It 
 seemed also fitting to repeople this primitive land which sin had 
 made a solitude, by placing within it the pains of purgatory, re- 
 parative of sin. Consequently, it became proper to represent it 
 (as in fact was done) as a liigh cone, divided itito several zones, 
 at the base of which are lulled all tlie storms that might disturb 
 the calm of penitence, whilst tlie summit fades away into the ex- 
 panse of pure air. where weigiit ceases to exert its infiuence, and 
 
 • Purgatorio, ibid.— Inferno, xxxiv., 42. 
 ' Inferno, xxvi.. 37.— Paradiso, xxvii.. 28.
 
 2i6 Da?tte, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 whence it is easy to lift oneself to the skies.' In the contrasted 
 region, beneath the ground on which we tread, open the gulfs of hell. 
 At its lowest depth is found the point toward which all bodies tend. 
 There we find also the spirit of evil dwelling in a case of 
 ice. A similar void traverses the depths of the other half of the 
 globe. These subterranean abysses tell of ancient catastrophes, 
 doubtless anterior to the existence of the human race, and yet re- 
 tained in its memory. Perhaps when the evil angel fell from 
 heaven, the land, which occupied the other hemisphere, was 
 striken with fear at beholding this fall, and made to itself a veil 
 
 ' Purgatorio, iv., 23 ; xxi., 20. 
 
 ***** Imagine Zlon 
 Together with this mount on earth to stand. 
 So that they both one sole horizon have. 
 
 And hemispheres diverse ; * * « 
 Free is it here from every permutation ; 
 What from itself heaven In itself reoeiveth 
 Can be of this the cau.'se, and naught beside ; 
 Because that neither rain, nor hail, nor snow. 
 Nor dew, nor lioar-frost any higher faUs 
 Than the short little stairway of three steps. 
 Paradise, i., 31.— Cf. on the geographical and meteorological position of 
 the terrestrial Paradise, Bede, quoted by St Thomas, 1«, q. 102, 1 ; St. John 
 Damascene, quoted by St. Bonaventura, Compendium, ii.,64 ; and Isidore 
 Etymol., xiv., 4.
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. 217 
 
 of the sea; then, retreating beneath the heavy weight of the rep- 
 robate, it hollowed out lliese interior cavities, sought refuge in 
 our hemisphere, and formed the continent on which we live.' 
 
 3. Astronomical studies were somewhat more advanced. At 
 least, the apparent revolutions which wrought change in the aspect 
 of the celestial vault, had been described in the books of Ptolemy. 
 Arabian observers had noted several constellations in the vicinity 
 of the Antarctic pole.2 Certain facts, such as eclipses, the spots 
 on the moon, and the milky way, had suggested felicitous ex- 
 planations.^ While failing to recognize the place which the sun 
 
 • Inferno, xxxlv., 41. 
 
 Upon tbis side he fell down out of heaven. 
 And all the land, that whilom here emerged. 
 For fear of him made of the sea a veil, 
 And came to our hemisphere ; and peradventure 
 To flee from him, what on this side appears 
 Left the place vacant here, and back recoiled. 
 "^ Purgatorio, i., 8 ; viii., 28. 
 
 To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind 
 Upon the other pole, and saw four stars, etc. 
 Cf. M. Biagioli, commentary on this passage. 
 
 5 Paradise, ii., 21 ; xiv., 34.— Convito, il., 14, 18.— Divers astronomical 
 notions. Inferno, xxvi., 43 ; Purgatorio, iv., 31 ; xv., 2.— Paradiso, i., 13 ; 
 xxvii., 37.— Cf. Arlstot., tie Coeloet mundi), passim.
 
 2 1 8 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 occupies in the planetan' sj-steni, observers could not fail to ap- 
 preciate the greatness of its volume and the importance of its 
 functions: it was saluted as the parent of humanity, the first 
 minister of nature; in it men belield an image of God.' Nor was 
 it without an impression of religious awe that mankind had con- 
 templated the innumerable orbs suspended in immensity. All 
 that was not yet conceded to the stars in distance and in dimen- 
 sions, was attributed to them in the way of influences. They 
 were presimied to preside over the generation of beings : from them 
 emanated the life distributed throughout all the families of plants, 
 and all the tribes of animals." As a seal makes an impression on 
 the docile wax, so did their power imprint an Ineffaceable character 
 on the souls of men at the time of their birth ; they continued to 
 intervene in the instinctive movements which precede the exer- 
 cise of the will : thus was due to them a share in the honors ren- 
 dered to genius, in the deserts of actions, whether good or bad. 
 
 > Paradise, x.. 10-18 ; xv., 26. 
 
 The greatest of the ministers of nature. 
 Who with the power of heave a the world imprints. 
 Ibid., xxvil., 46. Cf. Plato, Tima2us, Repub., vi. Aristot., Physics, ii., 1. 
 * Piirgatorlo, xxxii., 18.— Paradise, vii., 47. 
 
 The soul of every brute and of the plants 
 
 By Its potential temperament attracts 
 Tlie ray and motion of tlie lioly lights.
 
 in the J/iirtii/it/i Century. 219 
 
 It even needed a sort of audacity thus to limit their empire and 
 reserve the standing ground of freedom. Temerity did not go so 
 far as to deny the vahie of horoscopes, or to contest the share of 
 the celestial motions in the events that agitate the earth.' We 
 already know wliat, according to the opinions of the day, were 
 tlie order and the number of the heavens. The necessity of ex- 
 plaining the universal rotation from east to west had caused to be 
 added to the eight spheres of the planets and the fixed stars, a 
 ninth heaven, called tlie primum mobile.'^ This heaven, in its 
 turn, was presumed to receive its motion from the attractioi\ ex- 
 ercised upon every point of the universe by the enveloping Em- 
 pyrean, the abode of the Divinity, filled with light,heat, and love. 
 Love is the last word of the system of the world : it is love that 
 gives rise to the harmony of the spheres, a doctrine so renowned 
 
 ' Inferno, xv., 19. — Purgatorio, xvi., 25 ; xx., 5 ; xxx.. 37.— Paradise 
 iv., 20 ; xiii., 34, 44 ; xxii., 38. 
 
 O glorious stars, light impregnated 
 With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge 
 All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be. 
 Convito, ii., 7.— Cf. Plato, Timipus.— Aristot., de Gen. ii., 3. 
 ' Paradise, xxlli., 38 ; xxvii., 34.— Convlte, ii., 8, 4.— Cf. St. Thomas 1», 
 q. 68, 4. 
 
 =* Purgatorio, xxvi., 30.— Paradise, xxx., 14.— Cf. Cicero, Somnium 
 Sctpiod IS.— Plato, Phieilrus.— St. Thomas, l'>, q. 66, 3.
 
 220 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 among the thinkers of antiquity, a problem solved in the mathe- 
 matical laws of modern science.* 
 
 4. But the object of this immense and multiform love, the Being 
 who continually moves the worlds by attracting them to Himself, 
 is none other than God.'^ He has set His own likeness in the ad- 
 mirable order which is the form of creation ; He has left His 
 footprints in the beings that compose it, by giving to them, accord- 
 ing to their degree of perfection, an instinct which makes them 
 contribute in due proportion to the general order. Thus a potent 
 impulse causes each creature to pass in some determinate direc- 
 tion across the great sea of existence, expands fire, condenses the 
 earth, makes hearts beat, and arouses intelligences.^ Thus nature 
 
 • Paradlao, i., 26.— Cf. Plato, Rep.,x.— Cicero, SomjiiMm ScipioJiis. — 
 Plato, Banquet. — Bcethlus, lib. 11., iiros. '^. 
 ^ Paradise, i., 25. 
 
 * * * * Love who governest tbe heaven 
 
 * * * * The wheel which thou dost make eternal 
 Desiring thee, made nie attentive to it 
 
 By harmouy thou dost modulate and measure. 
 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, xii.— Boethius, lib. i, metr. 5.— St. Thomas la 
 q. 2, art. 3. 
 ^ Paradise, i., 35. 
 
 * * * * All things whate'er they be 
 
 Have order among themselves, and this is form. 
 
 That makes the universe resemble God 
 
 Hence they move onward unto ports diverse 
 O'er the great sea of lieing; and each one 
 With Instinct given it which bears it on. 
 Ibid, vlll., 4.— The great sea of existence Is an expression employed by 
 St. John Damascene.— Cf. St. Thomas, 1«, q. 5, 3.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 221 
 
 may be considered as a divine art wrong:ht by tlio Eternal Artist. 
 Art may be considered under three relations : in the thon^ht of 
 the artist, in the instrument wliicli he employs, and in the matter 
 that he fasliions. Similarl}', nature is first in the thought of God ; 
 thus far it is God Himself, and in this point of view it is inviola" 
 ble, irreproachable, indefectible. Nature is then in the licavens 
 as in an instrument by means of which the supreme goodness is 
 exteriorly reproduced ; and, as this instrument is perfect, nature 
 is also there without flaw. It is finally in the matter fashioned ; 
 and there alone is it that the divine action and the celestial influence 
 encountera radical principle of imperfection which they may correct 
 but not destroy ; there alone is found in nature the antagonism 
 between good and evil.' 
 
 ' Paradise, i.,l;x.,4;xxxl.,8; viii., 39.— Inferno, xi., "Si.—DcMonarch- 
 ia. ii. —Of. Plato, TheaHet. Timaeus.— Chalcidius, in Tiniirinn 4. 339, 
 408. Dc Caiisis 20 : "DiversiQcantur bonitates et dona ex concursu 
 recipientis — Rn(L,24. And, as great thoughts are perpetuateil in 
 creat minds, see in the Elevatiniis on the Mysteries, by Bossuet, the 
 seventh Elevation, 2d week: De La Fccondite des arts.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Good. 
 
 tN the course of these researches, Good has already often re- 
 vealed itself, but partially, as if in shadow or behind a cloud. 
 The time has now come to look upon it face to face, to reach it 
 by rising from the known to the unknown— from man to society, 
 from this mortal life to immortality, from creatures confined with- 
 in the limitations of matter and of time to superior beings who 
 never were subjected to such bonds. 
 
 I. 
 
 1. Good, for man, is that which he ought to be ; it is tlie last 
 end of his existence. This end may be considered both as exter- 
 ior, since we tend toward it, and as iulciior, since a time conies 
 wlien we attain it. Good perceived as without, the possession 
 of which we strive to obtain, is happiness; good conceived as 
 witliin, and which we are to realize in ourselves, is called perfec- 
 tion. 
 
 Tlic end of man is made manifest to him by an instinct which 
 
 iliviiie goodness has placed in him as a germ, obscure in its betrin- 
 
 222
 
 DatUc, and CatJiolic Philosophy. 223 
 
 nings, and easy to confound witli the common appetites of tlic 
 brutes.' He first perceives ilie c.xiyienee of some unknown 
 thing to whicli he aspires, in wliieh alone his desires will find re- 
 pose. Then he seeks it : considering the beings that surround him, 
 he distinguishes and prefers himself. Then he distinguishes in 
 himself several parts ; he prefers that wliich is the most noble, 
 namely, the soul: and, as it is natural to take pleasure in tlie en- 
 joyment of the tiling loved, he takes pleasure above all in the use 
 of the faculties with which his soul has been endowed.^ He 
 thence learns that he was not born to lead the gross life of the 
 brutes, but to love and to know.^ Now, if the two principal 
 faculties of the soul are intellect and will, two kinds of functions 
 are to be attributed to it — the first, speculative, and the second, 
 practical. Hence, there are for man two destinies here below ; 
 the one active, wherein he seeks to labor himself ; the other 
 
 ' Convito, iv., 23: From the divine goodness sowed within and infused 
 into us from tbe beginning of our generation, arises a growth which the 
 Greeks call hoDneii, that is, the appetite of the natural mind, etc. 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xvii., 43.— Convito, iv., 23.— Cf. Plato. Banquet, Phaedrus. 
 —St. Thomas, la, 3a', n. 10, ait. 1. 
 ' Inferno, xxvi., 4i). 
 
 Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang ; 
 Ye were not made to live like unto brutes. 
 But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.
 
 224 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 contemplative, wliereiu he considers tlie operations of God and of 
 nature. TJiese two destinies, tigured in the Old Testament bj- Lia 
 and Rachel, and in the New, by Martha and Mary, arc represent- 
 ed in the poem by Matilda, the great countess, the indefatigable 
 ally of Gregory VII., and by Beatrice, the inspired saint. > Active 
 life, by developing the will of man, leads him to a first degree of 
 perfection, and the consciousness he has of this perfection attain- 
 ed, gives him a first measure of happiness. But the contemplative 
 life is the better part, since it consists in the exercise of the most 
 excellent faculty, the intelligence. Now the intelligence cannot 
 here below attain to its most complete exercise, which is, to con- 
 template the Being sovereignly intelligible, God. Hence, the end 
 which is truly the last end, perfection and happiness really worthy 
 of the name, are not to be attained in this world. The three wom- 
 en who went to visit the Saviour at the sepulchre, did not find 
 Him there, but they found in His place an angel who said to them : 
 He is not here, you. will see Him elsewhere. Similarly, three 
 schools, tliat of Epicurus, that of Zeno, and that of .\ristotle, seek, 
 in the terrestrial sepulchre which we inhabit, the sovereign good 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxvii.,a3;xxviii.,15;xxx., 11.— Convito,iv., 17; 11., 5, etc. 
 -Cf. Arlstot., Ethics, i., 6; x., 8 ; vli., 14.-Lia and Rachel, Richard of St. 
 Victor, de Praepar. ad coiUrmiil.. 1. (Commentators differ greatly in 
 regard to the personality of Matilda. Tr.l
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 225 
 
 ami fail to Hiul it. But the interior feeling which, like a heaven- 
 ly luessonger, comes to ns from al)ovc, makes known to us that in 
 anotlier life that Good awaits us. > 
 
 Thus tiie confused instinct, the awakening of which wo have 
 indicated, is no other than the love of Good, the innate and un- 
 dying thirst for unbounded happiness. It neutralizes in us the 
 power of the laws of nature which would keep us chained to this 
 earth ; it lifts us into a higher and purer sphere ; it leads us be- 
 yond the ordinary conditions of humanity, and, to express in a new 
 word the new existence into whicli it initiates us, it transhuman- 
 ates us. 2 We are mere defective mites, but one day, when our 
 
 > Convitfj, iv., 23 : By these three women may be understood the three 
 sects of the active life, namely, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Peripa- 
 tetics, who go to the sepulchre, that is, to the present world which is the 
 receptacle of corruptible things, and ask for the Saviour, that is to say, 
 beatitude, and do not find Hira, but they do And a youth in white garments, 
 who. . . is our nobility which comes from God . . . and he says to eacn one 
 of these sects, that is, to whomsoever goes seeking beatitude in the active 
 life, that it is not here . . . etc.— Cf. Plato, Epinomis.— St. Thomas, la, '2x, 
 q. 3, art. 8. 
 * Paradise, Iv., 42; x.xxiii., 10.— Jhid., ii., 7, and i., 24. 
 The con-created and perpetual thirst 
 For the realm deiform did hear us on. 
 As swift almost as ye the heavens behold. . . 
 To represent transhximanise In words 
 1 mposiiible were — 
 Cf, Boethius, lib. iv., metr. 1.— St. Bonaventura, TtUi. mentis ad Deum
 
 226 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 formation is compIeUcl, .vc sliall be given wings wherewith to liy 
 toward the supreme good. We are as creeping worms, but tiiesc 
 worms will develop into angeiic butterflies. ' 
 
 2. If science is the sovereign beatit\idc of tlie intelligence, it 
 cannot fail to attract all men by arousing in them the insatiable 
 desire of knowing, and, on the other hand, it must satisfy thi;^ 
 need by spreading itself abroad without being exhausted, giving 
 itself to all without suffering division. It cannot then allow it- 
 self to be acquired e.xcept on the condition of being in turn coni- 
 numicated ; thus it gives rise to two species of the exercise of 
 thought — study and teaching. - Now, study and teaching, to 
 attain their purpose, have need of a direction which long habit 
 
 ' Purgatorio, x., 42. 
 
 Do ye not comprebend that we are worms. 
 Born to bring f6rth the angelic butterfly 
 That flieth unto judgment without screen ? 
 Why floats aloft your spirit high in air ? 
 Like are ye unto Insects undeveloped. 
 Even as the worm in whom formation fails I 
 '^ Paradiso, 11., 4. 
 
 Ye other few who have the neck uplifted 
 Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which 
 One llveth here and grows not sated by it. . . 
 Convlto, i., 1.— Cf. Aristot.. Metaphys.. 1. St. Dionyslusthe Areopagite. df 
 Calenti Hierarchia, vM-
 
 In the Tliirtcentli Century. 227 
 
 alone can give them. The liabits which direct thought receive 
 llie name of intellectual virtues. They have their reward in the 
 possession of the trutli tu whicli they lead ; the more sublime the 
 truths, the sweeter and more precious is their possession. Thus 
 the few and incomplete notions which we can have of invisible 
 things, give rise to more joy in the human mind than the profuse 
 and certain information which we obtain through the senses.' 
 We have elsewhere mentioned the discouragements and illu- 
 sions which appear to deprive us of access to philosophical truths. 
 We must not forget the wonderful assistance which causes us to 
 triumph over these obstacles : the sudden flashes of light illumin- 
 ing the darkened understanding, the inspirations reviving the ex- 
 hausted imagination, and that power which is manifested in 
 certain persons, unexpected, impersonal, irresistible, whicli men 
 have thought descended directly from heaven, witness the name 
 which they have given to it, genius.^ 
 
 3. To the need of knowing, corresponds the need of loving. 
 Or rather, the same germ of love, which by a wise intellectual cul- 
 ture turns toward the true, when compassed about with a wise 
 moral culture, will be directed toward that which is good.^ A 
 
 ' Convito, iv. 17 ; ii., 3. Cf.— Intellectual Virtues, Aristot., Ethics, li., 1 ; 
 vl., ptusstm. 
 ' See above. Paradise, xxll., 38.— Inferno, Ix., 22, et* 
 ' Convito, iv., 22.— Cicero, Tyxscul., 111.
 
 228 Daiitc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 providential initiative is exerted within us unknown to ourselves; 
 it is shown b}' felicitous dispositions varying with the ages of life. 
 Adolescence has for its own, obedience and sweetness, modesty 
 and beauty : modesty, which comprises humility, purity, and 
 shame ; beauty, which consists in the proportion and healthful- 
 ness of all the parts of the bod}-, in their fidelity in conveying the 
 impressions of the soul, in corresponding to its impulses. The 
 ornaments of youth are tenderness, courtesy, loyalty, temperance, 
 and strength. We may say that the last two are the bridle and 
 the spur which reason employs in governing the appetites, as the 
 rider governs a generous steed. Old age is the time when the la- 
 borious acquisitions of past years are to be communicated : it 
 is the liour when the rose opens and sheds abroad its perfume. 
 The qualities proper to it are: prudence, justice, beneficence, and 
 affability. Finally, tlie last age rests in a serene and pious expec- 
 tation of death, in a grateful remembrance of past days, in an 
 affectionate aspiration toward God, who is very near.' Thus far 
 
 we have enumerated only the simple dispositions which may be 
 found innate in the soul. But, on the one hand, if they have 
 
 not been thus deposited as seed, they may be engrafted by educa- 
 tion.* And on the other, tlie will must co operate to insure their 
 
 ' Convlto, Iv., 24-28. 
 » Convito, iv., 21, 22.
 
 In the TJiirteentJi Century. 229 
 
 blossoming and their definitive fructification. By repeated acts 
 it makes them pass from the state of simple dispositions to the 
 state of habits. Now, a habit of the will which causes tlie proper 
 means to be selected between opposing excesses, constitutes that 
 in wliieh consists virtue.' " "We ma}' count eleven moral virtues: 
 courage, temperance, liberalit}', magnificence, magnanimity, the 
 moderate love of public chargeg, mansuetude, affability, veracit}', 
 amenity, and finally, justice.'-' 
 
 We ma}' again, in accordance with a still more renowned class- 
 ification, distinguish the Cardinal and the Theological virtues. 
 The former are four in number : prudence, justice, fortitude, and 
 temperance. These have their root in nature, and their recom- 
 pense in tlie happiness of this life. They then liave existed 
 among men of every time — the precursors of revelation, preparing 
 the way before it.^ The tlirec other virtues. unl\nown to those 
 who have not been visited by revelation, descended from heaven 
 
 • Convito, iv., 17. Cf. Aristot., Ethics, ii.. 6. St. Tbomas, la 2«, q. 134, 
 art. 3. 
 ' Convito, iv., 17. Cf. Aristot., Ethics, iii., G; iv., '\m?»Un. 
 
 3 Purgatorio, xxix., 44. 
 
 Upon the left hand four made holiday 
 
 Vested in purple, follosving the measure 
 
 Of one of them with three eyes in her head. 
 
 Paradise, x., xiv., xviii., xxi., passim. De Motiarchia, Iii. Cojvito 
 
 Iv.. 33.— Cf. Plato, Laws, 1.— Cicero, De Offlciis, 1.
 
 230 Dante, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 in companj' with revelation, and they will one day return whence 
 they came. These are, faith, hope, and charity.' 
 
 Faith may be defined, the substance of things hoped for, the evi- 
 dence of things not seen : the substance, for they have for us in 
 this world no other reality than that wliicli our belief gives to 
 them ; and the evidence, because these beliefs become the essential 
 premises of every ulterior syllogism." Hope is the certain expec- 
 tation of future reward, based upon the knowledge of the goodness 
 of God, and on the consciousness of a sincere efEort made to corres- 
 pond with assistance received.^ And last comes charity, the love 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxix., 41; xxxi.,37. De ^fonarchia. ill.— Cf.on the Seven 
 Virtues, Hugh of St. Victor, Sermo 39, and St. Thomas, prima, secundae, q. 
 61-62, 
 * Paradise, xxiv., 23. 
 
 Faith is the substance of the things we hope for. 
 And evidence of those that are not seen ; * * * 
 * * * They exist there only in belief, * * * 
 And it behoveth us from this belief 
 To reason without having other sight. 
 And hence it has the nature of evidence. 
 Cf. St. Thomas, prima, secundiB, q. 4, l. 
 " Paradise, xxv.,23. 
 
 Hope, said I, is the certain expectation 
 Of future glory, which Is tht; effe(^t 
 Of grace divine and merit precedent. 
 Cf. St. Thomas, prima, sfcundue, q. 62, 4.
 
 /// tJic Thirteenth Ceiitiiry. 23 1 
 
 of that ineffable good which philosophical reasoning and sacred au- 
 thority concur in making us recognize as the necessary object of 
 our affections; of that living good which runs to meet love, as 
 liglit tends to the body capable of reflecting it; which is multiplied 
 by being shared, which gives itself with so much the more effusive- 
 ness as it is sought with more ardor, and makes itself be the more 
 loved where there are a greater number who love it. ' But this 
 
 1 Paradise, xxvi., 9. 
 
 * * * * By philosophic arguments. 
 And by authority that hence descends. 
 Such love must needs imprint itseir in me; 
 For Good, so far as good, when comprehended. 
 Doth straight enkindle love, and so much greater 
 As more of goodness in itself it holds. . . . 
 Purgatorio, xiv., 29 ; xv., 23. 
 
 That goodness infinite and ineffable 
 Which is above there, runneth unto love. 
 As to a lucid body comes the sunbeam. 
 So much it gives itself as it finds ardor. 
 So that as far as charity extends. 
 O'er it increases the eternal valor. 
 And the more people thitherward aspire. 
 More are there to love well, and more they love there. 
 And, as a mirror, one refiects the other. 
 Cf. St Bernard, de Den diUueiulo.—St. Thomas, secunda secundas, q 
 S!, .). 4.^ 2.
 
 232 Dante, and Catholic Pliilosophy 
 
 love, the only one that is equally without jealousy and without 
 deception, and the faith and hope accompanying it, all three di- 
 vine virtues, are not sparks from an ordinary flame; they are pure 
 rays emanating immediately from Him who is the Sun of souls, 
 who enlightens and enkindles souls here below, while waiting 
 until He shall draw them nearer to Himself and envelop them in 
 His glory. This supernatural and gratuitous action (generating 
 and remunerating virtue ), the existence of which we must admit 
 if we have seriously examined the mysterious phenomena of the 
 moral world, is itself a mystery, and we name it, Grace. ' 
 
 TI. 
 1. In the beginning, the whole species was contained in a single 
 man ; and the perfections which have been described were united 
 in the first father, the tyjje of the human race of which he w;4s 
 to be the progenitor. Also, the aliniglit}' power that created him 
 endowed him with all the science that a soul set in a vessel 
 of flesh could contain. This exuberant thought felt the need of 
 producing itself exteriorly : he required a means of expression, in- 
 telligible to the mind and transmissible by the senses. This ne- 
 cessity engendered language. The primitive language, created 
 
 • Purgatorlo, viil., 32.— Paradise, x.. 29 ; xxviil., 37. 
 The radiance of grace, by vvliidi is kindled 
 True love, and wliieh thereafter grows by loving. 
 
 St. Thomas, prima, secund*, <). 110, 1.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 233 
 
 with the first soul, was perfect, as was tliat soul: man called all 
 creatures by their uaines, the said names being not arbitrary 
 terms, but words bearing with them their own definition. ' After 
 the fall, science and the primitive language were both lost; the 
 idioms, abandoned to the caprices of the divers races, varied and 
 renewed themselves like the leaves of the forest. Only, as the 
 first word, the root of the original language, had been a movement 
 toward God, indeed, the very name of God (^El\ so is the root of 
 the fallen tongues an interjection expressing grief. {Heu !) ' Thus 
 have we seen systems and schools multiplied, having nothing in 
 common but their inadequacy. The plenitude of science could be 
 refound nowhere save in a man in whom human nature should be 
 renewed and uplifted: it dwelt in the sacred breast that was 
 
 > Paradise, xiii., 13. 
 
 Into that bosom, thou believest, whence 
 
 Was drawn the rib to form the beauteous cheek. 
 Whose taste to all the world is costing dear,. .. 
 Whate'er of light it has to human nature 
 Been lawful to possess, was all infused. 
 Cf. St. Bonaventura, Compendium, ii., 62.— Dante, in the Parartiso, 
 xxvi., 42-44, supposes the natural origin of language and the extinction of 
 the primitive tongue. On the contrary, in the book, de Vulgari Eln- 
 qucutia, he presumes that the first language was created with man, and 
 that that language was Hebrew, lib. i., 3-5. 
 2 Paradise, xxvi., 45. De Vulgari Eloquentia, lib. i, 4.
 
 234 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 pierced on Calvary by the lance of a soldier.' Thence it was to 
 be diffused among the sages of the sanctuary, the Fathers and 
 Doctors of tlie Church, within that Catholic School where so 
 many noble minds were to meet and to follow one another. Sucli 
 were Dionysius the Areopagite, he who with his mortal eyes 
 penetrated the most deeply into celestial things ; Boethius, who. 
 on the eve of martyrdom, unveiled, and at the same time consoled, 
 all the miseries hidden beneath tlie illusions of this world ; Isidore, 
 Bede, Rabanus Maurus, Anselm, Bernard, Peter Damian ; Peter 
 the Lombard, who said that he accounted himself happy to be 
 able to cast his Sentences, like the widow's mite, into the treasury 
 of the temple; Hugh and Ricliard of St. Victor, who showed 
 themselves in their contemplations to be something more than 
 mere thoughtful men. Sucli were again, in times nearer to our 
 own, Peter the Spaniard and Albert the Great; Bonaventura, wlio 
 bore with him into the functions of an active ministry the lofty 
 mental absorption of Christian wisdom ; and Thomas of Aquino 
 whose name is above all our praise. ^ 
 
 2. Providence has not done less for the realm of ju.stice tliau 
 for that of truth. Law is one of the forms of Good ; and as Good 
 dwells in God Himself, and God wills above all else the perman- 
 ence (if His own being, He wills law. Now, since all that is 
 
 • Paradise, xili., 14. 
 
 5 Paradise, x., 34-45 ; xii., 43-47,
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 235 
 
 willed by Him is one thing with His will, wc must conclude that 
 Law, in its essence, is tlic divine will. In its temporal realization 
 here below, Law is the conformitj' of contingent facts with His 
 Immutable will. In fine, if we take the word in its most 
 restricted signification, Law is the sum of the relations real (0/ 
 property) and personal, of man to man. on the observance of 
 which social order depends.' 
 
 Man, in fact, has been placed on the confines of two worlds, as 
 the horizon which separates two hemispheres: the world of cor- 
 ruptible beings, and the world of incorruptibility.- Coordinated 
 in a nccessarj' relation to these two worlds, he has a twofold 
 mission. One is, to realize tlie entire sum of well-being possible 
 in this life; this end is reached by the accomplishing of ihe pre- 
 cepts of philosophy, Ijy the practice of intellectual and moral 
 virtues. The other is. to attain to eternal beatitude, and tliis is 
 accomplished by a docile adhesion to the teachings of revelation, 
 by the exercise of tlie theological virtues.^ Howe\er, this admir- 
 able economy would soon be disturbed b\' rebellions passions, if 
 these were not restrained by a judicious curb, and directed by a 
 guiding hand, if their impulses were not modified by exterior 
 
 ' De Monarchia, ii.— Cf. St. Thomas, la, 2ir, q. 91, 1. 
 
 ' De Monarchia, iii.— Cf. dc Causis, 2.— st. Bouaventura, Serm. 1, in 
 
 Hexamer. 
 3 De Monarchia, iii.
 
 236 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 circumstances ; the curb is Law ; the hand, authority ; the exterior 
 circumstances, society. To the two missions of man correspond 
 two kinds of law, of authority, of society ; the one temporal, 
 and the other spiritual; the organization of these two spheres will 
 be more nearly considered.' 
 
 The unity of the human race is a fact placed by all beliefs, an- 
 cient or modern, beyond the domain of controversy.- Hence, 
 there is for the human race but one single and common terrestrial 
 destination, which is the same as that of each man in particular. 
 This destination is, to reduce to act the whole power of intelli- 
 gence with which he is endowed, proposing to himself speculation 
 as his principal, and practice as his secondary object Such is the 
 all important purpose of civilization entire.' From another point 
 of view, if man is essentially social, if the need of living in society 
 groups individuals into families, families into cities, and cities 
 into nations, the same need draws together the nations among 
 
 ' De Monarchia, iii. — Purgatorio, xvi., 32. 
 
 Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place, 
 Behoved a king to have, who at the least 
 Of the true city should discern the tower. 
 The laws e.\ist, but who sets hand to them ? 
 Convito, IV., 9.— Cf. St. Thomas, prima, secundx, q. 95, 1. 
 * Convito, iv., 15. 
 ' De Monarchia, 1,
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 237 
 
 themselves. This drawing together, left to the ambitiuii of prin- 
 ces and the caprices of fortune, becomes collision : this is the 
 origin of war; and war implies bolii the absence and llio imjiort- 
 ance of^some legal order that may peacefully unite the nations to 
 make of them one universal society. ' 'I'he inevitable form of a 
 society thus conceived, will be unity ; foi unity is to our minds 
 the primal constituent of the divine essence in the image of 
 which human nature was made ; it is the law that presides over 
 the government of the world; it is the condition of existence, of 
 perfection, of harmon}' ; for again, one single will must govern, 
 in order to effect unanimity and consequently peace and concord 
 among tliose who obe}*. Raised to a degree of power which 
 should leave no place for desires or for passions, this single will 
 would be constrained to be just, and in turn, would constrain all 
 who might show themselves perverse. The rivalries between 
 princes and peoples would disappear, a general security would be 
 established, under favor of which the intellectual and moral ac- 
 tivity of minds would be developed. These inductions of reason- 
 ing, confirmed by the autliority of the learning of antiquity, by 
 Homer and b}"^ Aristotle, are still farther supported by the teeti- 
 
 ' Paradise, viii., 40. 
 
 Would It be worse. 
 
 For men on earth were they not citizens. 
 Convito, iv., 4.— Cf. ArisU)t., Politics, i.. 2.
 
 238 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 niony of Holy Writ. Is not this enough to lead to the conclu- 
 sion that a universal monarchy, that is, the dominion of one over 
 men and things in the order of time, is necessary to the well- 
 being of the world ? ^ 
 
 But who will lie the head of this monarchy, and who can claim 
 the right of imposing it upon men? By recognizing Law as the 
 divine will, and the invisible thoughts of God as translated into 
 visible characters in His works, we have only to look through 
 history to find signs of the providential vocation which led a 
 privileged race to the empire of the world. • Marvellous signs are 
 met with in the history of the Roman people ; for it is with peo- 
 ples as with men, some are born slaves and others kings. If 
 power pertains to nobility, and if nobility in its origin is inter- 
 changeable with heroism, what people was more heroic and could 
 more truly boast a series of the most virile virtues, from Torqua- 
 tus, Cincinnatus, Decius, and Camillus, down to Scipio, Cato, and 
 Pompey? If uprightness of intentions, solemnity of declaration, 
 moderation in victory, and wisdom in government, can legitimate 
 conquests, where can these conditions be more gloriously found ? 
 If prodigies be required, occurrences of that sort are not lacking in 
 the annals of the city for whose sake bucklers rained down from 
 
 ' Convito, iv., \.—T>cMonarcnia, lib. i., entire.— St. Thomas, dc Regim. 
 Princip., lib. i., cap. i., 2. 
 » De Moiiarchia, lib. ii., in priJic— Convito, iv., 4.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 239 
 
 heaven, and birds watched while its proper defenders slept. If 
 there be a judgment of God in the result of competitions and 
 combats, Roinc struggled for the empire of the nations with 
 Assyria, Kgypt, Persia, and Greece; she left tliem all behind her; 
 she fought, as if in a judicial duel, against Canhage. Spain, Gaul, 
 and Germany, and she bore away the honors of the field. Finally, 
 if a yet more august sanction be requisite. He who was the ex- 
 pectation of the earth, and who Himself waited to appear until 
 the earth should be ready for Him, He who came to offer a le- 
 gitimate satisfaction for the iniquities of all time, and who could 
 accomplish this only by undergoing a legal chastisement, the Son of 
 God. came at the moment when the world was resting in a general 
 submission to the Roman power. He accepted the condemnation, 
 tlu- authority, of a Roman judge, delegated by a Caesar. As one 
 C;f?ar was the minister of divine retribution on the person of the 
 Man-CJod, so was another Cicsar to be the instrument of that 
 wliich was to descend upon the deicide people. ' From C:esar to 
 
 ' Paradiso, vi., 12-32. 
 
 Behold how great a power has made it worthy 
 Of reverence, beginning from the liour 
 When Pallas died to give it sovereignty .... 
 
 Torquatus thence and Quinctius, who from locks 
 Unkempt was named, Decii and Fabii, 
 Received the fame I willingly embalm —
 
 240 Dante, Mid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Caesar the sovereign vocation was to descend to Constantine, and 
 from Justinian to pass over to Charlemagne : universal monarchy, 
 regenerated by Christianity, receiving with a new name a new 
 existence, was to become tlie Holy Roman Empire.' 
 
 Now, the Holy-Empire, founded for the temporal well-being of 
 men, having its reason for existence in the necessities of social 
 life, whicli in turn find tlieir reason in the corresponding laws of 
 physical nature, thus goes back, without intermediar)-, to the very 
 Author of naiure. It has its place in the plan of creation, it has 
 been realized through a series of providential events, it holds 
 from God alone. ^ 
 
 The living Justice that inspires me 
 
 Granted it 
 
 The glory of doing vengeance for its wrath 
 
 Later it ran with Titus to do vengeance 
 Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin. 
 Convito, iv., 4. Ibid., cap. v.— Dc Monarchku lib. ii., entire.— Cf. St. 
 Thomas, de Regim. Princip., iii., 4, and following. 
 ' Paradise, vi., 1-4 ; 31. 
 
 And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten 
 The Holy Church, then underneath its wings 
 Did Charlemagne victorious succor her. 
 ^ De Monarchia, lib. iii. And since the disposition of this world follows 
 the disposition of the celestial spheres, it is necessary in order that the 
 .salutary instructions of liberty and peace maybe suitably adopted to times 
 and places, that this terrestrial ruler be inspired by Him, who directly 
 beholds the entire disposition of the heavens. This can only be He who or- 
 dained that disposition.. . And if this be so, God alone elects, God alone 
 conflrnis.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 241 
 
 And yet, monarchical authority, even wliile tliiis independent, 
 has its limitations. The social order exists only in the interest of 
 the human race : they who obey the law were not created for the 
 good pleasure of Die lawgiver: on tlia contrary, the lawgiver was 
 made for their needs. It is an incontestable axiom that the mon- 
 arch is to be considered as the servant of all. ' Hence power in 
 public affairs ceases to be at the service of a small number of men, 
 of such namely as claim superiority under title of nobility. It is 
 this very title which must now be examined. Nobility, if we heed 
 the opinion of its scions, consists in descent from a long series of 
 opulent ancestors. But we can recognize no rights conferred by 
 riches, which may be triply despicable, through the miseries at- 
 tached to their possession, the dangers attending their increase, 
 and the iniquity of their origin. This iniquity becomes manifest, 
 whether the said riches are the result of blind chance or of culpa- 
 ble trickery, whether they proceed from selfish labors wherefrom 
 every generous thought has been excluded, or whether they jiave 
 been transmitted in the ordinary course of succession. For the 
 order of legal succession is by no means identical with llie legiti- 
 mate order of reason, which would call to the inheritance of the 
 
 ' De Monarchia, li. Secundem legem viventes iion ad legislatorem, 
 ordinantur, sed magls ille ad hos.. . Monarcha minister omnium procul 
 dubio habendus est. Cf. St. Thomas, prima, secundiv, q. 96, 4.
 
 242 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 property of the deceased oiil}- the heir of liis virtues. ' And again, 
 if the rights of the nobles spring from the long series of genera- 
 tions to which thej' can point, reason and faith re-conduct all 
 generations to the feet of a first father, and, either all generations 
 were ennobled in liis person, or, in that person were stricken by a 
 perpetual plebeianism. Tims tlie existence of a hereditary noljil- 
 ity pre-supposes the inequality, the primitive niultiplicit}-, of the 
 races of men, and hence aims a blow at Christian doctrine. '^ True 
 nobility, for every being, is that perfection, within the limits of its 
 nature, to which it may attain : for man in particular, it is the 
 sum of felicitous dispositions of which the germs have been plant- 
 ed in his nature by the hand of God — which germs, cultivated 
 by a persevering will, become ornaments, talents, virtues. * He 
 from whom they emanate varies them according to the diversity 
 of functions needful for social life : to some he gives words for 
 
 ' Convito, Canzone 3, lib. vf.~TlnA. iv., 11, 13, 1-3. " Might it have 
 pleased God. . . .that he who does not inherit the excellence, should lose 
 
 the inheritance of the property ! " Cf. on Riches, Cicero, Paradox., 1. 
 
 — Boethius, lib. ii., metr. S, .5. 
 
 2 Convito, iv., 14, 15. Cf. St. Thomas, De Erudit. Princip., i., 4.— St. 
 Bonaventura, Serm. iii., Domlti. 12, post Pentecost.; Serm. i., de S. 
 Martino. 
 
 ' Convito, iv., 16, 19, 20. De Monarchia, ii.— Cf. St. Bonaventura, loc. 
 cit.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 243 
 
 counselling, to others the energy to issue commands, and again to 
 others the unqucstiunnig courage required to execute such com- 
 mands : tlience, inequality among men. God then implants within 
 us such qualities as may please Him, employing, as means, celes- 
 tial iiilluences — such influences acting under His hand as a seal 
 to stamp the wax of our nature. Tl:pse inthienees which, making 
 no distinctions, visit hou.ses illustrious or obscure, correct the ef- 
 fect of the laws of generation, which otherwise would cause chil- 
 dren to present the exact image of their father; they interrupt 
 the succession of characters in families; they ought also to Inter- 
 r\ipt the claim to succession in regard to public honois. ' It was 
 necessary that man should not liud within himself hereditary 
 merits, in order that he might seek to make for himself new ones 
 by labor, and that by prayer he might ask for tliem. -' Functions 
 therefore ought to be personal, as are vocations : nature and for- 
 
 ' Paradise, viii., 40. 
 
 And can they be so, it below they live not 
 Divereely unto olHces diverse ? 
 No, if your master writeth well for you. 
 
 Therefore it behoves 
 
 The roots of your effects to be diverse. 
 Hence one is Solon born, another Xerxes. 
 Cf. Aristot., Politics, i.,"), t;. 
 ^ Purgatorio, vii., 41.
 
 244 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 tune, so often contradictory in their gifts, ought to be set in ac- 
 cord. The prosperity of the world depends on the proper sohitioii 
 of this problem. ' We cannot deny the continuance of the same 
 virtues in a small number of iUustriuus families. But then it is 
 the collective sum of the virtues of each one that makes the glory 
 of all. Nobility is like a mantle, which the shears of time 
 woidd speedily shorten, did not eacli generation add something to 
 its length.'' 
 
 Temporal society conceived in this way cannot be completely 
 realized here below. But the poet finds the type of his concep- 
 tions in a better world than this. Heaven lies open before him ; 
 lie contemplates the souls of the just who had previously occupied 
 destructible thrones, now gathered together in a royalty without 
 end. He sees them forming of their glories, grouped together, 
 these words, written in letters of fire, as the fundamental law of 
 
 > Paradlso, viii., 47. 
 
 Evermore nature, if it fortune And 
 Discordant to it, lilie each other seed. 
 Out of its region, maketh evil thrift, etc. 
 Convlto, iv., 11. 
 ' Convlto, iv., 29.— Paradlso, xvl., 3. 
 
 Truly thou art a cloalj that quickly shortens. 
 So that unless we piece thee day by day, 
 Time goeth round about thee with his Bheam.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 245 
 
 political coiDiiiunilies: Dilitjite justitiam, qui judicaiis terrain. 
 Then the letter M remains alone, crowned with a flaming aureole, 
 tlie initial and the symbol of monarchy. A last transformation 
 displays, in place of the M. the eagle, the bird of God, the emblem 
 of the Holy Roman Empire.' 
 
 Parallel with universal monarchy, by means of which all terres- 
 trial interests may be regulated, rises tiie universal Church, 
 through which the religious destinies of mankind are to be accom- 
 plished. The Church can pretend to no suzerainty over the 
 Empire; she had no part in its establishment, and no legal title 
 authorizes her to require its homage. She cannot make to herself 
 a kingdom of this world without running counter to her very 
 constitution and acting in a manner contrary to the example of 
 Christ, which is the immutable type of her conduct. 
 
 Another and a worthier empire belongs to her, that of eternity ; 
 she is the depositary of the divine teachings, which surpass all the 
 works of reason ; she is enriched by the graces which cause the ger- 
 mination of virtues beyond the sphere of nature : Catholic, she em- 
 braces more nations than any secular society ever joined together. 
 She too is monarchical ; for amid so great a multitude and variety 
 of men, harmony would be constantly disturbed by the impetuos- 
 ity of liuman wills, were it not for the guiding and moderating 
 
 ' ParadiBO, xviii., 30-37.
 
 246 Dante, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 intervention of the sovereign Pontiff. ' It was to prepare a seat 
 for this necessary pontificate that God set His own hand to the 
 foundation of Rome and of the Roman power. '■' This is why the 
 city of RomuUis was made a holy place, why the stones of its 
 walls are worthy of respect, and the ground upon which it stands 
 is worthy of more honor ihan men can well speak. ^ It was above 
 the horizon of the seven hills that, in the lapse of many centuries, 
 tlie two suns arose: the imperial sun, enlightening the way of 
 
 1 De MonarcMa, iil " These two beatitudes we reach by differ- 
 ent means — nevertheless, human cupidity would set them aside, were 
 not men, like horses, restrained in their vagabond brutishness by some 
 briflle. Whence it was necessary for man to have two directions, in ac- 
 cordance with the two ends proposed ; that of the supreme Pontiff, who 
 should in accordance with Revelation, direct the generations of men to 
 spiritual felicity ; and that of the emperor, who, in accordance with the 
 teachings of philosophy, should direct men to temporal felicity." 
 Paradiso, v., 26. 
 
 Ye have the Old and the New Testament, 
 And the Pastor of the Church who guideth you. 
 Let this suffice you unto your salvation. 
 St. Thomas la. Sac, q. 112. 2. 
 ' Inferno, ii., 8. 
 
 The which and what, wishing to speak the truth 
 Were 'stablished as the holy place, wherein 
 Sits the successor of the greatest Peter. 
 ' Convlto, iv., 5. " Hence we can ask no more to enable us to see what 
 a special birth, a special process thought out and ordained by God, was 
 that of the holy city. And certainly I am of settled opinion that the 
 stones standing in its walls are worthy of reverence, and that the soil 
 wheieon it is seated is worthy beyond all that has been predicated and 
 proved."
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 247 
 
 this life, and the sun of the papac3-. illuiniuatiiig tlie way leading 
 to heaven. "\Vo liave seen these two stars, quitting their proper 
 orbits, clash one against the other, and we have thought them 
 eclipsed. ' We have witnessed the struggles awaiting the soldiers 
 of Christ in this world, and the disorder introduced into their 
 ranks, notwithstanding the efforts made by their eternal Head to 
 rally them around Himself. ^ Tlie city of God cannot then expect 
 to reach its complete realization under the laws of time. The true 
 Rome, says the poet, is the Rome of which Christ is a Roman ; 
 the typical society is that of which Christ is the visible Superior. 
 He who would comprehend the vicissitudes of the Church in its 
 present struggles, muse previously consider it in its triumph. * 
 
 III. 
 1. Beyond the celestial spheres wherein the stars revolve, be- 
 
 • Purgatorio, xvi., 36. 
 
 Rome, that reformed the world, arcnstomed was 
 
 Two suns to have, which one road and the other. 
 
 Of God and of the world, made manifest. 
 
 One has the other quenched 
 
 ' Paradise, xii., 1.3. 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxxii., M. 
 
 — That Rome where Christ is Roman. 
 Ibid., xxvi., 42. 
 
 The cloister 
 
 Wherein is Christ the abhot of the college.
 
 248 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 yond the ninth heaven, which envelops the others within its vast 
 vortex, is found the empyrean heaven, pure light, intellectual light 
 filled with love, love of the true good, source of all joy, joy whicli 
 transcends all imaginable delights. ' This place is the common 
 abode of souls purified by the trials of this life or by the expiations 
 which follow it. If we sometimes imagine them placed at unequal 
 heights among the innumerable orbs that throng the firmament, 
 this image, which takes its measure from the weakness of the 
 human mind, has no other object than to make us understand the 
 inequality of their rewards as proportioned to the inequality of 
 their merits. Tliey themselves feel the justice of this proportion- 
 ment, and the knowledge which they possess of it becomes a 
 constituent element of tlieir felicity. For the love that renders 
 them happy makes their wills enter into tlie circle of the divine 
 will, where they lose themselves as in an ocean. Thus, under 
 differing conditions, each soul finds the terra of its desires, that is, 
 the sum of all the happiness of which it is capable ; from the very 
 
 » Paradise, xxx., 13. 
 
 The heaven that is pure light. 
 
 Light intellectual replot« with love, 
 Love of true good replete with ecstasy, 
 Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness,
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 249 
 
 diversity of the benefits received, results an admirable concert in 
 praise of the Remunerator. ' 
 
 2. According to the law prevailing in the three kingdoms of 
 tlie invisible world by which the temporary absence of the body 
 is made good, the blessed souls are clad in sensible forms. These 
 forms shine with a marvellous brightness, always proportioned to 
 the greatness of the virtues which it crowns. The first are 
 merely veils of light ; then come glowing flames, incandescent 
 stars ; all that is material has become spiritualized, so to speak : 
 we may not call these, shades, but glories, lives, loves. * Here, 
 in fact, the organs have ceased to be the necessary servants of 
 the intelligence ; thought is interchanged without the aid of lan- 
 
 ' Paradise, iv., 13; iii., 24. 
 
 *' Brolber, our will is quieted by virtue 
 Of charity, that makes us wish alone 
 For what we have, nor gives us thirst for more. 
 
 If to be more exalted we aspired. 
 Discordant would our aspirations be 
 Unto the will of Him who here secludes us; .... 
 
 Nay, 'tis essential to this blest exi.stence 
 To keep itself within the will diviue. 
 Whereby our very wishes are made one ;. . . 
 
 And his will is our peace ; this is the sea 
 To which is moving onward whatsoever 
 It doth create, and all that nature makes." 
 
 Then it was clear to me how every where 
 In heaven is Paradise, although the grace 
 Of good supreme there rain not in one measure. 
 Convito, iii., 15.— Paradiso, vi., c9, \\. 
 ■•^ Paradiso, iii., 8; v., 30; viii.. 7: x., xxi., etc., passim.
 
 250 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 guage ; it no longer knows the obstacles placed by time and space 
 in the way of its explorations ; the future is for it like unto the 
 past : it can thus, without hindrance, bend itself down from the 
 heights of heaven to the lowly globe on whicli it once dwelt. ' 
 Hence, the memories of the earth, and above all, the holy affec- 
 tions there formed, are not effaced in the souls that have loft it 
 for a better home. They cast down upon us compassionate 
 glances, they serve as interpreters and intercessors with the Al- 
 mighty, who in turn makes them His ministers. They are chan- 
 nels by means of which prayer may ascend, and grace may de- 
 scend.* 
 
 But these are, so to speak, the accessory circumstances of be- 
 atitude ; we must penetrate into its very essence. If beatitude 
 supposes the impossibility of the existence of any ulterior desire, 
 it is attainable by the human being only in the complete perfec- 
 tion and satisfaction of his human faculties. Now, of these fac- 
 ulties, reason is that which rules over all the rest : reason can 
 ha satisfied only in the contemplation of truth, and all truth re- 
 poses within the Divine mind. Hence, beatitude consists in the 
 
 ' Paradise, xv., 19, 31. St. Thomas, piimit, q. 89. 7, 8.— St. Gregory, 
 iVforal., xii.,13. 
 '■' Paradiso, xiv.. 23. Intercession of the Saints, x.xi., 31.
 
 /// the Thh'tccutli Century. 25 1 
 
 vision of God. ' It is tliere, in that boundless mirror, that the 
 elect perceive, in one single and unchangeable perspective, all 
 that has been, is, or is to be, even tlie first conception and desire, 
 before the word that manifests and the deed that realizes. Their 
 sight penetrates to greater depths in proportion as they merit 
 more. - The act by which they see, is then the basis, and, as it 
 were, the matter of their felicity ; the act by which they love, is 
 its form : the eternal decrees, as they make themselves known, 
 are accepted and accomplished. ^ As intuition pertains to the un- 
 
 • Paradiso, xxviii., 30. 
 
 From this it may be seen bow blessedness 
 Is foundeii In llie faculty which sees. 
 And not in that wliicli loves, and follows next; 
 And of this seeing merit is the measure. 
 Convito, ill., 15. K[){»{ chdic. <id C(i)i. (iiand in fuie.—Ct. St. Thomas, 
 la, 2«, q. 3, 4. 
 
 * Vision in God, Paradise, viii., 31; ix., ~'l, :»rj ; xi., 7; xv., 21; xxi., -30; 
 xxix., 3.— Knowledge of the future, passim, but especially xvii., 5: 
 
 — Even as minds terrestrial perceive 
 No triangle containeth two obtuse. 
 So thou beholde.st the contingent things 
 Ere in themselves they are, fixing thine eyes 
 Upon the point in which all times are present. 
 Cf. Cicero, Somnium Scipionis. 
 ' Paradiso, iii., 27. See above.
 
 252 Dante, afid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 derstanding, delectation pertains to tlie will; thus beatitude 
 (knowledge and love) is the state of man raised to its highest 
 power. FroM another point of view, beatitude is God Himself 
 giving Himself to be possessed. Man and God, the subject and 
 the object, touch one another, but are not confounded together ; 
 the finite subsists distinct in the presence of the infinite. 
 
 3. But a day is to come when the blissful uniformity of the 
 existence of the saints will experience a change. On that day, 
 they will retake their clothing of flesh, glorified. Their person, 
 thus re-established in its primitive integrity, will be more agree- 
 able to the Creator : in return, He will measure out to them His 
 graces in still greater abundance. Tlie clearness of their vision 
 will thence be heightened, while the iiilcriorglow which that 
 clearness maintains, will increase, as will also tlie exterior irra- 
 diation which must be its necessary consequence. As the incan- 
 descent coal in the flame, so will the resuscitated bodies appear 
 within their aureoles. ' Then, the guests invited to the banquet 
 
 1 Paradise, xlv., 15. 
 
 When, glorious and sanctified, our flesh 
 Is reassumed, then shall our persons be 
 More pleasing- by their beinti all complete; 
 For will increase what e'er bestows on us 
 Of light gratuitous the Good Supreme, 
 Light which enables us to look on Him ; 
 Therefore the vision must peiforce increase, 
 Increa.se the ardor which from that is kindled. 
 Increase the radiance which from this proceeds. 
 Cf. St. Augustine, lie Cir. /Jfi.— St. Thomas, Ci)ittr.Gent.,i\., 79.— St. 
 Bonaventura, Campend., vli., 28, 29.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 253 
 
 of eternal life having taken their places, that festival will begin 
 which knows no morrow. 
 
 To depict this festival, the poet has gathered together tlie 
 most lovely and ravishing colors. He sees in the midst of the 
 Empyrean a vast reservoir of light, extending in a circular form, 
 and reflecting the splendors of the divine glory ; around, rise, 
 as in an amphitheatre, shining thrones, whereon are seated, clad 
 in white garments, the teeming ranks of the blessed. This as- 
 semblage is comparable to a white rose whose innumerable leaves 
 lie open : joy and praise are the perfumes rising from its corolla. 
 Angels with golden wings, like swarais of bees, descend within 
 the bosom of the glorious flower, and then ascend toward the 
 Eternal Sun, the rays from which their multitude in no way in- 
 tercepts. He alone, in fact, satisfies and holds fast the contem- 
 plations and affections of these myriads of spirits, an Orb never 
 veiled by any cloud, with no setting and no winter-time, untouched 
 by the laws of creation established by Himself.' 
 
 IV. 
 
 1. In accompanying human nature to heights where it thus 
 
 > Paradise, xxx., 33 ; xxxi., pasgim. 
 
 O splendor of God ! by means of which I saw 
 The lofty triumph of the realm veracious. 
 Give me the power to say how it I saw I 
 
 There is a light above, etc.
 
 254 Dante, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 becomes transfigured, we are led to recognize the exisicnce of 
 natures of a higher order ; if we admit tliat tlie works of God 
 cannot he surpassed in magnificence by the imagination of man, 
 it is enough to be able to conceive of possible myriads of spirit- 
 ual creatures in order to conclude that they really are.' Thus 
 their existence and their functions have been divined by men 
 in all ages, although imperfectly demonstrated, as the Hght of day- 
 makes its presence felt in eyes that are still closed. The pagaris 
 called them Gods; Plato named them Ideas; in the ordinary 
 language of Christians they are the Angels : philosophers prefer 
 to call them Intelligences.' Faith has rent the veil separating 
 us from these excellent creatures. Distributed through the 
 universe, with which they came into being becanse they were 
 to maintain in it order and life, their numV)er is as great as is 
 their perfection.^ Their understanding, fixed in the constant 
 vision of the truth, does not know the alternations of forgetful- 
 ness and remembrance which are our portion. Tlie illuminatina; 
 grace merited by their fidelity in the day of temptation, forever 
 confirms their will (which never ceases to be free) in the habi*', 
 
 - Convito, ii., .5. 
 
 * Oonvlto, il., 5 : " Plato calls them ideas, which is as much as to say 
 universal forms and natures."— Cf. Brucker, Hist, critic, in Platone. 
 
 ' Paradise, xxix., 13, 44.— Cf. St. Dionyslus the Areopaglte, de CcelesH 
 Hierarchy xiv.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 255 
 
 of justice.' Til them, power is not distinguished from act; pure 
 act constitutes their mode of being; tliey are intelligence, they 
 arc love.''^ Nevertheless, unequal among themselves, they are 
 divided into three hierarchies, of which each one is subdivided 
 into three orders. To each hierarchy is attributed the special 
 contemplation of one of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity; 
 to each order a different jroint of view; each Divine Person being 
 
 1 Paradiso, xxix., 20-36. 
 
 On which account their vision was exalted 
 By the enlightening grace and their own merit, 
 So that they have a full and steadfast will.... 
 These substances, since In God's countenance 
 They jocund were, turned not away their sight 
 From that wheref rom not anything Is hidden ; 
 Hence they have not their vision Intercepted 
 By object new, and hence they do not need 
 To recollect, through interrupted thought. 
 Paradiso, xxi., 30. 
 
 Love unfettered in this court sufflceth 
 
 To follow the eternal Providence. 
 Cf. S. DIonys. Areop., de Divin. Nomin., Iv. 
 * Paradiso, xxix., 11. 
 
 And summit of the world 
 
 Were those wherein the pure act was produced. 
 Paradiso, xxlil., 35.
 
 256 Dante, and CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 capablo of being considered in Itself, or in its relations to the I'a'O 
 Otliers.' To these conilcmijiative functions corresponds an act- 
 ive ministry. The nine choirs of iingels (for this number nine, 
 the square of tliree, lias a mysterious signification) "•' are the 
 motors of the nine heavenly spheres : thej' communicate to them 
 a swiftness proportioned to the fervor which has been enkindled 
 within tliemselves: by this means tlie^^ intervene in all the phe- 
 nomena of the physical world.** But their action is by preference 
 exerted in tlie moral Avorld. From them spring, and upon the 
 model of their hierarchy are constructed, the nine degrees of 
 the human sciences.^ Through tlieir care the seeds of virtue 
 are deposited and developed in souls. If in the joys of Paradise 
 they are confounded with the blessed, in Purgatory they show 
 themselves as judges, guardians, consolers of the suffering just. 
 
 ' Paradise, xxviil., 9-33. Convito, ii., 6. Cf. St, Dionys., de CcBlesti 
 Hierach. vi., ix.— St. Thomas, prima, q. 108. 
 
 2 Vita Nuova, passim. Dante finds this number appearing in the 
 most soul-stlrrinpr circumstances of his youth : nine years and eighteeD, 
 were the two epochs whi^li brought him near to Beatrice : when he lost 
 her, he was close upon his twenty-seventh year.— Cf. Hugh of St. Victor, 
 Erudlt, didascal., ii., 5. 
 
 3 ParadIso.il., 42; vlii., 13, 29; ix., 21, etc. Convito, il., ,5.-Cf. Plate.. 
 Eninomis, Tlraaeus.-St. Thomas, <|. llo. art. 1. 
 
 ■* Convito, ii., U, l.'i. — Cf. St. Botiavpritura, Scrm. xxii.. In Hern/met .
 
 /// the TJiirtcoitli Century. 257 
 
 Their formidable appearance when sent to chastise the inso- 
 lence of the demons, illumines the darkness of Hell. They en- 
 counter the same enemies, and combat them with more equal 
 chances, on the earth, where the salvation or the loss of souls 
 makes the subject-matter in dispute.' Even the passing inter- 
 ests of life are not left to accident, as we in our ignorance pre- 
 sume. He who created spirits to move the heavens, and to make 
 an equal light shine upon every part of the globe, also established 
 an intelligence that should dispense temporal glories, and arrange 
 that, in spite of human precautions and foresight, the goods of 
 this world should pass from family to family, and from nation 
 to nation. This intelligence provides judges, and governs with 
 ihe same wisdom as do the other spirits, lier compeers ; as happy 
 as they, she turns the sphere confided to her care, and takes 
 pleasure in its motion. She heeds not the blasphemies of those 
 who ought to praise her, and who malign her under the name of 
 Fortune. ■■' Thus, every place and every being, even all the cir- 
 
 ' Paradise, xxxi., Passim. Purgatorio, viii., 32., ix., 26, and Passim.— 
 Inferno, ix., 29.— Purgatorio, v., 36.— Cf. St. Thomas, prima, q. 112. 
 2 Inferno, vii., 25-33. 
 
 This is she who is .so execrated 
 Even by those who ought to give her praise. 
 Giving her blame amiss, and bad repute. 
 But she is blissful, and she heeds it not ; 
 Among the other primal creatures gladsome 
 She turns her sphere, and blissful she rejoices. 
 Cf. Aristot., Physics, ii., 4. Boethius, i., iv., pros. 7.
 
 258 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 cunisumces of tlicir existence, life and death, all things, have 
 their angels, representatives of the divine omnipresence. 
 
 2. One step still remains to be taken, and the intellectual pil- 
 grimage nears its end. But tlialstcpis an immense one: between 
 the uppermost heights of the finite, and the Infinite, between the 
 loftiest creatures and their Creator, stretches an abyss, to cross 
 which requires not only all the combined powers of reason and 
 faith, Ijut even more. 
 
 The worlds that we have traversed show forth the admirable 
 art which called them into being. Even on the gates of Hell we 
 liave seen the imprint of power, wisdom, and love. The heavens, 
 revolving over our heads, exhibit to us tlieir endless beauties, as 
 if to invite us to recognize the Worker who fashioned them. The 
 universal movement bearing along the firmament supposes an 
 immovable prime motor acting on matter by tlie force of moral at- 
 traction.' Besides, given, the most obscure being in nature, it 
 nnist, have received its existence from some other being; and this 
 latter in turn must exist of itself or ihrouglithe causation of some 
 otiicr. If it exists of itself it is the First I'rinciple; if not, we 
 must mount still higlier, and inuhiiily indefinitely efficient causes, 
 or finally reach some primordial principle, the only being that we 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xiv., .50. Paradise, i., 25, — Cf. Plato. Laws, x. — Aristot., 
 Metaph., xii.
 
 /// tlic Thirteetith Century. 259 
 
 can conceive of as necessary', because from ii alone, mediately, or 
 immediately, all existences emanate. God then makes Himself 
 known by proofs both physical and mataphysical; He has man- 
 ifested Himself more fully by pouring- forth the celestial dew uf 
 inspiration upon prophets, evangelists, and apostles.' One in His 
 substance, Power, Wisdom, and Love subsist in Him in a trinity of 
 persons, so that both the singulai and the plural, in the language 
 of men, are applicable to Him.'^ He is spirit, He is the indivisible 
 centre whither converge all times and all places.^ He is the cir- 
 cle which circumscribes the universe, and which nothing circum- 
 scribes.^ Immense, eternal, immutable. He is the primal truth 
 
 1 Paradise, xxiv., 45. 
 
 * * * * In one God I believe. 
 
 Sole and eterne, who moveth all the heavens 
 
 With love and with desire, himself unmoved; 
 And of such faith not only have I proofs 
 
 Physical and metaphysical, but gives them 
 
 Likewise the truth that from this place rains down.... 
 Epist. ad Can Grand.— CL Aristot., Metaph., iii. 
 ^ Inferno, iii., 2.— Paradiso, xiv. Ibid., xxiv., 47.— Dean Plumptre's Tr. 
 
 In whom both sunt and est combined we note- 
 ^ Paradiso, xxix., 4. 
 
 Where centres every where and every when. 
 * Purgatorio, xi., 1. Paradiso, xiv., 10. 
 
 Not circumscribeil i:nd all thiDR-s circumscribing. 
 Cf. St. Bonaventura, Compendium, i., 17.
 
 26o Dante ^ and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 outside of which there is nothing but darkness.' In His tliought 
 all creatures are to be found foreseen and co-ordinated to their 
 end. Even contingent facts are there reflected in advance, without 
 thereby becoming necessary. Thus, the glance of tlie spectator 
 on the shore follows the course of the ship on the waters, but 
 does not direct it.^ He is also unbounded goodness , and, as the 
 sovereign good,^ He is the invariable object of His own will, which 
 thence becomes the source and the measure of all justice. 
 
 But this justice has depths beyond the limited reach of our reason, 
 like to the Isottom of a sea which the shorf plummet of tlie navi- 
 gator vainly endeavors to sound.* Finally, all His attributes. 
 
 > Paradise, iv., 32; xix., 32; xxxiil., 2:5.— Cf. St. Thomas, Prima, kx. 16 
 5.— Aristot., Metaph., xii. 
 » Paradise, xvii., 13. 
 
 Contingency, that outside of the volume 
 Of your materiality extends not. 
 Is all depicted in the eternal aspect. 
 Necessity however thence it takes not. 
 Except as from the eye, in which 'tis mirrored, 
 A ship that with the current down descends. 
 Cf. BfPthlus, lib. v., pros. 4, 6.-St. Bonaventura, Compc xdmm, i., 31. 
 ^ Paradise, xxvi., 6. Convlte, iv., 12,— Cf. Plato, Rep., vl., -St. Thomas, 
 Prima, q. 6, 4. 
 ^ Paradise, xix., 29. 
 
 The primal will, thiit in itself is good. 
 Ne'er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved. 
 So much is just as is accerdant with it. 
 Inferno, xx., lO.-Paradiso, iv., 23 ; xix., 20; xxxii., 17.-Convito, Iv., 
 22. Dlonys. Areep., rte 7>fr. iVomi'»i.-St. Thomas, prima, q. 21.
 
 /// the lliiytcoith Century. 261 
 
 raised to the same degree of sovereign perfection, are maintained 
 in an indestrnctible equillbriiini ; so that, borrowing the language 
 of numbers, it is permissible to define God as the Primal Equa- 
 tion.' 
 
 Such a God, sufficing to Himself in the solitude of His essence, 
 would create, not to increase His happiness, but that His glor\', 
 shining in His works, might witness of itself to itself.- In the 
 bosom of eternity, outside of all time, without other law than His 
 own will, He who is One and Trinal entered into action; Power 
 executed what Wisdom designed, and infinite Love, opening itself 
 out, manifested itself in new loves We may not say thai before 
 beginning to create He remained inactive ; for the words before 
 and after are banished from the language of tilings divine. Form 
 and matter, isolated and combined, were sent fortli at the same 
 moment, as a triple arrow from a single bow, out of the depths of 
 the creative thought; and, with the substaTices, was created the 
 order suitable to them. Such as are pure forms, as the angels, oc- 
 cupied the summit of the created universe; matter occupied the 
 lowest regions ; between the two, matter and spiritual form were 
 
 ' Paradise), xv., 25. 
 
 When on you dawned the First Equality. 
 Cf. Plat(5, Pha?do. 
 '' Paradise, x., 1 ; vii., 22.
 
 262 Dante, a}id Catliolic Philosophy 
 
 united by an indissoluble bond.' Created things are. the splendor 
 of the immutable idea which the Fatlier generates and loves witli- 
 out end: idea, reason, word, liglit, wliicli, without separating it- 
 self from Him who causes it to glow, without (|uitting its proper 
 unity, shines down from creature to creature, from causes to ef- 
 fects, until at length it occasions merelj' contingent and jiassing 
 phenomena: it is an illumination repeated from mirror to mirror, 
 becoming more and more pale as its distance from its Source 
 increases.'-* Thus, there is in everything an ideal and incorruptible 
 
 ' Paradiso, xxix., 5. 
 
 Not to acquire some good unto himself. 
 
 Which is impossible, but tliat his splendor 
 
 In its resplendency may say, ' Suhsisto,'' 
 In his eternity, outside of time. 
 
 Outside all other limits, as it pleased him. 
 
 Into new Loves the Eternal Love unfolded. 
 Nor as if torpid did be lie before ; 
 
 For neither after uoi' before proceeded 
 
 The going forth of God upon those waters. 
 
 Cf. Plato, Timasus. — St. Thomas, prima, q. 44, 4. 
 2 Paradiso, i., 1: xiii., 19. Cary's Tr. 
 
 * * * * TWat which dies n<it. 
 
 And that which can die, are but each the beam 
 
 Of that Idea, which our Sovereign Sire 
 
 Engendereth loving ; for that lively Light, 
 
 Which passeth from bis splendor, not disjoined 
 
 Fi'om him, nor from the Love triune with them, 
 
 Both, through bis bounty, congregate itself, 
 
 Mirrored, as 'twere in new existences,* 
 
 Itself unalterable, and ever one, 
 Des(-endiug hence imto the lowest powers. 
 
 Its energy so sinks, at last it makes 
 
 But brief contingencies. 
 
 Ibid., viii., 35. Longfellow. 
 
 An<I not alone the natures are foreseen 
 Wilbin the mind that hi itself is perfect, 
 But tbey togetlicr with tbelr preservation. 
 Convito.— Cf. Plato, Parnicnid., Itcp., vi., vii.-— Boethius, 1. iii., metre 
 9.— St. Thomas, prima, q. :W, 1. 
 ♦ (Other readings give " )iine subsistences," the nine heavens.— Tr.)
 
 /// tJic Thirteenth Cefitnry. 263 
 
 element; but. iti ;ill tilings that come into being subject to de- 
 struction, there is also a gross and perishable element. The mat- 
 ter which is in them exhibits dispositions and undergoes a variety 
 of intluonces which render it more or less diaphanous to the di- 
 vine light, and cause it to yield itself more or loss faithfully to 
 tlie seal whose impress it is destined to receive. Thus the im- 
 pression becomes blurred or mutilated.' And this imperfection 
 lies in the nature of things; for He whose compasses described 
 the extremities of the universe, could not have swept a circle 
 wide enough to contain His Word. Nature is too narrow to en- 
 close the infinite good which alone can be its own measure; it 
 could not suffice to realize all the designs of the inexliaustible 
 Artist.- Finally, if it is difficult to comprehend the ci'oation of 
 bodies by a God who is pure spirit, we must remember that the 
 effect can be contained eminently in the cause, and tliat the 
 character of cause, that is, of spontaneous force, belongs only- to 
 a spiritual being. In this sense it lias been truly said : Oinnis 
 intellujentia plena tst jormis.^ 
 
 ' Paradise, xiii., 23. 
 
 Neitlier their wax, nor that which tempers It, 
 Remains immutable, and hence beneath 
 The ideal signet more and less shines through. 
 Couvito, iii., 6.— Episf. ad Can. Gratid.—Ci. Dionys. Areop., de Ccel. 
 Hiernrch., iv. 
 - Paradise, xix., 14.— Epi.st. ad Can. Grand. 
 '■' Paradiso, xxxiii., 29.— Cf. de Caii)>is. 9.
 
 264 Dafite, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Among these innumerable works, there are few which God re- 
 garded with more complacency than man, whose free and im- 
 mortal soul presented features like unto Himself, and thus solicit- 
 ed His predilection. Sin, by disfiguring this resemblance, de- 
 graded man from the rank which he held in the affection of his 
 Creator. There were only two ways of regaining that lost rank : 
 either by a laborious reparation springing from Himself, or by a 
 gratuitous rehabihtation granted to him by God. But it was not 
 possible for man to descend so low by the humility of his obedi- 
 ence, as he had presumed to rise high by the audacity of his revolt; 
 he remained fatally incapable of offering satisfaction. It was then 
 needful that God Himself should act in his favor, either by show- 
 ing him mercy, or by showing him both mercy and justice. He 
 preferred the second way, whereby He might manifest the union 
 of His infinite perfections: the work is the more dear to the 
 workman as he the more clearly recognizes in it his own handi- 
 craft. It was more bountiful in God to deliver Himself up, and, 
 by undergoing the punishment, to give to humanity the power 
 to lift itself, than it would have been to remit the penalty due, 
 without any merit acquired. By the pure act of His boundless 
 love, the Word unites to Himself our infirm, fallen, prescribed 
 nature. This humiliation offered an adequate victim to inflexible 
 Justice. From the first day to the last night of the world, never
 
 In the Thirtccntli Century. 265 
 
 else was seen nor will be seen, the accomplishment of so profound 
 and magnificent a design.' 
 
 But redemption is completed only by the successive perfecting 
 of the generations which follow one anotlier upon the earth, and 
 by their coronation in glory. This is the object of that especial 
 Providence which is ever incomprehensible, whether it predestines 
 the elect, endows them with unequal gifts, makes evil serve in 
 the triumph of good ; or whether, although inexorable in its de- 
 crees, it nevertheless allows itself to be touched by prayer and by 
 the merit of virtue,'' and attracts our intellects and our wills in 
 the design of thus effecting tlie concentration of all our efforts. 
 For the Alpha is also the Omega : the God who has revealed Him- 
 self as the Creator has promised to be the Remunerator: He is 
 the Cause, He will also be the End.3 
 
 > Paradise, vii., 38-39. 
 
 Nor 'twixt the first day and the final night 
 Such high and such magniflcent proceeding 
 By one or by the other was or shall be ; 
 For God more bounteous was himself to give 
 To make man able to uplift himself, 
 Than if he only of himself had pardoned. 
 Cf. St. Bonaventura, ConipcncfiMm, iv., 6. 
 
 2 Paradiso, xx.. 45; xxi.,32; xxxii., 23.-Purgatorio, vi., 41.— Paradiso, 
 ix., 36; XX.. .33. 
 
 Paradiso, i., 3 ; Iv., 42 ; xxxiii., 16.-Cf. Boethius, lib. iii., pros. 10. 
 
 3
 
 266 Dante, and CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 Here it would seem as if the poet must prove faithless to his 
 systematic metliod of procedure, whereby each series of coucep- 
 tions is reflected in a corresponding vision : it would seem as 
 though an image could here only hamper the thought. But 
 genius accepted the challenge ; and never, perhaps, either before 
 or since, has poetic expression risen to more perfect purity com- 
 bined with more daring energy. The heavens opened: alumin- 
 ous point appeared, which sent forth ra3-s of a brightness beyond 
 all that the eye could sustain. Amid the stars that stud the skies, 
 the one which here below appears to us the most minute would 
 seem equal to the moon if compared with this indivisible point. 
 At about the same distance at which a colored halo is formed 
 around the orb whose rays it reflects, a circle of fire wheeled 
 round this immovable point so rapidly that its swiftness exceeded 
 that of the rotating heavens. Other concentric circles, to the 
 number of nine, surrounded this primal one, always more 
 vast in their dimensions, but less swift in their course, less pure 
 in their brilliancy. Then, as the poet stood in suspense between 
 wonder and doubt, it was said to luni : "On that point depend 
 tlie heavens and the whole of nature." That point was God. In 
 the circles which he perceived to be mutually attracted toward 
 tlii'ii- common centre, he recognized the nine orders of siiiritua. 
 creatures, who themselves drawn on by love, in turn draw after
 
 /// tlic TliirtcciitJi Century. 267 
 
 thcni the entire universe: these were the angels. ' Then, when 
 his sight, miraculously strengthened, was enabled to gaze into 
 tiie point which had at first so dazzled it, he there saw gathered 
 into a single beam, so to speak, and reduced to the state of sim- 
 ple light, everything that is displayed throughout the universe, 
 substance, mode, and accident: these were the typal ideas of 
 creation. Within the same point, but at a still greater depth, 
 three circles were to be seen, equal in circumference, but differ- 
 ing in color; the Second was, as it were, tlic splendor of the First, 
 and the Third like to a flame emanating from tlie two others. Thus 
 
 > Paradise, xxviil., 6-14. 
 
 . A point beheld I, that was raying out 
 
 Light so acute, the sight which it enkindles 
 Must close perforce before such great acuteness. 
 And whatsoever star seems smallest here 
 
 Would seem to be a moon if placed beside it 
 As one star with another star is placed. 
 Perhaps at such a distance as appears 
 A halo cincturing the light that paints it. 
 When densest is the vapor that sustains it. 
 Thus distant round the roint a circle of Are 
 
 So swiftly whirled, etc 
 
 " From that point 
 
 Dependent is the heaven and nature all." 
 — Cf. S. Dionys. Areop., de Ccetet. /fierarc7i.— St. Bonaventura, Com- 
 pendium, ii., 15.— Aristot., Metaph.. xij.
 
 268 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 did the Trinity manifest Itself. The second circle, when closely 
 considered, seemed (without losing its primitive color) to bear de- 
 picted upon it a human form, a symbol of the incarnation of the 
 Word. ' Wliilst he was endeavoring to understand this wondrous 
 spectacle, the poet thrilled with the joy of comprehension ; he 
 
 * Paradise, xxxlil., 29. 
 
 I saw tbat in its depth far down is lying 
 
 Bound up with love together in one volume. 
 What through the universe in leaves is scattered; 
 
 Substance, and accident, and their operations. 
 All interfused together in such wise 
 That what I speak of is one simple light 
 
 Within the deep and luminous subsistence 
 
 Of the High Light appeared to me three circles. 
 Of threefold color and of one dimension. 
 
 And by the second seemed the first reflected 
 As Iris is by Iris, and the I bird 
 Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed 
 
 That circulation, which being thus conceived 
 Appeared in thee as a reflected light. 
 When somewhat contemplated by mine eyes. 
 
 Within itself, of its own very color 
 
 Seemed to me painted with our efflgy. 
 Wherefore my sight was all absorbed therein. 
 Cf . Plato, Timanis, Epinomls,— St. Bonaventura, Cnmpcndium, 1., 25. 
 —St. Tliomas, prima, q. 15.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 269 
 
 felt himself to have become such that it was impossible for him 
 to turn his eyes from the point wherein was concentred all the 
 bliss to which human wishes can aspire ; and his will, sweetly 
 attracted, entered into the harmonious movement of universal 
 order. He became sensible of the work of sanctiflcation within 
 liim. All mysteries were unveiled to him by immediate intuition. 
 This was a thinking without effort, consequently without pro- 
 cesses of reasoning or employment of memory; it was a state of 
 intelligence which has no name among men; it was a complete 
 participation in that philosophy, the only true one, which is that 
 of saints and angels, which is in God Himself, the infinite love 
 of the infinite wisdom.' 
 
 1 Paradisu. xxxiii., 49.— Couvito, ill., 13.
 
 FJLno:^ III, 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 dante's philosophy considered. — analogies with oriextai 
 
 doctrines. 
 
 mAN cannot discern the order wliicli reigns in creation with- 
 out experiencing something of the dehght naturally felt 
 by a son who comes upon indications of his father's 
 presence. The most abstract ideas interest him in that tliey are 
 related to other branches of knowledge leading to God; for m us, 
 interest is mainly the consciousnoss of relations. Even the pro- 
 ductions of the human mind have little or no value in our ej'es 
 unless, as they lie side by side in our memories, they have some 
 bond of uiuon among themselves. A system withoit analogies 
 would be a system without value. But, far from such a condition 
 of things being the actual fact, in i-cgard to philosophical systems 
 all the conceptions of philosophers are overtopped by a certain 
 niunbcrof main problems, to which there can be but a certain num- 
 ber of solutions or answers; these answers, necessarily repeated, be- 
 come rallying points, arouml which thinkers in all ages have ranged 
 themselves as belonging to divers schools ; they are indeed so 
 many characteristic marks, serving i,o classify each doctrine, which 
 
 marks must be recognized in order that the doctrine may be duly 
 
 270
 
 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 271 
 
 defined. Besides, every doctrinal leaching inevitably takes ac- 
 count of the labors of previous aues, such labors serving as prem- 
 ises; consequences are drawn from tiiese which will in turn be 
 premises for times to come; and tliis ii is tliat gives to sucli 
 teacliing its rank as effect and as cause, and confers upon it his- 
 torical importance. Finally, while a doctrine thus places itself, un- 
 der tlic licad of filiation and of paternity, in some one of the great 
 families of ideas which we find recorded in liistory (now as rivals, 
 now as allies, but always living), it shares in the portion of truth 
 ■ which is in them and which gives them life: hence it is not diffi- 
 cult to penetrate to tlie very essence of t!ie doctrine that we may 
 discover whatsoever of true it really embraces. Thus, when we 
 have compared tlie philosophy of Dante with that prevailing in 
 the illustrious schools of the East and of Greece, of tlie Middle 
 Ages and of modern days, we shall have classified it by com- 
 paring it with known types; we shall liave established wliat it 
 borrowed and wliat it transmitted, its origin and its tendency : 
 we may then easily pronounce \ipon the justness of its maxims, as 
 we find them belonging to systems that have been already 
 judged. Tliis appreciation, historical as to its form, will then be 
 fundamentally a criticism; the point of right and the point of 
 fact will be blended together. Tliey will end by becoming one, 
 indivisible to our eyes when we sliall have reached the final ques- 
 tion, that of orthodoxy ; at that stage, the philosophy of Dante
 
 2/2 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 being measured by an infallible rule, its legitimacy (so far as we 
 are concerned) must depend upon its conformity with that rule. 
 
 1. Two ways were open, one at the south and one at the north, 
 either of wliich might have led Dante to the fountains of the 
 time-honored Orient : these were the then frequent relations of 
 Europe with the Saracens and the Mongols. We have already 
 seen how, amid the struggle that occurred between Christianity 
 and Islamism in Spain and in Palestine, the sciences, placed under 
 hospitable protection, passed from one camp to the other, giving 
 rise to an active correspondence, which, from Bagdad and Cordova, 
 extended into all Catholic countries and especially into Italy. 
 Translations of Avicenna, of Algazel, of Averroes, circulating 
 through all hands, could not have failed to fall into those of Dan- 
 te ; repeated quotations found in his writings confirm this convic- 
 tion.' An exact acquaintance with Mussulman doctrines ma}' 
 be perceived in the judgment that he pronounces upon them. 
 While the greater number of his contemporaries held the disciples 
 of the Koran to be pagans, and regarded Mahovi as an idol, he 
 regards Islamism as an Arian sect, and Mahomet as the leader of 
 
 ' Convito, il., 14.— Avicenna, deJnfeHiflr.,iv.; Algazel, Logic. etPMl.,\.,^. 
 Ilnd., ili., 4.— Avicenna, de Animn, ili., 3. 
 ibid., iv., 13.— Averroes, ^?^ Arwtot., de Anima, ill. 
 Ibid., iv., 21.— Avicenna, de Anima, Aphorism., 38; Algazel, 11., 5. 
 Ibid., lil., 2, 6, 7; iv., 21, etc. Epist. ad Can. Grand.— Lib. de Causis.
 
 In the TJiirteenth Century. 273 
 
 the greatest schism that ever desolated the Church, the said 
 scliism having been in its turn chastised by the divisions existing 
 among its followers, under the mutually inimical standards of 
 Omar and of Ali.' Now, these same Saracens, the latest heirs 
 of Alexandrian syncretism, and also initiated into the mysteries 
 of Persian Sufism, thus touched upon two sides the antique Indian 
 wisdom, which seems to have sent forth productive offshoots into 
 Persia and Egypt. It was also found with its fundamental dog- 
 mas in the religion of Buddha, which, banished (after bloody strug- 
 gles) from the Peninsula of Hindostan, invaded northern Asia, 
 and brought under its influence the Mongohan hordes scattered 
 between the Altai and the Caucasus. These people being set in 
 motion, formidable irruptions (toward the middle of the thirteenth 
 century) desolated the Sclavonic and Germanic countries. Later, 
 the wise policy of the Holy See arrested their progress, and peace- 
 ful relations were established between Cliristian princes and the 
 grandsons of Ghengis-khan. Buddhist ambassadors appeared in 
 the capital and at the general assembl}' of Catholicity, at Rome 
 and at the second Council of Lyons : in return, Rome and France 
 sent to their new allies missionaries charged with bearing to them 
 
 ' Inferno, xxvlii., 11 ; i5id.,xvii., 6. Allusion to the commerce of Europe 
 with the Turks. 
 
 Convlto, il., 9. The beliefs of the Saracens quoted as witnessing to the 
 immortality of the soul.
 
 274 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 faith as well as peace. Industry also had its venturous missions. 
 Tlie ways traced out by John de Piano Carpini and De Ruysbroeck 
 were followed by Venetian inerchantf;; numerous accounts of 
 travels, written or verbal, were circulated; and in that age, more 
 busied than is our own witli tlie interests of tlie future life, the 
 theological opinions of the Mongols would certainly not remain 
 unknown to the curiosity of European men of learning. Dante 
 especially, eager to know, always in search of traditions and doc- 
 trines which might find a place in the cunmlation of his vast po- 
 etic composition —he who, besides, must more than once have 
 met with Tartar envo3's at the courts of princes, could not have 
 failed to enquire into tlieir beliefs. He refers to them, and cites 
 them as witnesses to his own assertions.' A twofold means of 
 communication thus placed him, unknown to himself, in connec- 
 tion with the sacerdotal philosophers dwelling on the banks of 
 the Ganges. If we call to mind the fact that their learning, so 
 vaunted throughout antiquitv. liad several times been consulted 
 by the wise men of Greece, and that it had left traces even in the 
 writings of some of the Fathers of the Church, we may therein 
 perceive a third method of communication. 
 
 2. At the outset, some remarkable analogies are met with be- 
 tween Indian opinions and those of the Florentine poet regarding 
 
 ' Allusion to the Industry of the Tartars, Inferno, xvil., C— Their belief 
 in the Immortality of the soul, Convito, ii., !).
 
 /// the TJtirtcciitlt Cc/i/iiiy. 275 
 
 tlve external figure of the earth and the mysteries liiddeii in its 
 innermost parts. Tlic Brahmans represent Mt. Meru as the piv- 
 otal point of the world: from its foot ray forth all the countries 
 iiijiuliited by men and by genii: on its summit is situated the ter- 
 restrial (Iwelling-place of the gods. The mountain of Purgatory, 
 as described in the Divine Comedy, was the centre of the continent 
 primarily destined to be the abode of mankind ; it is crowned by 
 the delightful shades of the terrestrial Paradise.* The sombre 
 empire of Yama. like the realm of Satan, is hollowed out in sub- 
 terranean depths, composed of several circles, which descend, one 
 below another, into interminable abysses. The number of these 
 circles, as variously reported by mytliologists. is often nine, or 
 some nndtiplc of nine. The punishments there met with are 
 similar, and are portioned out to like crimes : darkness, fiery sands, 
 seas of blood into which tyrants are plunged, burning regions suc- 
 ceeded by areas of ice.^ 
 
 In addition to these points of superficial resemblance, still closer 
 relations may be found. Such is th(> iici-idiar opinion of f^ante, 
 according to which, s(juls detached bv death from the bodies in 
 
 ' B. Bergniann, Esquisses (In gysteme religleux des Mumjul , in his 
 Voyage vhez fes K'afmott/fs.— Guigniaut, Symboliq., t. 1.— Dante, Purga- 
 torio, passim. 
 
 - B. Bergniaun, Voyacjc chcz les Kalinouks. and Lois de Manou, I., 
 iv., si. 87; xii., si. 40, 70. — Dante, Inferno, i>a^siin.
 
 276 Dajite, and CatJioHc Philosophy 
 
 whicli they dwelt are invested with aerial bodies. This hypothe- 
 sis, borrowed from Paganism, and variously renewed in Christian 
 philosophy, is nowhere found with more complete developments 
 and more constant features of resemblance than in the systems of 
 India. " If the soul," we are there told, '• has practised virtue 
 and has rarely fallen into vice, clothed in a body borrowed from 
 the five elements, it enjoys the delights of Paradise. But, if it 
 has often given itself over to vice, and but rarely to virtue, it takes 
 another body, in the formation of which the five subtile elements 
 concur, and the said body is destined to the tortures of hell. 
 "When the souls have tasted of the joys or have undergone the 
 pains due to them, the elementary particles separate, and re-enter 
 the elements from which they had been taken." ' 
 
 At other times we find the Christian poet dealing with oriental 
 ideas, but in the way of disagreement and controversy. Thus, 
 one of the most serious errors of the Brahmanical theology, one 
 which savors strongly of pantheism, is that which supposes in 
 man the existence of two distinct souls; one, individual, constitut- 
 ing the personality of each person, but restricted to the knowledge 
 of facts and of individual things; the other, a soul by means of 
 which a knowledge of universal truths may be acquired, the im- 
 mutable reason, the soid of the world, God Himself. Whence it 
 
 > Loin de Manou, xii., 16-31.- Dante, Purgatorio, xxv., 37. Convito,il., 
 ».
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 277 
 
 follows, that the aim of science being unceasingly to lead back 
 the particular to the general, is also to blend the individual soul 
 with the infinite soul, and to lose the personality of man in the 
 divine immensity. This theory, reproduced by Averroes, made 
 considerable noise amid scholastic controversies ; it was one of 
 the seeds of corruption which the anti-Christian school of Fred- 
 eric TI. had been active in gathering and sowing broadcast. It 
 had attracted the especial solicitude of Catholic doctors ; Dante 
 joined in their attacks upon it, and in maintaining the unity, the 
 indivisibility, and consequently the dignity, of the human mind.' 
 
 1 I/Ois de Manou, vi., 65; xii., 14-18.— Let the wise man reflect, with 
 the closest application of his mind, upon the subtile and indestructible 
 essence of the Supreme Soul, and on its existence within the bodies of 
 beings the loftiest and the lowliest. From the substance of the Supreme 
 Soul escape, as sparksfromflre. Innumerable vital principles, which cease- 
 lessly communicate motion to creatures . . etc. Colebrooke, Essai sur to 
 philosophic des Hindoiis, Pauthler's translation, p. 56. Upnek-hat, 
 passim. The individual soul Is named Djiv-alma ; the universal soul, 
 Paramalma(TOots,Djiv,to\ive;Para, sovereign). The daugerous nature 
 of the pantheistic doctrine, scattered abroad throughout Christendorn with 
 the writings of Avcrrops, aroused the zeal of the doctors ; the activity of 
 this discussion may be seen In the numerous treatises of the time contra 
 Averrholi'tas, especially in those of Albert the Great and St. Thomas 
 Aquinas. Danfe could not fail to take part in so widely spread a contro- 
 versy : in the twenty-flfth canto of the Purgatorio, we And the Christian 
 thesis against the Averroists in its turn presented.
 
 278 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 But tlie two schools of thouglit which we have just seen in 
 colhsion again, under more favorable circumstances, approacli one 
 another, and the result is the more striking that in this case tlic 
 intermediate steps do not appear. We have seen that Evil and 
 Good, isolated or in conflict, formed the three great categories 
 wherein were co-ordinated the conceptions of Dante ; that in de- 
 scribing Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, he intended to depict, under 
 allegorical forms, the three qualities, the three modes of being of 
 humanitj', to wit: vice; passion, which is the struggle between 
 virtue and vice ; and finally, virtue. Now, here is what has been 
 taught from time immemorial in the Brahmanical schools 
 of Ellora and Benares: " The soul of man has three qualities ; 
 goodness, passion, and darkness. The distinctive sign of good- 
 ness is knowledge ; that of darkness is ignorance ; that of passion 
 consists in desire and aversion. To the quality of goodness be- 
 long the study of the sacred books, austere devotion, religious 
 science, purity, the fulfilment of duty, and meditation on the Su- 
 preme Soul. To act only in the hope of reward, to give oneself up 
 to tlie guidance of the senses, to abandon oneself to discourage- 
 ment, are the marks of the quality of passion. Cupidity, indolence, 
 atheism, tiie omission of tlie prescribed acts, are the signs by 
 which we recognize tlic quality of darkness." This threefold 
 division is not limited to the phenomena of the moral life; it ox- 
 tends to the whole of creation, of which man is the image. " The
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 279 
 
 three qualities accompany all beings." It is by them that we dis- 
 tinguish on earth genii, men, and the innumerable tribes of 
 animals and plants. More than this, they pass beyond the limits 
 of our temporary dwelhng-place ; they embrace and share between 
 them the three worlds : to goodness belongs the world of gods, to 
 passion is given over that of men, and darkness reigns in the 
 world of demons. The Indian sects have multiplied indefinitely ; 
 in all of them the distinction of the three qualities has remained 
 as a principle giving its form to the entire theological teaching.' 
 
 1 Manou, xil., 13 ; and following, 26-39.— Dante, Epist. ad Can. Grand. 
 And especially the preface to the commentary ascribed to his son, cited 
 abovct
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RELATIONS OF DANTE'S PHILOSOPHY TO THE SCHOOLS OF ANTIQ- 
 UITY.— PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. — IDEALISM AND SENSISM. 
 
 XI) ,yet, Asia must liave been for Dante what it still is for 
 us, a region veiled in the shades of mystery. ' It was on 
 the horizon of Greece that he saw the light of philosophy 
 rise for the first time in all its glory. He followed it through its 
 principal phases, whicli he found described in several excellent 
 ancient works, but especially in those of the first and most complete 
 historian of the science, Aristotle.' Doubtless, the translation of 
 the Ethics, by liis master, Brunetto Latini, had early familiarized 
 him with the stagyrite. Later, two complete versions and num- 
 erous commentaries had enabled him not only to penetrate deeply 
 into the immense edifice of the peripatetic teaching, but even 
 closely to examine all its parts.'-' These manifold explorations 
 
 ' It is in fact according to the account given by Aristotle, that Dante is 
 accustomed to report the opinions of the more ancient philosophers. Ho 
 also borrows much from the historical narrations of Cicero. See the Oonvlto, 
 passim. 
 
 "^ Convito, ii., 1.5. He cites two translations of Aristotle, the old one and 
 the new. St. Thomas makes the same tlistinction.— Convito, iv., 8, quota- 
 tion from the prologue of St. Thomas on the Ethics. 
 
 280
 
 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 28 1 
 
 did not remain without result: in the Couvito alone, we tiud, in 
 addition to simple allusions, seventy ([nutations from the Meta- 
 physics, the Physics, ilie Treatise on the Soul, llie Ethics, the 
 Politics, from the various writings making up the Organum, and 
 from other less famous essays. These reminiscences likewise 
 serve Dante as authorities within whose shadow he can find shel- 
 ter : he allows them as much empire over his convictions as they 
 occupy space in his memory. Aristotle receives from him the 
 most appreciative names : the Doctor of reason, the Sage from 
 whom nature had withheld the fewest of her secrets, the Master 
 of those who know. Temporal society, according to him, in order 
 to prepare for itself long ages of prosperity, would only have to 
 subject itself to the two powers, the philosophical and the politi- 
 cal, Aristotle and the Emperor. After having exalted the suc- 
 cessors of the Caesars to so lofty a position, he gives them as 
 their colleague in the government of the world, the preceptor of 
 Alexander ; he seats him as the solo iinmortal on the throne which 
 princes occupy only temporarily. He goes farther, and, calling 
 to mind the errors made by the philosophers of the first ages in 
 pursuing their researches for the Sovereign Good, the Last End of 
 human existence, he shows the truth as partly seen by Socrates 
 and Plato, but as finally disengaged by the efforts of Aristotle 
 from the obscurity still s\irrounding it. And since the ordering 
 of the means pertains to him wl;o knows the end, as mariners
 
 282 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 confidentlj' depend on the skill of their pilot, so those who float 
 on the stormy sea of life ought to give themselves up to the di- 
 rection of tlie inspired guide sent them by Heaven. Tluis all the 
 destinies of science are embraced witliin tlie peripatetic teaching. 
 Eminently worthy of credence and obedience, consecrated by 
 universal adoption, it has acquired a religious character: we may 
 even proclaim it catholic' 
 
 After this definite recognition of a sovereignty before which 
 every intelligence was in duty boimd to bow, it would seem as if 
 tlie promised fidelity ought to have been maintained. We are 
 hence, for the moment, astonished to hear grave witnesses place 
 Dante as a faithless vassal in the opposing ranks, and represent 
 him as one of the most illustrious disciples of Plato.'-' However, 
 we find Plato numbered among the precursors of Aristotelianism, 
 and awarded a lofty pre-eminence over tlie founders of the otlier 
 schools. Dante often mentions him as an excellent man ; he 
 avails himself of his example ; if he differs from him, it is always 
 
 > Convlto,i.,9; lil.,5; iv.,2,17, 27.— Inferno, Iv., 44.— Couvito, iv., 6. See 
 the whole chapter. Dante nevertheless recognizes the insufficiency of 
 Aristotle on sundry points of theology and astronomy. Convito, ii., 3, 5; 
 iv., 15, 22. 
 
 ■•^ Marsilius Ficinus, apud Clanyrum Virorum Thcodori Pnnhmii, etc. 
 EpMoUis ex Codd, MSS. cnUcgii RomaiiuRomiv, 1754. — Brurker, Hist, 
 critic. phHos., Period iil., pan i., i>k. i., chap. l.—Memorie per la vita di 
 haute, etc.
 
 In tJic T/iirficnf/i Century. 283 
 
 after most respectful [)reliiiiiuarie.< : if lie condemns hiiu, he has- 
 tens to point out a possible justification.' We cannot doubt 
 that he was acquainted with the Timteus, on which two commen- 
 taries existed in his day; one by Chalcidius used with favor in 
 scholastic teaching; tlie other, by St. Thomas Aquinas, the loss 
 of which is greatl}' to be deplored. But especially Cicero, Boethins 
 and St. Augustine, with sundry other Christian teachers whose 
 writings are still redolent of the perfume of the Academj*, must 
 have exerted upon him an irresistible influence, and have attracted 
 him as a perhaps involuntary jirosclyte to Platonic ideas.'^ 
 
 Hence it becomes proper to consider what elements the two 
 great Greek schools can claim in the philosophy of Dante. 
 
 2. Several general features suggested themselves in the begin- 
 ning as likely to characterize the philosophical genius of the Ital- 
 ian poet ; the study of his work has rendered these easily recog- 
 nizable. They are, a bold, and naturally, metaphysical turn of 
 thought, placing itself from the outset in the invisible world, be- 
 
 ' Convito, il., 5, 14; iii., 9; iv., l.\— Paradise, iv., 8-19.— Episf. adCan. 
 
 Grand " We indeed see with our intellect many things which words 
 
 are wantmg to express, which fact is abundantly insinuated by Plato in his 
 books through the employment of metaphors. He knew many things by 
 the light of intelligence which he was notable toexpress in direct speech." 
 
 "^ BcethiusdeCoiisolatione, lib. i.,pros.3; lib. iii., pros. 9 ; lib. v., pros. 5. 
 St. Augustine, The City of God, bk. viii. Confess., vii., 9, and passim.
 
 284 Da?ite, and Catholic Philosopliy 
 
 yond the limits of time and of this earth: a metaphorical form of 
 expression (not the result of caprice, but of a system), which util- 
 izes all the images of creation, for the reason that all reflections 
 of the eternal truths that it purposes to show forth; and lasth', 
 an all-pervading aspiration toward two things not found here be- 
 low in their cntirctj', but still capable of being here partially' real- 
 ized — perfection and happiness. But this triple tendency toward 
 the true, the good, and the beautiful— is not this exactly that 
 which constitutes the chief honor of the genius of Plato? He 
 too abandons the world of phenomena and appearances, the cav- 
 ern wherein are limned pale shadows, that he may go where lie 
 can contemplate absolute realities in the noonday light of meta- 
 physics.' Accustomed to consider visible things merely as repre- 
 sentative of divine conceptions, he sees in nature only a magnifi- 
 cent language spoken by the Most-High : he endeavors to employ 
 the same speech, and his style glows with the admirable color 
 which makes it the envy of poets. And yet he disdains to wander 
 off into idle speculations, or to forget his aim, in listening to the flat- 
 tering sound of his own discourse ; his words call for positive re- 
 
 * Cousin, Course of History of Philosophy, vol. i.. Lesson 7. — Plato. Re- 
 public, book vli.— When citing In the notes the Dialogues of Plato, we do not 
 inU^id It to be supposed that Dante had seen the texts, and thence had a 
 direct knowledge of the passages referred to ; we are only concerned in 
 establishing analogies, not in showing reminiscences.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Cetitury. 285 
 
 suits, and salutary reforms ; for him, all science is resolved into the 
 science of the Good. This science is the express object of all liis 
 lessons ; and his disciples, surprised to hear him discourse luider 
 this head of geometry and astronomy, of gymnastics and nnisic, 
 will finally comprehend him when from these various ideas he 
 disengages the laws that are to preside over the improvement and 
 the h.appiness of mankind.' Faculties so similarly balanced in the 
 two minds, give reason to anticipate a remarkable similarity in 
 their products. 
 
 Among all the conjectures by which the Greek philosophers en- 
 deavored to raise themselves to a knowledge of the Divinity, none 
 had agreed more nearly than those of Plato (incomplete as they 
 were) with the revelations of Christianity : they had obtained the 
 approbation of its gravest apologists ; Dante was not called npon 
 to be more severe. The God adored by the disciple of Socrates is 
 demonstrated not only by the mechanical forces of, but by the gen- 
 eral order reigning in, nature. He is then conceived not only as 
 powerful, but also as intelligent and good; ^ he is incorporeal, he 
 is the first equation, the absolute beauty, the absolute unity, the 
 being that knows neither change nor repentance.* Sovereign of 
 
 ' Plato, Republic, vi. See also the fragment of Aristoxenes cited by M. 
 Ravaisson : £.s.s6i sur la mataphysique d''Ari4stot6, page 71. 
 - Plato, The Laws, x. ; Republic, vi. 
 * Plato, Pbaedo. Cf. Dante, Paradise, xv., 25.
 
 286 Da/tti, and Catholic PhilosopJiy 
 
 the universe, lie is not confounded with the universe; ' lie re- 
 mains independent and alone, himself sufficing to his own beati- 
 tude. By the glimmer of certain expressions, which perhaps be- 
 tray the secret of an esoteric teacliing, it would seem as if one 
 miglit perceive in this idea of the divine unity, a vestige of tlie 
 dogma of the Trinity, whether perhaps the founder of the Acad- 
 emy had in some of his wanderings been initiated into the mys- 
 teries of the Hebrews, or whether, more probably, he liad gath- 
 ered together some scattered remains of the primitive traditions. - 
 However tliis may be, we cannot deny the importance of liis 
 theory regarding the Word, the eternal generation and the future 
 incarnation of "Whom were doubtless unknown to liim, but Whom 
 he recognized as the Orderer of nature as well as the Illuminator 
 of reason. Here is indeed the central point of the famous Pla- 
 tonic doctrine of ideas ; and here is also where Dante seems at 
 lirst sight to be an imitator of Plato. 
 
 In the beginning of tilings, as such beginning is portrayed by 
 Greek philosophy, appeared the infinite Goodness, inaccessible to 
 avarice or to jealousy, and desirous of surrounding Itself with 
 works as far as might be good and perfect as Itself.^ These 
 works could not be carried into effect without some pre-existing 
 model, some pattern previously formed, some word which the 
 
 ' Idem, Politics. '^ Tima3us, passim. 
 
 ' Tliuijeus. Dante, Paradiso, xxix., '■>.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 287 
 
 artist utters williiu himself to guide him in his work, whicli word 
 iri untiling other tliau his reason applied to some determinate 
 object.' This may hence be called, a universal idea.* Such au 
 idea, in so far as it corresponds to the different classes of beings 
 embraced within the universe, is divided into so many distinct 
 ideas. Ideas are endowed with a supreme reality, whether ihcy 
 remain as simple attributes of the divine understanding, or wheth- 
 er they become detached from it as living emanations. Im- 
 material and immutable, they lend their essence to all that hap- 
 pens and that comes within our ken ; it is by a constant participa- 
 tion in the idea which is the type of their kind, that individuals 
 exist.^ But along wilh this element of life and of perfection, 
 there is in individuals a necessary clement of corruption : the 
 work never realizes the primal design in all its integritj-. "We 
 must look for the cause of this in some blind and fatal force, in 
 that receptacle of existences, called by us matter, whicli Plato 
 presumes to be uncreated, and consequently invincible in its re- 
 sistance.'* Now, if we replace the role of Disposer by that of 
 
 > Timaeus,— et pliirih, aliis loc.—Cf. Paradise, x., 1; xiii., 19. 
 
 2 Plutarch, dc Phtritis phihisitphnruin. 
 
 'Timaius; Republic, x.; Parmeuides.—Cf. Paradise, vlii., 35. Convito, 
 lii., 6. 
 
 * Theactet.— Cf. Chalcldii, Comment, ad hunc locum, p. 399. See also 
 the learned commentary of M. Martin on the Timaeus ; Dante, Cf. Para- 
 dise, xiii., 2;3; Convito, iii., 6. De Monarchia, II.
 
 288 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Creator, do we not here find Dante's conceptions in regard to the 
 beginning of things : the motives determining the action of the 
 Ahnightv ; tlie Idea engendered hy the Supreme Ruler being re- 
 flected tlirough every gradation of the universe, and sustaining by 
 an interior energy tlie lowest creatures ; also the source of im- 
 perfection placed in matter, a stubborn wax that refuses to 
 correspond entirely to the imprint placed upon it, or rather, an 
 insufficient reservoir for the holding of all that infinite fecundity 
 could bring forth ? This last feature is above all remarkable in 
 that the conclusion is accepted without the premises, and mat- 
 ter is presumed to be cause of evil, although despoiled of its 
 supposed eternity. 
 
 In passing from the physical to the moral order, ideas are 
 presented under another aspect : they preside over the origin of 
 knowledge. The Supreme Reason, from which all beings proceed, 
 also reveals itself to all intelligences: first to the superior spirit- 
 ual existences, afterwards to man ; it is like a sunbeam touching 
 the heights of the soul, which it illumines, and whence it brings 
 to light general notions, made in the image of the eternal ideas 
 whose name they borrow. These notions taken together, 
 constitute individual reason ; they furnish the scientific, unvary- 
 ing element of human knowledge ; the other element, uncertain 
 and fleeting, rests upon the testimony of the senses.' Such be- 
 
 ' Alcibiadcs, TimEPUs; Bepublic, v., x„ etc.— Cf. Purgatorlo, xvlll., 21; 
 Taradiso. il., 15 ; Convito, iii., 2; Iv., 21.
 
 * /// the ThirtccntJi Ce7itury. 289 
 
 iiig tlie teachings of the Academy, coulil tlic_v find a more faithful 
 reproduction than in tliat poetical philosophy which regards all 
 light as flowing from the bosom of the Divinity, illumining tlie 
 contemplations of the blessed spirits, and even diffusing a faint 
 twilight around the woeful dwellers in hell? The living are not 
 deprived of it: they also find in the depths of their souls a power 
 derived from on. high, which reigns as a sovereign, and which 
 does not permit the non-recognition of truth. 
 
 The one-half of our destiny is to knoiv, the other half is to act. 
 The principle of activity is love : love fills with its presence the 
 entire universe, it sets the springs in motion, and makes them 
 work together in an admirable harmony. ' But it is especially in 
 man that its influence is shown. It arouses him b}' attraction, 
 sets him in motion by the sight of the desirable object, and allows 
 him no rest until union be attained. This union could not be 
 sterile : it engenders not only perishable creatures, but sometinjes 
 unhoped-for discoveries, masterpieces of art, generoiis deed.s.' 
 Thus, multiform and flexible, love cannot be called good or evil in 
 itself ; it obtains its merit from the end toward which it directs 
 us. An inborn inclination draws us on towards gross pleasures ; 
 
 ' Banquet : Discourse of Eryxlmacbus.— Farther on, Socrates boasts of 
 knowing nothing but love. 
 
 ' Banquet : Discourse of Aristophanes ; Discourse of Agatho. — Cf. Con- 
 vito, iil., 3 ; iv., 1 ; Purgatorio, xviii., 7 ; xxiv., 19.
 
 2go Dajitc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ri liappier impulse, favored by study aud education, leads us to vir- 
 tue. This latter luve is the oul}' one known to the soul of the true 
 philosopher: the sight of beauty awakens in it no impure de- 
 sires: ' the beautiful is for it only the splendor of the true, the 
 shadow of an invisible ideal toward which it continually tends; 
 admiration restores to the soul the wings lost in its terrestrial 
 captivity.^ "When tracing these lines, the pen hesitates; it knows 
 not wliether the memories that guide it are those of the Pluedrus 
 and tlie Banquet, or indeed those of the Divine Comedy and the 
 Convito. 
 
 Analogies vt^ill be found to multiply as consequences accumu- 
 late. The sublime instinct which leads to virtue divides as it 
 approaches its term; virtue, -which is one in its essence, assumes 
 four principal forms : prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice 
 — a classification that has become renowned." But virtue implies 
 fleeing from evil ; and the strength to flee, the first that we re- 
 rpiiro in the battle of life, comes only from heaven.'* It likewise 
 
 ' Banquet: Discourse of Socrates.— Cf. Purffatorio, .wiii., 13. The 
 m.vstical tenderne-'^s of Dante for Beatrice is the first modern example of 
 the love sung by Petrarch, i>f that species of affection which has deserved- 
 ly received the name of Platonic love. 
 
 ^ Phfcdrus.— Cf. Paradiso, passim. 
 
 ' The Laws, 1.— Cf. Paradiso, passim, Purgatorio, xxix., 44. Dc Mon~ 
 archta, III. 
 
 * Alciblades, 1.— Cf. Paradisn, x., 2!); xxviii., 37.
 
 /// tlic Thirkcntli Century. 291 
 
 implies an effort to accomplish tlie good, and it is also in licaven 
 tliat this effort attains its end. Every man feels within himself 
 a vague desire of which the oliject. still indeterminate, is that 
 which he calls by the name of <juod. Now, among the things 
 which appear to satisfy his desires, some yield him only a short 
 and incomplete satisfaction ; there are others which are alone 
 capable of promising him lasting happiness. 
 
 We must then distinguish between human or secondary goods, 
 wliich are the qualities of the body and the favors of fortune, and 
 the sovereign good, which is perfection so far as it may be attained 
 through knowledge and virtue, such as it exists, supreme and in- 
 comparable, in God Himself. ' 
 
 It is then God from whom descend, and to whom ascend, all 
 inferior goods ; it is He who draws to Himself all the desires, or 
 rather, all the memories of the soul. For a time was when it 
 contemplated Him face to face ; it enjoyed Him before it dwelt on 
 the earth : it can draw near to Him only by lifting itself up, by 
 becoming free and pure, like to Him, and pleasing in His sight 
 through this resemblance.'' But so grand a destiny could not be 
 completed within the narrow limits of the present life. It is 
 hence necessary that the radiant perspective of immortality should 
 
 ' Banquet: Discourse of Socrates; Republic, vi. Phileb.; Republic, vi. 
 — Cf. Purgatorio, xvl., 31 ; xvil., 33; xviii., 7; Paradise, xvi., 6; Convito, 
 111., 2; iv., 12. 
 
 ^ Tlieietet. Phfsdrus, })rt.s.si»?i; Minos ; Banquet, Discourse of Socrates. 
 — Cf. Purgatorio, xvi., 3fl ; Parudlso, vil., :M.
 
 292 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 open out beyond the grave, that it may be to us a refuge from 
 the many disappointments we liave endured, the term of our in- 
 satiable desires, the recompense of such merits as have received 
 no remuneration here below.' At these transcendent heights, 
 whither our gaze can no longer follow them, the swan of the 
 gardens of the Academy and the eagle of Florence still hover 
 together, and are lost to view in a like glorious radiance. 
 
 God recognized ftjjn'ori, in order to explain the world; ideas, 
 that we may comprehend realities; reason, to preside over ex- 
 perience ; the future life, to regulate this present life ; intelligible 
 truths preceding in the logical order experimental truths ; are not 
 these the leading features of idealism ? 
 
 3. Let us not forget, however, that Dante, while accepting so 
 large a number of Platonic dogmas regarding God, nature, and 
 humanity, never dreamed of betraying the faith due to his first 
 master, Aristotle. Let the muse be as free as she may in her 
 gait, it is impossible not to perceive that she drags after her the 
 remnant of a cliain, doubtless gilded, but allowing the iron to be 
 divined beneath the gold — token of a servitude but recently ended. 
 We refer to the technical terms surprised at finding themselves 
 ranged in harmonious strophes, the symmetrical classifications 
 wherein thoiight finds its place witli perfect exactitude, but 
 whereinto enthusiasm does not enter, — in short, to the terminol- 
 
 > Epinomis.— Cf. Convito, Iv., 23. We miRfit point out sfill other analo- 
 gies in the details: the fatuous comparison of Reason and the. Senses to Mie 
 rider and the horses (Pha'drus ;— Convito, iv., 26). -The sini ('onsidered as 
 an iiiiaRe of God (Republic, vl.; Paradiso, pat^sim).
 
 ///. the Thirteenth Century. 293 
 
 ogy aud the method from which Dante, in spite of his efforts, 
 never entirely frees himself. "We here readily recognize the 
 powerful influence of the Stag-yrite, who first created the language 
 of science, and who gave to it both a lexicon and a syntax wlien 
 he gave to it definition and division as its constituent principles. 
 
 Nothing is more intimately connected with language than are 
 abstract ideas, which in the absence of language would disappear, 
 which indeed, at first sight, seem, out of it, to possess no reality. 
 The ontology is not solely in the words, but neither is it without 
 the words ; Dante had recourse to the expressions of Aristotle 
 only to preserve the tradition of his ontological ideas : he held 
 the clue, that he might penetrate at will into the labyrinth. 
 Hence his profound reflections upon essence and cause, the oft- 
 repeated distinction between substance and accident, between the 
 necessary and the contingent, power and act, matter and form. 
 These abstractions are not valueless : the genus is really in the 
 species, the species in the individual ; they form, as it were, the 
 subtile woof on which are traced all living realities. Thus has 
 the master spoken, and thus does the disciple understand the 
 matter.' 
 
 Hence we cannot be surprised if both reduce the whole of 
 physics to the play of three principles: matter, form, and priva- 
 
 1 See Ravaisson. E^sai sur la MetaphysiQue d^Aristote, vol. i., p. 154. 
 — Cf. Paradise, xxlx., 18, 12 ; xxxiil., 29.
 
 294 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 lion. From the opposition of the I;ist two, results motion; ;ind 
 motion, in its variety and its multiplicity, produces and explains 
 the phenomena of the visible world. From elementary molecules 
 up to animated organisn)s, everytliing moves, cither by impulsion 
 or spontaneously : the revolutions of tlie stars and the generation 
 of animals are the two most notable examples. However, as- 
 tronomy and physiology were represented in antiquity by two 
 men, Ptolemy and Galen, whose views, broader and more exact, 
 best satisfied tlie curiosity of Dante.' His confidence in the 
 Stagyritc, shaken on these two points, remained intact on strictlj- 
 philosophical questions — those that touched upon the constitution, 
 the faculties, and the destiny of man. 
 
 Man, as defined by the Peripatetic doctrine, is a composite 
 being, having for matter, a body, and for form, a soul. But, as 
 the form can exist only as it is impressed >ipon matter, the soul, 
 although different from the body, could not be preserved without 
 it.- These deductions, which in fact threaten the dogma of im- 
 mortality, are corrected by the perspicacity of the Italian philos- 
 opher: the soul still appears to him as the constitutive act, the 
 essential mode of being of human nature ; but he conceives it as 
 
 1 Physics, 1., 1 ; lii.. 1 ; iv., 11.— Dp Ci:r\i\ 1., ii., iv.— Dc General. 
 Animal., il., 3.— Cf. PiirKatorio, xxv., 13; Inferno, xi., 34; Couvlto, lii. 
 11 ; iv., 2, 9 ; ii., 3, 4 ; iii., 9 ; ii., 14 ; iv., 21. 
 
 2 Be Anima, 11., 1, 2.— Cf. Inferno, xxvii., 2").
 
 In tJie TJiirtccntJi Century. 295 
 
 separable from the body, and makes it survive in a state of sepa- 
 ration. Then, analyzing, as Aristotle had done before him, the 
 powers that are in it, he finds tliree principal ones, the vegeta- 
 tive, the sensitive, and the rational ; he explains their unity and 
 superposition ; and to make his meaning clearer, he borrows 
 from geometry the same similitudes.' When he describes the 
 operations of the senses, especially those relating to vision, he 
 follows in the track of Aristotle, making the figure of the object 
 roach the eye through a diaplianous medium, and pass from the 
 eye to the brain by means of a communicated impression.* But 
 nowhere docs he show himself a more scrupulous follower than 
 in the exploration of the liigher regions of thought, when char- 
 acterizing apprehension, imagination, and memory ; ^ when ho 
 distinguishes between the active and the passive intellect ; •* 
 when lie takes note of the immutable principles not derived from 
 experience, but self-evident* Thus, all knowledge supposes two 
 conditions accomplished : facts perceived witliout, a general truth 
 revealed within. So that, sensibility being the seat of sensible 
 things, and the intellect the seat of intelligible things, the soul, in 
 which these two are united, is an abridgment of the universe.* 
 
 ■ Dc Atuma, ii., 3; iii., 12.-Cf. Convito, iv., 7. 
 
 ^ De Aninia, ii., 7.— Cf. Convito, iil., it. 
 
 ^ De A nima, iii., 3, 4.— Cf. Purgatorio, iv., 3 ; xvii., 9 ; xviii., 8. Para- 
 dise, I., 3, etc. 
 
 * De A)iima, iii., 6.— Cf. Purgatorio, xxv., 22; Convito, Iv., 21. 
 
 ^ Analytic, poster., i., 31. Topic, i., 1.— Dc Anima, 11., 8.— Cf. Pur- 
 gatorio, xviii., 19. Paradise, ii., 1.5 ; iv., 21. 
 
 ' De Anima. iii., 9. llti{1.. iii., 5.— cf. Convito, passim.
 
 296 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Wliilc the founder of the Lyceum had devoted his most labor- 
 ious meditations to the development of logic, and while that 
 formed his chief merit according to the common opinion uf pos- 
 terity, ethics had likew^ise claimed a considerable share in his in- 
 vestigations ; his researches in this direction gave him his fore- 
 most title to the admiration of Dante. The poet therein found 
 the phenomenon of love treated in all its details, with a nicety 
 neglecting notliing, but considered especially under the aspect 
 known as friendship : the circumstances amid which this feeling 
 takes its rise, the proportions which it requires between those 
 whom it unites, the inevitable egotism hidden in its very root, the 
 beneficent effects which it is capable of producing: notliing was 
 omitted.' The other elements of human morality also had their 
 place in that fine analysis: pleasure and the relation of mutual 
 excitation which binds pleasure to action, likewise the liberty 
 which remains constant between these two, often separating them, 
 resisting enjoyment, even going half-way to meet suffering ; vice, 
 and its division into three categories : intemperance, malice, and 
 bestiality ; '^ the intellectual and the moral virtues, forming, as it 
 were, two famihes ; ^ also, two methods of life between which 
 
 ' Ethics, vlil., passim,\x., 4.— Cf. Convito, Hi., 2. 
 '■* Ethics, ill., 5 ; X., 5.— Cf. Purgatorio. x., xil., 7.— Paradlso, v., 7.— Ethics 
 vil., ].— Cf. Inferno, xi., 37. 
 3 Ethics, ill., 1.— Cf. Convito, iv., 17.
 
 In flic TJiirteoitJi Cefitiiry. 297 
 
 men may choose, that of contemplation and that of practical ac- 
 tivity, the first the nobler, and the latter the easier.' With these 
 data, it was allowable to undertake the solution of the problem of 
 happiness. The good gifts of health, of strength, of riches, en- 
 tered into it, as essential but insufficient conditions ; the true good 
 under which all lesser goods must be co-ordinated, was the activ- 
 ity of the soul exercised within the limits of virtue. And this 
 virtuous activity, when applied to the peaceful functions of con- 
 templative life, gives the fullest measure of happiness to which 
 humanity can attain.'^ 
 
 Finally, having reached the summit of the hierarchy of beings, 
 Aristotle sums up the main results obtained by him in his labor- 
 ious investigation : the idea of cause, which belongs to the order 
 of abstractions ; motion, which is found everywhere present 
 throughout the universe ; reflection and happiness, which are the 
 privilege of mankind. From these results combined, he evolves 
 the notion of God. The mechanical forces of bodies suppose a 
 Mover who sets them in motion, who is Himself immovable, and 
 consequently immaterial.^ He is then pure form, infinite act. 
 But this act can be no other than the act of contemplation, which 
 is also supremely happy. God may then be defined: A thought 
 
 1 Ethics, X., 7.— Cf. Purgatorio, xxvii., 3.3 ; Convito, lv.,22. 
 - Ethics, i., 8.— Cf. Convito, iv., 17, 23.- De Monorchia, ill. 
 3 Metaph., xiv., 8.— Cf. Paradiso, i., 25; xxlv., 44.
 
 298 Dante, and Catholic FJiilosophy 
 
 which thinks Itself eternally, around which gravitate heaven and 
 nature. ' The gaps and errors in such a theory may readil}' be 
 perceived : it supposes the eternity, not only of matter, but of the 
 universe; it leaves to the Primal Mover neither providence, nor 
 liberty, nor personality ; '■* it can then be admitted only with many 
 restrictions, and the poet-philosopher has by no means forgotten 
 this ; but he is indebted to it for profound views and exact for- 
 mulae. 
 
 Now, the points we have just mentioned, taken together, con- 
 stitute what has been called, perhaps incorrectly, the sensism of 
 the Peripatetics, which makes of experience acquired through the 
 senses, the necessary, but not the sole, basis of all knowledge. 
 
 4. We have now to examine how tlie rival teachings of tlie 
 Academy and of the Lyceum became reconciled together in the 
 thought of Dante, and by what new prodigy age-long controver- 
 sies were suspended at the sound of the lyre . 
 
 . . . .Tenuitque inhians tria Cerberus ora. 
 
 In the history of the himian mind, Plato represents idealism, 
 and consequently, synthesis; Jie addresses himself especially to 
 souls endowed with that wonderful power of intuition known also 
 as enthusiasm. As these chosen souls are rare, and follow one 
 
 > Metaph., xil.— Cf. Convito, iii., 2.— Paradise, xxviil., 14. 
 
 ' Brucker, Hw/,. crttic., in ylri.s/of.— Cicero, dc Nat. Dear., 1., 13.
 
 /// the Thirtcc7ith Cattury. 299 
 
 iuiothcr at verj' irregular intervals of time, the traditions uf 
 Platonism were easily interrupted; besides, noi being connected 
 together by the bond of a strict method, they were exposed to 
 dispersion, and readily lent themselves to be absorbed in other 
 doctrines. Aristotle, on the contrar}', represents sensism, and 
 consequently, analysis. His work is witliin the reach of any 
 laborious mind ; and, as such are born every day, it could easily 
 be preserved by their care, and transmitted as an inheritance com- 
 ing down through known hands: also, the opinions composing it, 
 being rigidly reduced to a systematic form, would naturally remain 
 inseparable, and retain their conunon independence. His poetic 
 genius would then have led Dante to the feet of Plato: but he 
 had no ready access to the thoughts of that great man, except 
 llirongh a small number of writings, poorly interpreted. Again, 
 he found all Plato's best conceptions, modified and purified, in 
 Christian theology; he accepted them with pious respect, without 
 being able to trace them back to their origin and to name their 
 author. On the contrary, as soon as he crossed the threshold 
 of the School, he there found the authority of the Stagyrite im- 
 movably seated ; doubtless, he received his lessons through in- 
 terpreters, but they gave themselves out as such, and aspired to 
 no higher merit than that of fidelity : he naturally bowed down 
 at the sight of such honors bestowed, and yielded to an influence 
 which nothing resisted. There was room witliin his mind for all
 
 300 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 just admirations, for the reason tliat such admirations are never 
 incompatible. It is true that the disciple of Socrates and the 
 preceptor of Alexander have filled history with the noise of their 
 controversies ; and no one can deny that the current of their dom- 
 inant prepossessions led them to serious disagreements. But also, 
 wliile nothing apparently can be more opposite than the analysis 
 and synthesis personified in them, nothing better accords with 
 the general harmony of science. They place themselves at two 
 opposite points of view — so to speak, at the two poles of the intel- 
 lectual world; but they are united by a common axis, and they 
 command the same horizon. Tlieir dogmas, reduced to more 
 moderate expressions, complete and sustain one another. We 
 may even say that the ideas^ which are the keystone of the arch 
 of the Academic edifice, touch closely upon the Peripatetic /oraw. 
 The idea, in the dialogues which so magnificently set it forth, 
 often takes the name of Eidos ; it becomes fwma, when translated 
 into Latin. ' If the idea is at once the type and the cause, the 
 form is also both the element by which things arc known, and 
 that by which they subsist. It is not proven that Plato assigned 
 to ideas an existence distinct from that of the objects which par- 
 ticipate in them, and from the divine understanding In which 
 they dwell.2 Aristotle recognizes the presence of his/orms in the 
 
 • Cicero, Translation of the Timajus. 
 
 * (Jousin, Couree of History of Philosophy, vol. i.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 301 
 
 objects which they modify and iu the mind which makes abstrac- 
 tion of them.^ Dante seems to have comprehended these analo- 
 gies when, by alternate borrowings, he endeavors to reconcile the 
 two Greek philosophers.^ His conciliatoiy intention is still more 
 plainly visible when he makes them both appear in the Elysian 
 Fields placed at the entrance to his Inferno, where he shows 
 them, the one surrounded by respectful homage as the Masttr of 
 those who knoiv, the other, seated at his side, sharing with him 
 the sovereignty of the intellect.^ 
 
 Dante had then found, perhaps under favor of greater distance, 
 the propitious position so anxiously sought by the Alexandrian 
 eclectics, whence one might see the divergent lines of idealism 
 and sensism intersecting one another, so to speak. And yet his 
 relations with the philosophy of the ancients seem to have been 
 restricted within the limits we have just had down. If he in- 
 veighs against Epicureanism, it is more especially against that 
 phase of it prevalent in his own day ; and he was only imperfectly 
 acquainted, through the writings of Seneca, with the morality of 
 the Stoics, which he exalted without stint in the person of Cato.'» 
 
 > Idem, Ibid.— Aristotle, deAnima, ill., 5. 
 
 ^ See especially, Convito, Iv., 6. 
 
 ' Inferno, iv., 44. 
 
 * Convito, iv., 28 ; Purgatorlo, L
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 KELATIONS OF DANTE'S PHILOSOPHY WITH THE SCHOOLS OF THE 
 MIDDLE AGES. — ST. BONAVEXTURA AND ST. THOMAS 
 AQUIXAS. — MYSTICISM AND DOUMATISM.' 
 
 tHE aQ;e that gave birtli to tlic PiNiiic Comedy had no share 
 in the general restoration of paganism wlncli was ere long 
 to take place in letters and in tlie arts. Tlie study of the niastor- 
 pioces of antiquity was ardnntly [)rosccuted ; but there was 
 not yet affected for them tliat exclusive veneration wJiieli is the 
 less difficult for human pride that it is directed toward distant ob- 
 jects, and amply compensated for by contempt for one's contem- 
 poraries and immediate predecessors. Tlie most learned professors 
 of Paris and Bologna, tlie most renowned artists of Pisa and 
 Florence, understood how to profit by classic models without de- 
 serting the sonrces of Cln-istian inspiration : the lamp of their vig- 
 ils often shone upon ihc pages of Holy Writ and the writings of 
 tlie Fathers. Often, their piety led them to the foot of the altar 
 
 ' It must be remembered that St. Bonaventura and St Thomas were not 
 the heads of two mutually exclusive and rival schools, but only the propa- 
 f,'ators of two philosophical methods, distinct, and yet easily reconcilable.
 
 Dante, and Catliolic Philosophy 303 
 
 or 10 monastic solitude in searcli of more serene meditations; 
 and again, from time to time, tlieso upright and single-hearted men 
 took pleasure in frequenting popular assemblages, where legends 
 and traditional canticles revealed to tJicni truths and beauties they 
 would noi have found elsewliere. 
 
 The daily intercourse maintained by Dante with the writers of 
 Greece and Rome had not detached liim from a still more intimate 
 comnnmion with the Doctors of Christianity. He beheld them, 
 linked hand in hand down the ages, from the time of the cata- 
 combs to his own day, forming a long and twofold chain: on the 
 one side, the Tireek and Oriental school, whose learned contem- 
 l)lations had Ijccamc known to him through St. Dionysius the Are- 
 opagite; and on tlie other, the Latin school of the West, whicli 
 he had followed through all its jiha.ses; St. Augustine, Boethius,- 
 and St. Gregory the Great, wlio arc to be classed as still belong- 
 ing to Roman literature; St. Martin of Braga, Isidore of Seville, 
 Bedc, and Rabanus Maunis. men of tlic barbarian period; St. 
 Ansehn, St. Bernard, Peter Lombard, Hugh and Richard of St. 
 Victor, who inaugurated tlie Liliors of the Middle Ages.' He 
 names all these witli praise, and repeatedly cites them either ex- 
 pressl}' or bj^ allusion. Among tliose in ,»hose midsthis life was 
 passed, he appears to distinguish several who have survived the 
 
 ' Paradiso, X., xii., passhu. Epixt. ad Can. Grand. — Convito, pai'nini.
 
 304 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 great shipwreck of time : ^gidius Colonna, Peter the Spaniard, 
 and the Sigier whose bold teachings set tlie rue du Fouarre in 
 commotion.' But it is remarkable that he keeps absolute silence 
 in regard 10 Raj'mond Lullj-, Duns Scotus, and Ockham, who at 
 the beginning of the fourteenth centur}' opened a new scholastic 
 era. Hence, it is the thirteenth century, with its calm and majes- 
 tic grandeur, with the close alliance then maintained between the 
 four powers of thought — erudition, experience, reasoning, and in- 
 tuition — which we are to find reproduced in the philosophy of 
 Dante. "We can form some idea of the extent of his reading and 
 studies if we consider the innumerable reminiscences found in 
 his writings ; he thus followed the example of Albert the Great, 
 whose vast repertories we often find him consulting. Although he 
 seems not to have known of the labors of Roger Bacon, the as- 
 tronomical or meteorological descriptions and comparisons frequent- 
 ly adduced as if of special interest to him, the observations set 
 forth, and the thesis maintained " on the two Elements, Fire and 
 Water," show him to have been initiated into the experimental 
 sciences. But erudite researches and the exploration of nature 
 were not enough to satisfy the indefatigable energy of his mind : 
 he found a broader and freer field in the speculations to which St. 
 Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura had opened the way. These 
 
 ' Paradlso, x., xll.
 
 /// the ThirkcntJi Century. 305 
 
 two illustrious men shared between them the sympathies of the 
 pliilosophcr-poet. They had lived long enough to allow of his 
 being a witness to the grief accompanying their death. In the 
 learned world, he encountered their ineraor}' quite recent and all- 
 powerful, their teachings and their virtues still confounded in one 
 and the same living remembrance, and, as a consequence, tlie re- 
 spect which they inspired still filled with love. Thus did he some- 
 times treat with them as witli noble but kindly friends, quoting in 
 support of his opinions, with a sublime familiarity, tlie good brother 
 Thomas} And yet he anticipated, in his philosophical judgment 
 he even went beyond, the solemn apotheosis which religious au- 
 thority was one day to award to that same Brother Thomas; he 
 placed the two Angels of the School in one of the most beautiful 
 spheres of Paradise ; he represented them as in a condition of 
 fraternal sovereignty, towering above the blessed company of the 
 Doctors of the Church. 
 
 Thus the doctrines of Dante could not fail to exhibit traces 
 of the ascendency exercised over him by the two principal mas- 
 ters of his time, themselves the representatives of all that was 
 wisest and purest in the scholastic teachings anterior to their 
 day. 
 
 2. In the first place, the greater part of the latent inclinations 
 
 1 Convlto, iv., 30: 11 buon fra Tommasn.
 
 3o6 Dilute, a/ui Catholic Philosophy 
 
 attracting Dante to the doctrines of Plato, would lead him to bow- 
 before St. Bonaventura and the still older mystics, such as the 
 monks of St. Victor, St. Bernard, and St. Dionysius the Areopagite. 
 There existed a peculiar affinity between the seraphic Franciscan 
 and the head of the Academy. Of all the ancient philosophers, 
 St. Bonaventura quoted none with greater predilection. He de- 
 fended liini, with a sort of filial pietj', against his adversaries.' 
 But especially did mysticism connect itself by numberless bonds 
 with idealism : mysticism, philosophically considered, was nothing 
 but idealism under a more exalted and luminous form. Both re- 
 garded union with the Divinity as the source of light to men, and 
 the end of human action. The one set down the place of this 
 sublime union as in the reason, which it showed to be a region 
 superior to that of the senses; the other looked upon it as accom- 
 plished in spontaneous inspiration, which it placed above reason. 
 The one propounded the theory of ideas as a hypothesis in which 
 it believed, sustaining it with all the ardor of deeply-seated con- 
 viction ; the other issued from a state of ecstasy, burning with 
 love, impatient to propagate itself externally with all the author- 
 ity of virtue.^ In both, but especially in the last named, a great 
 
 " St. Bonaventura; In Magist. sentcnt., lib. ii., d. 1 ; p. 1 ; a. 1 ; q. 1.— 
 Serm. 1 and 7, in Hexcvmcr. : " Arlstoteles incidit in multos errores — 
 exsecratus est ideas Plalonis et perperam." 
 
 '■^ See, on the characteristics of mysticism. Cousin, History of Philosophy, 
 vol. 1., bk. 4.
 
 hi the TJiirteenth Century. 307 
 
 power was given to the heart over the mind, and tlie iraagiuati"n 
 held tlae keys of the heart: hence, a real need, a constant iiai'i 
 of allegorical expressions and legendary allusions. Conteiuphiiivi.'. 
 ascetic, symbolic, — such has mysticism always been, and such is 
 the triple seal wherewith it stamped the philosophy of Dante. 
 
 Contemplation proposes to itself God as its object. The mys- 
 tics could find no surer way of confounding individual reason, and 
 of obliging it to avow its insufficiency, than that of placing it im- 
 mediately in the presence of the divine nature and of the two at- 
 tributes thereof which seem at once tlie most incontestable and 
 the most incompatible, immensity and simplicity. On the one 
 hand, God reveals Himself as necessarily indivisible, and con- 
 sequently incapable of having ascribed to Him the abstractions of 
 quantity and quality by which we know creatures ; indefinable, 
 because every definition is an analysis which decomposes the 
 subject defined; incomparable, because there are no terms where- 
 with to institute any comparison: so that one might say, giving 
 to the words an oblique meaning, that He is the infinitely little, 
 that He is nothing.' But, on the other hand, that which is with- 
 
 * Dionys. Areop., de Divin. Nomin., 9. Id., Ihid. passim.— St. Bonaven- 
 tura, Corrn>ciidium, i.,"l~.— t'f. Paradise, xiv., 10 ; xxix., 4.— It must be re- 
 membered that the expressions used by Dionysius the Areopagite and by 
 his Imitators, aUvays feeble efforts of human speech to malie divine things 
 understood, canuot be taken in a literal sense, and must always be ex- 
 plained by the general method of thought of the writers employing them.
 
 3o8 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 out extension, moves without resistance ; that which is not to be 
 
 grasped cannot be contained ; that wliich can be enclosed within 
 
 no hmitation, either actual or logical, is by that ver}- fact limitless. 
 
 The infinitely little is then also the infinitely great, and we may 
 
 say, in a certain way, that it is all. In fact, if in immaterial beings 
 
 the essence and the power cauTiot be separated, the first cause by 
 
 its power being everywhere, every where also must be its essence 
 
 This is the force which sustains inanimate things, which is the 
 
 life of all that lives, the wisdom of all that is intelligent. The 
 
 divine unity then multiplies itself as by a series of emanations, 
 
 but it remains superior, isolated, distinct, and without communi- 
 cating its incommunicable perfections.' Below are ranged in 
 
 divers ranks all creatures, united by a continuous influence. The 
 
 three hierarchies of the angels, through the intermediation of the 
 
 triple hierarchy of the Church, pour forth upon humanity strength, 
 
 life, and wisdom ; divided into nine choirs, they act through the 
 
 revolutions of the nine celestial spheres down even upon the hum- 
 
 > Dionys. Areop., de Divin. Nomin., 11.— Id., de Conlest. Hierarch., iv. 
 — St. Thomas also made use of the word Emaiiatio, and the fact has been 
 misinterpreted, but he formally excludes any opinion favoring pantheism. 
 St. Bonaveniura, Compendium, I., 16: "Ita Deus est in irrationabilibus 
 creaturis ut uon capiatur ab Ipsis." — Cf. Epi.sf. ad Can. Grand.
 
 Ill the Thirteenth Century. 309 
 
 Ijlest existences almost lost upon the borders of nothingness.' 
 These magnificent visions had often visited the anchorites of the 
 desert and the sages of the cloister in their meditations ; but, 
 rapid and fleeting, iliey liad passed as passes the electric flash. 
 Dante succeeded in fixing them, and in making their brightness 
 descend forever into the marvellous structure of the Divine 
 Comed}'. 
 
 Asceticism is the practical study of man, the science of sancti- 
 fication. "We have already seen cajise to believe that ihe Italian 
 poem contains a complete ascetic system. We can entertain no 
 doubt upon this matter if we compare with it works of the same 
 kind, by no means rare in the Middle Ages. The legend contained 
 under the descriptions of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, is the 
 story of man, withdrawn from the sombre thicket of terrestrial 
 interests and passions, and led back, by means of the considera- 
 tion of himself, of the world, and of the Divinity, into the way of 
 salvation. Christian, as well as pagan science, Ijegins by the 
 ]\mO'. (TzyjjTO'^: itanalyzes thcentirc economy of sin, ofpenitence, 
 and of virtue. If it glances at theexternal world, it is that itmav 
 therein recognize dangers fur man and glory for God. And if it 
 
 ' Dionys. Areop., dc Ccelesti Hierareh. and de Eceles. Hierarch., 
 parts im.—Gf.Varnd.^ xxviii.,xxix.. pawim, n.,43, etc.; Convito, il...5.,etc. 
 See, on the whole subject o( this transcendental theology, the Precia de 
 VhMoire de la philosophie, p. 217,
 
 3 1 o Dante, arid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 reveals the Creator, it is less by the effort of thought than by the 
 merit of desire : the interior revelations thus made, not only satisfy 
 the understanding, but they impel the will and direct it in the 
 way of endless progress.' The work of Dante, thus reduced to a 
 signification severe but indubitable, merely reproduces the lessons 
 taught by those who professed the cure of souls, from the fathers of 
 the Thebaid, whose sayings have been reported to us by Cassian, 
 down to St. Bonaventura, whose lessons reduced to doctrine that 
 which had been related of the transports and ecstasies of St. 
 Francis. It was in the same school that Dante acquired many of 
 his most interesting modes of viewing things, as for instance the 
 relations between error and vice, between knowledge and virtue ; 
 the genealogical order of the capital sins,** the reciprocal actiuii 
 of the physical and the moral structure of man, whence result 
 
 I St. Augustine, rfeQuantit. .4 nima".— St. Bernard, de Comideratione, 
 de Interiore Domo.— Richard of St. Victor, dc Ch-atia Contempl.—&t. 
 Bonaventura, Itinerar. mentis adDeum.-CL Inferno, i., 11 ; Purgatorio, 
 passim, xxxiil. 
 
 * The classification of the capital sins, which in itself implies the question 
 of the origin of moral evil, for a long time varied in theological teach- 
 ing. (See Cassian, Cottaho v. and St. Thomas, prima secundfc, q. 84.) 
 It is found as set forth by Dante, in the writings of St. Gregory the Great, 
 Moral., xxxi. 31. -Hugh of St. Victor, in Matth.. 3-5.— St. Bonaventura, 
 Compendium, ill., 14.— Cf. Purgatorio, xvii., 32.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 3 1 1 
 
 two parallel theories which exi^lain the indications of the human 
 countenance and the effects of mortification.' In fine, analogies 
 are to be found even in the general form of the Divine Comedy, 
 which, when describing the pilgrimage of its author through the 
 spheres of heaven (the seat of as many distinct virtues) up to thu 
 feet of the Almighty, recalls the favorite titles of the treatises of 
 St. Bonaventura: "Itinerary of the Soul toward God; Golden 
 Ladder of Virtues ; the Seven Ways of Eternity." ^ 
 
 In fact, those pious contemplatives, who seemed as if they had 
 irrevocablj'' laid aside the weaknesses of this nether world, never- 
 theless consented to adorn the austerity of their ideas with all 
 the graces of expression, whether tlirough a merciful condescen- 
 sion toward their disciples, or tlirough tliat natural attraction 
 which they who are good feel toward that which is beautiful. 
 They retained an affectionate sympathy for the whole of creation, 
 
 ' St. Bonaventura, Compendium, ii., .57-59. These three chapters con- 
 tain all the elements of a system of physiognomy and craniology. It 
 might be curious to compare it with the systems of Gall and Spurzhelm 
 (Cf. Convito, 1., 8, etc.). But, if phrenology would escape fatalism, it 
 must lead to mortification. Phrenologlcally speaking. It the passions are to 
 be restrained within just limits, this must be accomplished by employing hy- 
 gienic methods, that is, abstinences, to arrest the extreme development of 
 their organs. 
 
 ^ St. Bonaventura, Itinerarium mentis ad Deumi ; Formula aureade 
 gradihus virtutum ; Z)e vii., itineribus (Bternitatis.
 
 3 1 2 Dante, ami Catholic Philosophy 
 
 wliicli they no longer regarded in its actual state of degradation, 
 but in the primordial purity of the divine plan. It assumed to 
 them the aspect of a luxuriant foliage, soon borne away by the 
 wind of death, but meanwhile affording shade and freshness, 
 and thus bearing witness to Providence.' Still oftener they saw 
 in it a sister, who, only in another fashion, expressed the same 
 thoughts that occurred to themselves and sang the same love. 
 This is why they borrowed from it frequent comparisons, dis- 
 covered sacred harmonies, and indicated previously undiscerned 
 relations between things foreign to one another in appearance 
 and scattered over the extremities of space. They did the same 
 within the domain of time: centuries, events, and men, were for 
 them merely prophecy and its fulfilment, voices alteraately 
 questioning and answering, figures mutually repeating one an- 
 other. Distances were obliterated ; the past and the future in- 
 terchanged and mingled in an endless present. Thence the ad- 
 mirable Christian symbolism which embraces both nature and 
 history, which binds together all visible things by considering 
 them as shadows of the things that are not seen ; * an energetic 
 
 • Hugh of St. Victor, in Eccleniast. "Species rerum visibilium folia 
 sunt quae modo quidem pulclira apparent, seel cadent subito cum turbo 
 exierit — Dum stant taraen umbram faciunt et habent refrigerium 
 suiiin." — Cf. Paradise, xxvi.,2S. 
 
 " St. Paul, Romans, i., 20. " For the invisible things of Hira, from the 
 creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things 
 that are made."
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 313 
 
 language, of which all the terras are realities, and all the words 
 siguificaut facts ; a learned and sacred tongue, having its tradi- 
 tions and its rules, spoken in the temple, and sometimes translated 
 into the speech of stone or canvas, of monuments or edifices. 
 The poet learned it from the lips of priests, and when he repeats 
 it to our profane ears, we scarcely compreliend; we regard as so 
 many daring flights of genius the images which for him were 
 simpl)' so many familiar reminiscences. God represented, now 
 as circumference and again as centre, as an illimitable sea envel- 
 oping the empyrean, or as an indivisible point around which the 
 universe revolves : ' — creatures compared to a series of mirrors, 
 whereon fall, and whence are reflected, the rays of the uncreated 
 sun:'- — the divers states of the soul personified: the theological 
 virtues by the three Apostles, Peter. James, and John ; and the two 
 lives, the active and the contemplative, by Martha and Mar}', Lia 
 and Kachel : •' — the emblems of the eagle and the lion whereun- 
 
 ' St. John Damascene ; St. Bonaventura, Compendium, ii., 15; Para- 
 dise, i., 38 ; xxviii., 6. 
 
 '^ Dionys. Areopag., de Divin. Komin.—St Bernard, de iiiter. Domo, 
 xiii. " Praecipuum et principale speculum ad videndum est animus ra- 
 tlonallsinveniensseipsura."— Cf. Paradise, xiii., 19. Kij.ad Can. Grand. 
 
 5 St. Bernard, de Assrimpt. Serm. iii.— Richard of St. Victor, dc Piu;- 
 paratione Animtr^ i.— St. Bcinaventura, in Lucain, viii. "Petrus qui 
 iQterpretatur agnoscens designat fldeni: Jacobus qui luctator, spem ; 
 Johannes qui, in quoestgralia,charitatem."— Cf. Convito, iv., 22; Purga- 
 torio, xxvii. ; Paradiso, xxiv.-xxv.
 
 314 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 der wo recognize the two natures in Christ ; the tree of the cross 
 blent with tiie tree in the terrestrial paradise ; Eden as a figure 
 of the Church militant ; the statue of Nabuchodonosor, a type of 
 the progressive decadence of humanity.' This bold style of the 
 Florentine muse is indeed that employed by the Church, when 
 from her pulpits she pucHied the mettlesome courag© of our an- 
 cestors ; it is that wherewith the St. Bernards and the St. Thom- 
 ases of Canterbury thrilled the people and made kings tremble. 
 
 3. And 3-et. as we have already seen, if the learning of the 
 Middle Ages divided its veneration between St. Bonaventura and 
 St. Thomas, tlic last named, perhaps through liis merit, perhaps 
 through the reputation of superiority enjoyed by the order of St. 
 Dominic, obtained .". more decided ascendency over the multitude 
 of studious minds. St Thomas culled up memories of Aristotle 
 by the universality (.f his knowledge, tiie sulitl gra\'ity of his 
 character, by Lis talent for analysis and classification, and by tlic 
 extreme sobriety of !iis language. Tlis intervention had jjlaeeil 
 upon a stirc foundation tlic long contested authority of the Stagy- 
 rite, toward whom lie was led. independently oi liis own personid 
 inclination, by the influence of the great family of ddgniatic phil- 
 osopliers (Albert the Great. Alexander of Hales. John of Salis- 
 
 ' St. Bonaventura. 17) Pitrtlm.. ]..W>.— TnLiicam. 13.— Sermo de Invent. 
 Cn<ci8.— -Richani. f/e Enidit. int. )iinii., i.,1.~Ci. Purgatorio, xxvil.- 
 -v.xxii.: Inferno, xiv.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 3 1 5 
 
 bury) from which he was himself descended. In fact, the roots 
 of scholastic dogmatism were laid in Peripatetic ontology and 
 logic. But the vigorous trunk of Christian revelation engrafted 
 on these roots had borne essentially new fruits : the primal arid- 
 ity of sensism was corrected by the flow of a better sap ; relig- 
 ious feeling circulated through the dry veins, vivifying both ra- 
 tional conceptions and sensible truths. This growth could not 
 escape the penetrating glance of Dante, and the thorns by which 
 it was surroimded were not such as to arrest his robust gra?p. 
 
 The philosophy of St. Thomas and of his school consists less 
 in the principal theses advanced, which indeed belong to theology, 
 than in the proofs by which they are supported, the chain of 
 reasoning by which they are connected together, and ihe conse- 
 quences to be drawn from them ; all which things are difficult to 
 convey in a rapid summary. We may, however, readily perceive 
 a constant progression from the abstract to the coucretc, from the 
 simple to the multiple, which progression naturally divides itself 
 into four series : the science of being, the science of God, the sci- 
 ence of spiiits. and the science of man.' 
 
 ' This too brief analysis is nearly that of the Sumnia toutra GcnteK by 
 St. Thomas, and of the first half (prima et prima »€cuncl(F)o( his Snmma 
 T7ieo?()(/i>. Mel aphvsics is found occupyinp a certain place in the The- 
 odicy, that is to sav. that before proving the poodness of God, good in gen- 
 eral is treated ■ f : before demonstnuing His veracity, the true is defined ; 
 each one of the abstract qualities is examined as it bears relation to some 
 divine attribute. In the same waf, pnf umatology is sometimes mingled 
 with anthropologv : the soul a^ luii'ed to the body is treated of before it is 
 separately considered. However, in general, the logical order is carefully 
 observed, and ideas follow one another as we have indicated.
 
 3.1 6 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 The science of being in general took its starting point in the no- 
 tions of snbstauce, form, matter, etc., so learnedly elaborated b}' 
 the Peripatetics ; but it did not stop there ; it deduced from these, 
 notions more exact and more living Being, passing through a 
 series of rigorous deductions, became successively goodness, unity, 
 truth. Already, amid tlie nebidous atmosphere of abstractions, 
 the divine "attributes began to appear and to trace their own out- 
 lines. Unit}', the common condition of all existences; Truth, 
 the sovereign good of intelligences; Good, the term of all the ten- 
 dencies of nature and of all thinking wills, essentially distinct from 
 evil, wliieh is not moroly the absence, ))\it the privation and the 
 loss of good.' 
 
 Thus, between pantheism and dualism, a safe wa}' opened out 
 whereby natural theology miglit enter. Supported botli on the 
 axioms of causality and necessity, and ou the phenomena of 
 d£,ily observation, it arrived at the demonstration of the existence 
 
 1 Siumma Theologi^, prima, q. 11 ; q. 16, 1 : " Varum est terminus lu- 
 tellectus slcut bonum appetitus." (TLe True is tbe term of the intel- 
 lect, as the Good is the term of the appetite.)— q. 5, 3 . "Omce ens in 
 quantum ens, est bonum." (Every being, as such, is good.) — q. 6, 1: 
 " Omnia uppetendo proprias perfectiones appetunt ipsum Deum." (All 
 things in desiring their own perfection, desire God Himself.) — q. 14, 10: 
 "Malum non est negatio pura, sed privatio boni." (Evi\ is not pure nega- 
 tion, but privatlonof good.)— Cf. Inferno, iii., ti; Paradise, xxvi., 6; ConvJ- 
 to, iv., 13, 22, etc.
 
 In the TJiirtccnth Century. 317 
 
 of Ood.' It seemed difficult to go farther, tlie indivisibility of 
 God not allowing us to isolate His perfections for the purpose 
 of studying tliem successively ; but, by a bold reversion, this 
 very indivisibility was taken as a generating principle of all 
 the combined perfections issuing from it ; immutability, eternity, 
 goodness, justice, beatitude; and these were considered as so 
 many terms of a continuous equation always representing, 
 under different names, the totality of the divine essence.'^ Tluis 
 were avoided the dangers of anthropomorphism and of polythe- 
 ism, which attributed to God all tlie infirmities and incoherencies 
 of a human personality : at the same time, approaches were 
 made toward tlie dogma of the Trinity, in which we find 
 existing (in an entirely mysterious way) as Persons, the Father, 
 the Word, and the Holy Spirit — Power, "Wisdom, and Love. 
 This mystery, incomprehensible as it may be, was connected with 
 that of creation, of which it explained the mode and the motive: 
 the motive, for Love determined Power to realize that which 
 "Wisdom had conceived ; the mode, for all things, by the sole fact 
 
 ' Summa TheologUe, prima, q. 2, 2, 3.— Cf. Paradise, xxiv., 44.— 
 Eplxt. ad Can. Grand. 
 
 2 Summa Theohnj.. piima, q. 3, 4 : " Deus cum sit primum efflciens et 
 actus purus et ens simplioiter primum, essentiam indistinctam at) esse 
 habet." (As God is the first effector, absolute act, and first simple being, 
 there is in Him no distinction between essence and existence.) Q. 4, 2; 
 q. 13. And Summa ioniiit Ocntcx i., lib., I., paxf^im.
 
 3 1 8 Dante and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 that they exist, that they obey a law, that they concur in a de- 
 termined order, bear, as it were, some trace of the Father, of the 
 Word, and of the Holy Spirit. In intelligent creatures, this trace 
 (or footprint), of which they are themselves conscious, is more 
 recognizable, and becomes an image.' 
 
 Among such creatures, those not associated with matter, that 
 is, the angels, good and bad, and the separated souls, whatever 
 their destiny of expiation, of chastisement, or of recompense, be- 
 came the objects of a special study. "We cannot sufficiently ad- 
 mire the boldness with which this study, without the aid of the 
 senses or of the imagination, by the sole power of the reason, en- 
 tered into consideration of these unkntown beings, accompanied 
 them through all the conditions of their incorporeal existence, de- 
 termined their characters, their functions, their relations, and 
 
 1 Summa Theolog., prima, q. 44, 4 : " Primo ageuti non convenit agere 
 propter acquisitionein alicujus flnis, sed intendlt solum communicare 
 suam perfectionem." (It does not belong to the Primal Agent to act 
 for the acquisition of some end, but He intends merely to communicate 
 Ei.s perfection.)— Cf. Paradise, xxix., 5.-Q. 45, 6,7: "In rationalibus 
 creaturis est Imago Trlnitatis, in caeteris vero creaturis est vestigium." 
 (In rational creatures is found the image of the Trinity, whereas in the 
 other creatures is found Its footprint.) Cf. Paradise, xxlx., 6 ; xili., 19 ; 
 vli., 25.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 3 1 9 
 
 finally, passing beyond the last bounds of certainty, penetrated 
 even into the realm of probabilities.' 
 
 Man, a luhole composed of soul and body, incomplete if one of 
 these parts be lacking, sufficed to fill out the limits of an entire 
 science ; we called it anthropology, but the science is older than 
 its name. It foimd, at the outset, two errors to destroy: one, 
 which tended to multipl}' souls in each individual, the other, to 
 allow of but one soul common to the whole species.''^ Then it 
 undertook to analyze the complex facts of human activity, and to 
 distinguish the divers powers which they manifest. The above- 
 named science sometimes recognized three of these powers, 
 nutritive, sensitive, and rational, and again it divided them into 
 two, which it named apprehetisive and appetitive. The apprehen- 
 sive power was the intellect, which by turns active or passive, was 
 viewed as enlightened from on high by the rays of the divine 
 reason, or from below b_v the light derived from sensations.' The 
 
 » Summa Theolog-, prima, qq. 50 64; 106-lU.— Inferno, i., 39; and 
 Purgatorio, Paradise, pitftxim. 
 
 2 Summa Tlieolacj., prima, q. 7G, 3: " Impossibile est in homine esse 
 plures aniraas. Apparent per boc quod una operatic animEe, cum fuerit 
 intensa, impedit aliani." (It is impossible tbat there should be a plurality 
 of souls in man. The fact that one operation of the soul, when intense, 
 impedes another, shows the principle of its operations to be essentially 
 one.)— Cf. Purgatorio, iv., 2. 8.— Q. 79, 5. Cf. Purgatorio, xxv., 23. 
 
 3 Summa Tlieolog., prima, q. 78-79 : " Ratio superior est qua- intendit 
 fcternisconspiciendis." (The superior reason is that which contemplates 
 the eternal things which are to be discovered.)— 12, 12 : " Naturalis nostra 
 cognitio a sensu principium suiiiit." (Our natural kuowledge takes its 
 beginning from the senses.)-Cf. Purgatorio, xviii., .nxv.; Paradiso, iv., 14.
 
 320 Dante, and Catholic PJiilosopliy 
 
 afpetilive power comprised tlie natural appetite, which is ignorant 
 of itself ; tlie sensitive appetite, which is irascible or concupiscible ; 
 the rational appetite, which is the will : to these three kinds of 
 appetite corresponded the three kinds of love. The will, necessar- 
 il_y impelled to seek good, that is, felicity, had received from God 
 a primordial impulsion in this direction; but the means of reach- 
 ing the desired end are left to the free will, which can be con- 
 strained neither by the counsels of reason, by the seductions of 
 the senses, nor bj^ the influence of celestial bodies.' Free will, 
 essential to all natures endowed with intelligence, then exercised 
 its power of choice, electing either sin or virtue. To avoid sin 
 and to acquire virtue, became the labor of the whole of life ; but 
 this work, common to all, was to be accomplished in the bosom of 
 societ}-, consequently, under the rule of law. The eternal and 
 sovereign law was presumed to dwell in the Divine Reason, which 
 regulates the relations of things and co-ordinates them to their end. 
 From this source emanated the authority of liuman laws, just and 
 obligator\% under tlie threefold reserve, not to exceed the due 
 limits of power, to procure the woll-ljcing of the' community, and 
 to distribute proportionally rights and burdens. 
 
 ' .Si/mma T/ico/oy., prima, qq. 80-8:}, 135; prima secuDdse, q. 27,2: 
 " AppetibileraovetappetitumfaciensquodaiDmodoineoejusintentionem," 
 ew.; K passage translated verbatim, PurKatorio, xviii., 8.— t^f. ibi(J.,xvii., 
 ,T1 ; Ciiiivito, iii., 3.
 
 In tlic Thirteenth Century. 321 
 
 For political equity being the consequence of natural fraternity, 
 it was plainly asserted that God had not created two Adams, one 
 of precious metal, from whom the nobles were descended, and the 
 other of clay, the father of the plebeians.' Beyond the societies of 
 this earth, the kingdom of heaven was shown as a consoling per- 
 spective. The dogma of future immortality and the definition of 
 man as it had been recorded, formed two premises whence resulted 
 as a final and glorious consequence, the doctrine of the resurrec- 
 tion of the body.'' 
 
 Xow, of these four great series of philosophical conceptions, the 
 first two are found, although fragmentary and somewhat con- 
 founded together, in Dante's work ; expressed or unexpressed, 
 but everywhere present, they are its soul. The last two may be 
 
 ' St. Thomas, de Erwd. princ, i., 4 : " Ab uno cranes oriRinem habe- 
 mus. Non legitur Deus fecisse unum hominem argenteum ex quo nobiles, 
 unum luteum ex quo ignobiles." Summa Theolog., prima secundae, 91- 
 96. These bold principles are also those of St. Bonaventura. Serm. iii., 
 Domin. 12 post Pentecost. It is cMuious to And them developed at length 
 in a political work written bv the preceptor of Philip the Fair, who prof- 
 ited ill by tbem: B. .Egidii Coluniuae, de Rcftiminc principum. See 
 especially 1. iii., p. ii.. cap. vlii. and x.xxiii., two very remarkable chap- 
 ters on public instruction and on the middle classes.— Cf. Dante, de Mon- 
 archia, ii.; Couvito, iv., U. 15; Paradise, viii. 
 
 2 Summa contra Gentex, lib. iv., ro.-Cf. Paradise, vii., 23-49; xiv., 1.5; 
 luferno, vi., 35.
 
 322 Da?itc, and Catholic Philosopliy 
 
 said to constitute its bod}'. What is. indeed, the verj'^ framework 
 of the poem, if not an exploration of the immaterial world, where- 
 in figure all its inhabitants, with their darkness and their light, 
 their passions and their affections, tlieir providential rainistrj-; — 
 from the lord of the lower regions and his reprobate subjects, to 
 the loftiest choirs of seraphs ? Moreover, does not a continual 
 reversion of thought lead the poet from the apparitions of the life 
 to come back to the things of our terrestrial existence ? And 
 have we not alreadj'^ amply set forth the main features of tlie 
 anthropological system enclosed by him within the cycle of his 
 fabled pilgrimages ? 
 
 4. In placing himself under the auspices of Ijoth St. Bonaventura 
 and St. Thomas, Dante merely carried out the felicitous impulse 
 whicii had led him to yield by turns to the influences of Platon- 
 ism and of Aristotelianism. If he had believed in the possibility 
 of a reconciliation between the two princes of the Greek schools, 
 he found the same completely realized in regard to the most re- 
 vered masters of mysticism and of dogmatism. He beheld them, 
 free from all pride and rivalry, encouraged by the serious and 
 benevolent habits of tliought prevalent in tlieir day, put an end 
 to old disputes, and, by a conciliatory decision, resolve the famous 
 problem of universals, which in many respects represented the 
 points at issue between the Academicians and the Peripatetics. 
 Universals, forms, or idea.'; (for in tjie language of St. Bonaven-
 
 hi the Thirteeiith Century. 323 
 
 tura and St. Thomas these three terms seemed to have become 
 synonymous) can be considered in God, in things, and in the 
 human mind. Ideas exist in God as designs and types, as prin- 
 ciples of existence and of tlie faculty of knowing. They are there 
 eternal ; they are in the divine essence as the branch is on the 
 tree, the bee in the flower, the honey in the comb ; we may say 
 that in a certain way thej- are even God Himself.' In things, 
 the idea, or universal form, is found only as reduced to the con- 
 dition of the individual, it is objectively inseparable from the 
 material circumstances which individualize it ; but matter itself 
 would be useless, and the individual would not exist, without the 
 universal form whicli gives to it a mode of being, and classes it 
 under a species and a genus. Finally, the human mind can ab- 
 stract the universal from the determinate matter under which it 
 is contained ; the intellect seizes upon the character of universal- 
 ity at the same time that the representation of the individual ob- 
 
 ' Summa T/ieolog., prima, q. 15.— "Necesse est ponere in mente divina 
 ideas. Cum idese a Platone ponereniur priacipia cognitionis rerum et 
 generationis ipsarum, ad utrumque se habet Idea prout in mente divina 
 ponitur . . . . "- St. Bonaventura, Compendium, i., 25. " Idefe sunt formoe 
 principales rerum quae In mente divina continentur. Idea moraliter lo- 
 quendo, est multipliciter in Deo ; scilicet sicut ramus in arbore, apis iu 
 flore, mel in lavo, avicula in nldo. quiEllbet res in sibi propria."
 
 324 Dafite, afid Catholic PliilosopJiy 
 
 ject strikes tlie senses.' Dante, wlieu adhering to this theory, 
 was at once a wise reahst avoiding the sterile multiplication of 
 imaginary beings, and a conceptualist with broad views who 
 could not be confined within the limitations of tangible verities. 
 
 ' St. Bonaventura, in Magist. Scntent., 1, d. 5, art. 2, q. 1 : "Univer- 
 sale de se uon generantur nisi in individuo; est tamen ipsiim universale 
 secundum quod princlpaliterintenditura generante."— St. Thomas, Ojjits- 
 cul. de Sensu respectu particularium, et Intellect ii rcspcctu universal- 
 ium. This treatise, most important in the history of philosophy, ought to 
 be more widely known. It may be judged of by the brief extract which 
 follows : " In things material and corporeal, the individuation of the com- 
 mon nature arises from the bodily matter contained under determinate 
 dimensions. But the universal is constituted by abstraction from that 
 sort of matter and from individuating material conditions. It therefore 
 follows that the similitude of the thing which is received in the senses, rep- 
 resents the thing, inasmuch as it is, as singular, but, received in the in- 
 tellect, it represents the thing according to the essence of its universal na- 
 ture — But, the nature itself of which we can predicate this aspect of 
 universality, has a duplex being : one, indeed, material, according as it 
 exists in material nature; but the other immaterial, according as it exists 
 in the intellect. Verily the conception of the universal cannot come 
 from the first mentioned mode of being, because there the nature is indi- 
 vidualized by matter. Therefore the conception of the universal arises 
 inasmuch as abstraction is made from the individual matter : but the na- 
 ture cannot be abstracted from the individual matter really, as the Pla- 
 touists asserted." See Appendix, No. 1.
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. 325 
 
 However, we should form an erroneous judgment of Dante and 
 of his masters, if we saw in them merely the contiuuers and 
 reconcilers of the philosophical sects of Paganism. Doubtless, 
 Christianity, with the uiflexibility of its dogmas and the respect 
 professed I)y it for the liberty of human opinions, afEorded a sure 
 criterion and the power of a wide choice, two propitious condi- 
 tions for the founding of a real eclecticism. But this was not all : 
 the vice of, and at the same time the excuse for, the wisdom of 
 antiquity, lay in tlie profound doubt which it presumed. Essen- 
 tial truths, God, dut}-, immortality, reached it only athwart the 
 fragments of tradition and the ruins of con.science ; they thus 
 were readily misknown and reduced to the condition of simple 
 conjectures; it was then needful that the wisdom of tJie time 
 should make these matters the subjects of long, patient, and labor- 
 ious researches; and these researches, grounded upon fallible 
 reasoning, could lead only to uncertain results. Thence the self- 
 mistrust betrayed by the most beautiful doctrines, the constant 
 need felt of re-discussing principles not certainly established ; time 
 and genius absorbed by a small number of metaphysical aud moral 
 problems : questions of detail and the secondary sciences left al- 
 together in oblivion. On the contrary, Christianity reproduced 
 tlie truths so ardentlj' pursued in the meditations of the learned; 
 it reproduced them, not only in thcii' primitive purity, but with a 
 new energy, and the}- became exact, strict, unwavering. Ac-
 
 326 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 ccptcd bj faitli, reason could no longer doubt them without crim- 
 inality ; known to all, no one thought of renewing the search for 
 them: nothing then remained except to study their mutual har- 
 mony, to pursue their developments, and to deduce truths of an 
 inferior order : the security acquired in regard to general prin- 
 ciples gave to the intelligence the liberty required to occupy 
 itself with the applications, and this security of religious belief 
 allowed of advancing, with sure steps and without looking back- 
 wards, into the furthermost paths of the profane sciences. Thus, 
 pagan philosophy was a philosophy of investigation, losing itself 
 in endless generalities amid the prolegomena of an ever incom- 
 plete encyclopedic system. Christian philosophy, entirely of dem- 
 onstration, led to precise, detailed, and fruitful researches: taking 
 hold of the two leading ideas, God and the soul, it freed them 
 from all alloy of error, and laid the foundations of theodicy and 
 psychology; it prepared leisure for those who would one day 
 observe nature, and instruction for those who might be called 
 to reform society ; it has truly accomplished that which Bacon 
 named the grand restoration of human knowledge. If then the 
 systems of antiquity seemed in some respects to be continued in 
 dogmatism and in mysticism, among the realists and the concept- 
 ualists, it was that they might draw near to one another, and take 
 on a new life under the conciliatory and vivifying action of the 
 new faith. The general tendencies of the age favored this result: 
 Dante, the faithful disciple of his epoch before becoming its mas- 
 tor, could then be none other than a Ohristian eclectic.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ANALOGY BETWEEN THE PHILOSOPHY OF DANTE AND MODERN 
 PHILOSOPHY. — EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM. 
 
 ST is doubtless a fine sight lo behold the learned schools of Asia, 
 Greece, and western Europe, environing the Italian poet with 
 their memories and their authority, thereby resembling the 
 illustrious shades with whom, at his first entrance into the 
 nether regions, he represents himself as holding discourse not to 
 be divulged.' We delight in seeing the exile, through the magic 
 of his learning, evoke around him this magnificent assemblage: 
 we never weary of admiring how. amid the obstacles which still 
 rendered study so laborious and so meritorious, his mind could 
 
 > Inferno, iv., 33. 
 
 When they together had discoursed somewhat. 
 They turned to me with signs of salutation. 
 And on beholding this, my master smiled ; 
 
 And more of honor still, much more, they did me. 
 In that they made me one of their own band ; 
 go that the sixth was I, 'mid so much wit. 
 
 Tlius we went on as far as to the light, 
 Things saying 'tis becoming to keep silent, 
 As was the saying of them where I was. 
 327
 
 328 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ^rasp and retain, gather together and set in order, so many con- 
 ceptions, maxims, and symbols: we arc almost appalled when we 
 contemplate the intellectnal past of the Middle Ages, perhaps in- 
 deed tliat of the whole human race, thus accunnilated in a single 
 mind. However, in this we find but one-half of that whicli con- 
 stitutes the task of a great man : he must sum up the past with 
 all the power of an original way of thinking, and transcend the 
 present by preparing the future. He is like one of the seers, 
 depositaries of tradition and prophecy, raised up of old by Heaven 
 to bind the centuries that have elapsed with those about to begin. 
 While thus uniting the ages together, he overtops them, he escapes 
 the oblivion which marches on beliind them, and thus becomes 
 immortal. What then is the personal glory of Dante ? What is 
 the especial value of his philosophy, that which distinguishes it 
 from the teachings which preceded it, and recommends it to tlie 
 attention of posterity ? We shall endeavor to elucidate this point. 
 1. Two different characters of genius appear in the history of 
 the human mind : the genius of methods, and the genius of dis- 
 coveries. Thence arise two kinds of great minds. Those of the 
 first species point out ways and propose researches ; those of the 
 second find facts, laws, or causes. The latter add new knowledge 
 to the learning of their age, whicli they thus enrich by addition ; 
 the former fecundate it for centuries to come, and extend it by 
 the way of multiplication. As the individual sciences have to
 
 /// tJic Thirtcoitli Cciihiry. 329 
 
 establish certain truths which especially pertain to them, it is in 
 llicir service that the discoverers of facts are ordinarily met with : 
 and as the particular call of philosophy seems to be t,o conduct the 
 sciences themselves in their common effort toward the attainment 
 of truth, it is to philosophy that principally belong the masters of 
 methods. Among these masters in later times we count three 
 famous names : Bacon, Descartes, and Leibnitz, respectively the 
 authors of the Novum Orgamim^ the Dissertatio de Metliodo rede 
 regendce Bationis, and the treatise, V Amendement de la philo.'iophie 
 j)remiere. To this class belonged Dante ; and whatever light he 
 ma}' have thrown upon various points, his great merit is, to have 
 acted upon all points at once, by causing philosophy to step out 
 of the scholastic ruts within which it was confining itself, and by 
 impressing upon it a more vigorous practical direction. 
 
 It is true, as we have already seen, that there always had been 
 in the Italian characier a twofold inclination, a tendency toward 
 the Beautiful as well as toward the Good, toward both the poetic 
 form and the ethical application. But these instincts, still timid, 
 hesitated to bring about their own satisfaction. Philosophers oc- 
 casionally yielded to the seductions of the muse, but then they 
 laid aside the doctor's cap ; and when poets philosophized, they 
 cast far from them their laurel crowns. Or perhaps, some tech- 
 nical sentence might be versified according to the Virgilian metre, 
 some Platonic idea furtively creep into the fugitive stanzas of a
 
 330 Dante, and Catholic P/iilosophy 
 
 sonnet. The language of science, as we have seen, was the lan- 
 guage of Aristotle. From the days of Charlemagne onward, it 
 liad not ceased to reign in the school, severe, imprisoning thought 
 within its categories, and words within its syllogisms. The four 
 figures and the nineteen modes of syllogistic reasoning were the 
 only rhythms which it allowed, while the monotonous cadence of 
 premises and conclusion formed the sole harmony in which it took 
 pleasure. On the other hand, if siuidry treatises upon economics 
 and ethics had been penned by Italians, if the scholastic doctors had 
 accomplished great things for the perfecting of the individual, and 
 the sages of the olden time much for the prosperity of the nations, 
 these partial works remained without a mutual bond, and conse- 
 quently without their due influence. In this period of the Middle 
 Ages which may be compared to a fervid adolescence, enthusiasm 
 regarding theories left small place for care about action, and 
 science, surprised at her own developments, was absorbed in the 
 contemplation of herself. We have seen noted in previous chap- 
 ters some remarkable exceptions to this state of things, but habits 
 so general and so deeply rooted could not be shaken by the pass- 
 ing efforts of a few chosen minds. Some great shock was needed, 
 a bold, prolonged, and widely extended impulse, such as Dante 
 was capable of giving. 
 
 2. To begin with, if he retained portions of the Peripatetic ter- 
 minology and classification in order to be intelligible to men whom
 
 hi the TliirtccntJi Century. 33 1 
 
 long usage had attached to tlicse forms [and also because these 
 forms best expressed his own ideas - Tr\ lie offered no other sac- 
 rifices to the idol adored around him nnder tlie name of logic. 
 The veneration of the idol was attacked l\y liim in so far as it 
 savored of superstition. He contested the absolute infallibility 
 of the syllogism ; the truth of the conclusion appeared to him 
 accidental, so to speak, certainly dependent upon the absolute 
 correctness of the two propositions whence it resulted. Hence 
 he proposed an examination into the .specious majors and minors 
 which circulated through the schools as so many indubitable 
 axioms and certain facts. Tlic study of words was forced to 
 give way to the study of things. Consequently, dialectics was 
 reduced to the occupation of a lower, narrower, and more 
 modest place in the hierarchy of human learning, while the abuses 
 introduced into instruction under its protection were duly pointed 
 out. But, as the faults in instruction and in dialectics were all 
 derived from vices common to human nature, it became necessary 
 to combat also these last, whether they had their origin m the 
 mind or in the heart — presumption, pusillanimity, frivolity, and 
 all the passions springing from pride or from sensuality. The 
 ever-living causes of the errors of every age thus became plainly 
 visible. Dante did not shrink from the consequences ; having 
 followed these out to their end. he was well aware that in disap- 
 proving of received rules, he incurred the obligation of supplying
 
 332 Daiite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 better ones. He did so, and uttered, not in sj^stematic order, 
 but under the free inspiration of his genius, those short and 
 fruitful maxims wherein he began by prescribing the precise de- 
 termination of tlie limits of reason and the extirpation of the 
 roots of prejudice ; then he inculcated the observation of facts, 
 prudence in reasoning, persistency in sustained meditation, and 
 finally, the discernment of the divers modes of certitude proper 
 to the different orders of ideas.' All this does not suffice for us 
 to attribute to the poet a formal and complete plan of effecting an 
 intellectual revolution, but it is more than is needed to indicate a 
 remarkable attempt, a stepping-stone, wliich, subsequently more 
 firmly fixed by the efforts of Gerson, Erasmus, Ramus, Louis 
 Vives, was enabled to serve as a fulcrum for tlie still more suc- 
 cessful efforts made by tlie English chancellor, Bacon. Little 
 resemblance as existed between these two in their political lives 
 and in their religious faith, the proud exile from Florence and the 
 disgraced courtier of Vernlam nevertheless met in a common des- 
 tiny of misfortune and of fame. Both condemned by societj^, in 
 their turn passed judgment upon it, denounced the idols adored 
 l)y it, charged it with its errors, and showed it the methods that 
 were to lead it to scientific results greater than it had ever hoped 
 for. If the first of tlie two was ilie less heeded, it was, perliaps, 
 
 1 See above. Part II., Chap. iii.
 
 In the Tliirtcenth Century. 333 
 
 because the world, frequently disturbed by false alarms, had long- 
 before resolved to answer only to the second call. 
 
 Danto, however, was to accomplish still more. Like the sage 
 of old, who, to confound the objections of sophists against tlie 
 jiDSsibility of movement, rose up and wa]l<ed in their presence, he 
 showed by his example that it was possible for philosophy to 
 move outside of the limitations within which it had until then been 
 confined. He stripped from it the colorless, stiff, and ofttimes 
 wearisome garb of the scholastic method, invested it with all the 
 glory of epic poetry, and gave to it the flexible and unconstrained 
 cliarms of the language of the people. Thus he placed his legiti- 
 mate revolt under the protection of national self-love. He real- 
 ized his pious desire of being able to offer the sacred broad of 
 instruction to such as were (so to speak) mere weanlings, ' to all 
 who by the lowliness of their origin, the multiplicity of their oc- 
 cupations, or the weakness of their moral temperament, might bo 
 withheld from the banquet of the wise and learned. But espec- 
 ially did he victoriously establish the liberty of thought, by mak- 
 ing it bend according to its will the power of words, to which it 
 had too long been subservient. He proved the reciprocal independ- 
 ence existing between the doctrines and \A\q forms of the school, 
 and thus barred the contempt which might one day fall upon tlic 
 
 > Convito, 1., 1. See also the letter from Fr. Ilario to Uguccione della 
 Faggiuola, found in several editions of Dante.
 
 334 Da?ite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 former by reason of their presumed solidarity with the latter. 
 Thus did he simultaneously struggle against the exaggerations of 
 his own time and the unjust judgments of posterity. 
 
 The inspiration which makes poets leads them back to the 
 lieaven whence it descended. By its means, thej^ sometimes, 
 witliout trouble or reckoning, reach the loftiest heights of meta- 
 pliysics. Xow, as all the sciences rest on facts infinitely varied, 
 and rise by degrees to the sole First Cause, we maj' saj- that 
 taken togetlier they shape themselves into a pyramid of which 
 metaphysics forms the apex. From the topmost point, where 
 they all meet, one glance around suffices to take in all their 
 faces : principles are seen to be in common, while external phe- 
 nomena differ. This is why the majority of the great discoveries 
 have been made, d priori^ by a sudden intuition, by the consider- 
 ation of final causes, by analogy, by hypotheses which their au- 
 tliors had no time to verify, 'i'his is why the mystics, reasoning 
 from God to man, and from man to matter, often had presenti- 
 ments of those laws of nature of vviiich the complete revelation 
 was reserved to later ages. lie who penned the Divine Comedy 
 seems to have experienced something similar. Sundry commen- 
 tators, carried perhaps somewhat too far by the charm pertaining 
 to marvellous origins, have thought to tind in his lines the germs 
 of the most fruitful conceptions of physiology : the circulation of 
 the blood, the configuration of the brain, organic lesions brought
 
 /// iJic Thirteenth Century. 335 
 
 into relation with tlie order ami the perturbations of the faculties 
 of the soul. But we cannot contest his claim to other sug- 
 gestions more felicitous. "When lie shows the univerrJality of 
 beings, surrounded, attracted on every side, and, as it were, 
 dilated by love, which communicates to them a ceaseless rotation ; 
 the mutual action and reaction of the heavens; weight contracting 
 the terrestrial globe and causing lieavy bodies to fall upon it ; 
 we might say that he had had a glimpse into the mechanical com- 
 binations of the forces which move the world and of the law of 
 universal attraction which Xewton was to read in the skies. The 
 need for a symmetrical construction leads him to presume in 
 another hemisphere tlie existence of those unknown lands on 
 which Christopher Columbus will one day set foot. Or again, 
 his conjectures induce him to suspect ancient catastrophes which 
 iiave changed the face of the earth, antediluvian revolutions in 
 the condition of the ocean, and deep seats of tire warming the ' 
 soil beneath our feet. He does not reach the hypothesis of a cen- 
 tral lire, for he gives to our globe a nucleus of ice, thus sporting, 
 live hundred years in advance, among the varying systems that 
 geology was to give rise to, from Buffon to Cuvier. 
 
 The effort toward a reform in the use of logic, and the sketch- 
 mg out of a new method ; the freedom of the intellect reconquered, 
 and its first exercise recompensed b)' an insight into sundry truths 
 on which depended the entire progress of the phj'sical sciences ;
 
 336 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 — these are the services which associate Dante with the growth 
 of modern empiricism. But lie well knew how to avoid its ab- 
 errations ; he kept far away from the paths whereby, in later 
 times, the crowd of men plunged deeply into the slough of ma- 
 terialistic doctrines and utilitarian systems. 
 
 3. A Ijetter star guided him, or rather, he was occupied with 
 nobler cares. Religion and sorrow, those two good counsellors, 
 induced him to look beyond the scenes of earth and material 
 needs, toward the things pertaining to the future life. There it 
 was that he perceived the reason for this terrestrial existence, 
 the sanction of the decrees of conscience, the realization of happi- 
 ness or misery contained beforehand in our merits and our de- 
 merits, in short, the final goal of. human life and action. The 
 guidance of such life and action must thence appear to him the 
 sole reasonable employment of our knowledge. Not only did he 
 attach to the mysterious visions of his poem a whole ascetic 
 theory of moral perfection, but he brought to bear upon this 
 theory studies the most varied and apparently the most foreign 
 to it. Taking death as his point of view, he conceived the plan 
 of a philosophy of life : he made this tlie centre and the bond of 
 union of all his subsequent researches ; he made of it a universal 
 science. Now, this practical wisdom, this positive side of knowl- 
 edge, is precisely what distinguished the two celebrated schools 
 of the seventeenth century ; that of Descartes, whence issued
 
 In the Thirtee?ttk Cetittiry. 337 
 
 Nicole, Bossuet, and Fenelon ; and that of Leibnitz, in whicli tlie 
 German mind was to acquire tlie deptli and gravit}- which make 
 its pride. 
 
 Bnt the tlioughts of Dante, althoiicfli they often tended toward 
 the consideration of death, were not accompanied by the egotism 
 so often liidden under a melancholy exterior. Besides, the great 
 breadth of his views did not allow him to ignore the relations 
 whereby the eternal destiny of individuals is bound to the temp- 
 oral vicissitudes of societj^ Hence, pious solicitudes bore him 
 back to the midst of the political disputes into which he had been 
 drawn in earlier years by the passions of his youth. In no direc- 
 tion did his ideas develop with more energy and originality. 
 Whilst the commentators of Bologna, living in his day, were los- 
 ing themselves in a minute interpretation of the text of the laws, 
 he soared boldly to the origin, divine as well as human, of all law, 
 and thence drew a definition to which nothing need be added. 
 Doubtless, he borrowed from the publicists of his own time many 
 of the arguments on which he bases the sovereignty of the Holy 
 Empire. But the empire as he conceives it. is no longer that of 
 Charlemagne, standing with its universal suzerainty at the head 
 of the individual royalties, which in turn hold under their allegi- 
 ance all the inferior ranks of a feudal aristocracy. His is a new 
 conception, closely related to two grand phases of history : on the 
 one side, the primitive Roman empire, in which the prince, invest-
 
 338 Dante, and Catholic PJiihsopJiy 
 
 ed with the tnbunitial power, represents in his triumph the 
 plebeians victorious over the patriciate ; and on the other, the 
 French monarchy, rising, through its alliance with the communes, 
 upon tlie ruins of the nobility. The depositary- of power, even 
 under the name of Caesar, his head crowned with the imperial dia- 
 dem, is, in the eyes of Dante, the immediate agent of the multi- 
 tude, acting as a level equalizing all heads. Among privileges, 
 none appears to him more odious than that of birth ; he shakes 
 feudalism to its very base, and his severe polemics, when attack- 
 ing the inheritance of honors, does not spare the inheritance of 
 property, limiting it to certain conditions. He had searched the 
 loftiest regions of moral theology to find the generative principles 
 of a philasophy of society : he thence pitilessly pursued the de- 
 ductions drawn, down to the most democratic and most impracti- 
 cable maxims. He passed over the entire ground traversed by in- 
 quiring minds, from Macchiavelli, the first who attempted to re- 
 duce to learned forms the art of government, down to Leibnitz, 
 Thomasius, and "Wolf, who vivified the abstract ideas of meta- 
 physics by transporting them into the realm of law, national 
 and civil ; and again, from Montesquieu, Beccaria, and the en- 
 cyclopedists, down to the bloody revolution which put in practice 
 the ultimate consequences drawn from their teachings. Later 
 still, when the disciples of Saint-Simon promised the guerdon io 
 each one according to his ca^aciiy, and to each capacity according
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 339 
 
 to the work accomplished, these bold innovators were merely echo- 
 ing views expressed iu a moment of bitter discontent by the old 
 singer of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Finally, the interests of the nations, always restricted within 
 certain limitations of space and time, did not yet offer a suffi- 
 ciently broad arena for tiic employment of his thoughts. Cath- 
 olicity, in whose bosom he was born, had taught him to embrace 
 in a wide feeling of fraternity men of all times and all places. 
 This generous mode of viewing things never left him even amid 
 his most learned labors, and Iiis thought, as well as his love, 
 took into account the whole of humanity. "When in the Convito 
 lie endeavors to surround the dogma of the immortality of the 
 soul with irrefragable proofs, it is to the unanimous convictions 
 of the human race that lie appeals. When he wishes to refute the 
 haughty prejudices of an hereditary aristocracy, lie goes back to 
 the common cradle of the whole human family. "When in the 
 treatise, de Monarchia, he desires to propose a perfect form of 
 srovernment, he wishes to see it realized over the whole face of 
 the earth that the work of civilization may Vie hastened, a work 
 which is none other than the harmonious development of all intel- 
 lects and all wills. When he enumerates the conquests of the 
 Roman people, he shows them as taking their place in the econ- 
 omy of the designs of Providence for the redemption of the 
 world. The Divine Comedy is in fact the outline of a universal
 
 340 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 history. In that vast gallery of death, no great figure is missing: 
 Adam and the patriarchs, Achilles and the heroes, Tlomer and 
 the poets, Aristotle and the sages ; Alexander, Brutus, and Cato ; 
 Peter and the Apostles, tlie Fathers of the Church and the saints ; 
 with the whole succession of those who liad worn, with shame 
 or with honor, the crown or the tiara, down to John XXII.. Phil- 
 ip the Fair, and Henry of Luxemburg. Political and religious 
 revolutions are represented under allegories easily translatable in- 
 to as many severe judgments. While we thus follow humanity 
 through the exterior transformations which it ceaselessly under- 
 goes, we also find in it the element of constancy which it con- 
 tains : amid diversity, unity is revealed ; in the midst of change, 
 permanenc}'. In tlie depths of the infernal zones, on the painful 
 ways of Purgatory, amid the glories of Paradise, it is always 
 man whom we meet — lost, expiating, or rehabilitated ; and when 
 at the close of the poem the last veil is lifted, and we are i)ermit- 
 iL'd to contemplate the Divine Trinity, we perceive in Its depths 
 ilie eternal Word united to liuman nature. This latter is then 
 not onlj^, as tlie ancients said, a microcosm, an abridgment of the 
 universe; it extends throughout the universe, it even passes be- 
 yond it and loses itself in the infinite. We may herein find ail 
 entire philosophy of humanity, which is at the same time a phil- 
 osophy of history. It is well known how great is the favor en- 
 joyed by this species of study, inaiigurated by the Bishop of
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. 341 
 
 Meaux, enriched by the speculations of Vico, Herder, and Fred- 
 eric Schlegel, and destined to harvest the fruit of all the labor 
 that an indefatigable erudition is carrying on around us. 
 
 Dante may hence be numbered among the most remarkable 
 precursors of modern rationalism, in that he was among the first 
 to give to philosophical science a moral, political, and universal 
 direction. And yet, he did not fall into tlie excesses we have 
 witnessed in our own day. He did not deify humanity by repre- 
 senting it as sufficient to itself, without other light than that of 
 its own reason, with no law but that of its own will. Neither 
 did he confine it within the vicious circle of its terrestrial destiny, 
 as do those for whom all the events of history are in turn merely 
 the effects and the necessary causes of other events, past or fu- 
 ture. He placed humanity neither so high nor so low. He saw 
 that it is not wholly in this world, through which it passes, so to 
 speak, in swarms ; he went first of all to seek it at the end of the 
 journey, where the numberless pilgrims of life are gathered to- 
 gether forever. It has been said that Bossuet, wielding the rod 
 of Moses, drives the generations to tlie grave. We may truly 
 say that Dante there awaits them, holding the scales of the last 
 judgment. He takes his stand upon the truths that they ought 
 to believe, on the justice that they ought to observe, and lie 
 weighs their deeds with the weights of eternity. He points out 
 to them the places on the rigiit hand or on the left which their
 
 342 Danic, and Catholic PJiilosopJiy 
 
 virtues or their crimes liavc prepared for them ; at tlie sound of 
 las voice, the multitude divides, and passes on through the gates 
 of Hell or up the pathways that lead to Heaven. Thus, with the 
 remembrance of our eternal destinies, morality re-enters into his- 
 tory ; huraanitj-, humiliated under the law of death, is lifted up 
 through the law of dutj- ; and if we must deny it the honors of a 
 proud apotheosis, we yet save it from the ignominy of a bruti.-^li 
 fatalism. 
 
 4. Thus, the logical and practical tendencies of tlie philosopher- 
 poet chime in with those of our own time, without partaking 
 of their errors. Tiiere is within us a self-love which makes us 
 gladly welcome a resemblance to ourselves, and which also makes 
 us regard the superiority of otlicrs to ourselves as a consolation, 
 because such superiorit}- leads us not to despair of the nature 
 with which we are endowed. Thence How the universal admira- 
 tion and sympathy which in these later days have called from 
 oblivion the great man whose work we have been considering. 
 " Dante," says M. de Laraartine, " seems to be the poet of our 
 era, for each epoch adopts and rejuvenates some one of the im- 
 mortal geniuses who are always as well men of their time ; it 
 meets its own reflection in his being, in him is traced an image of 
 itself, and thus does it betray its nature by its predilections " ' 
 
 ' Discourse on the occasion of liis rweption into the French Academy.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ORTHODOXY OF DANTE. 
 
 AViNG succsessively reviewed the principal periods in the 
 history of philosophy, in order to find among the vari- 
 ous systems produced, terms of comparison with the doctrines 
 held b)' Dante, we must now consider these doctrines from a 
 higlier point of view, one independent and unchangeable, that of 
 the Faith. Does Dante by his convictions belong to Catholic 
 orthodoxy? This problem has during the past three centuries 
 given rise to serious discussions. 
 
 1. Protestantism, at its birth", felt the need of creating for it- 
 self a genealogy which might carry it back to apostolic times, 
 and thus vindicate in its behalf the accomplishment of the prom- 
 ise of infallibilitj' made by the Redeemer to His Church. Hence 
 it went about, upturning tlic stones of every ruin and every tomb, 
 questioning the dead and the institutions of tliC past, making for 
 itself a famil}' out of the heresies of all times, seeking out the 
 freest and boldest among the geniuses of the Middle Ages, and 
 claiming them as fathers. Naturally, it was by no means scru- 
 puloys in the selection of proofs: for it, a few bitter words on the 
 
 subject of contemporaneous abuses, falling from tlie pen of some 
 
 343
 
 344 Dante, a?td Catholic Philosophy 
 
 celebrated man, sufficed for his immediate admission into the 
 catalogue of supposed witnesses to the truth.' Dante certainly 
 could not expect to escape these posthiimous honors. His vehe- 
 ment satire had more than once been employed against the ways 
 of clerics and the policy of the sovereign pontiffs. Sundry pas- 
 sages in his poem, ingeniously contorted, seemed, it was said, to 
 contain derisive allusions to the most sacred mysteries of the 
 Catholic liturgy.^ But especially was the last canto of the Purga- 
 torio quoted, wherein is found a prediction of an envoy sent by 
 Heaven to chastise the courtezan seated on the beast with seven 
 heads and ten horns : he is designated by characters forming the 
 Latin word DYX, which may well indicate one of the Ghibelline 
 captains of Lombardy or Tuscany. This envoy was said to be 
 none other than Luther ; for the ciphers gave the number five 
 hundred and fifteen, which, if a thousand years were added on 
 one side and two years on the other, would produce the date 1517, 
 
 ' Francowitz (Flaccus Illyricus) : Catalogtis testium veiitatis. 
 
 " Purgatorio, xxxiii., 12. 
 
 " God's vengeance fears no sop." 
 
 The stupidity or the malice of some commentators has presumed this 
 line to be a gross blasphemy against the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass. 
 We now know that the line refers to the custom, then prevalent in Florence, 
 of placing bread and wine on the grave of those whose death one had 
 caused ; the idea was that the vengeance of the relations might thus be 
 averted. The custom was of pagan origin.
 
 In iJic Thirteenth Century. 345 
 
 the hegira of the " Reformers." ' Such were the main arguments 
 of those who, from the sixteenth century onward, strove to popu- 
 larize the new opinions under the shelter of a venerated name.'' 
 Italian patriotism responded no'ol}' through its organ, Cardinal 
 Bellarraine ; tliat famous controversial writer, who in his day 
 bore the brunt of all quarrels touching religion, who had the 
 papacy for a client and kings (as James I.) for adversaries, did 
 not disdain to employ his pen in defence of the national poet.^ 
 The same questions were agitated in France, no doubt less 
 brilliantly, but with no less erudition, between Duplessis-Mornay 
 and Cceffeteau ; •* it was perhaps through an imperfect acquaintance 
 with this discussion that Father Hardouin pronounced the curious 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xxxiii., 14. C. 
 
 Plainly I view, and therefore speak, the stars 
 E'en now approaching, whose conjunction, free 
 From all impediment and bar, brings on 
 A season, in the which, one sent from God 
 (Five hundred, Uve, and ten, do mark him out) 
 That foul one, and the accomplice of her guilt. 
 The giant, both, shall slay. 
 
 ' Avviso piacevole data alia Bella Italia da un nobile giovinefrancese. 
 
 3 Bellarraine, Appendix ad Libras de Summo Poiiteflce; Responsio 
 ad Librum quemdam anonyrmtm. 
 
 * Duplessis-Mornay, le mygti^re dHniquiU, p. 419.— Coefleteau, R^onse 
 au Uvie intitid^ le mystere, etc., p. 1033.
 
 346 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 judgment that the Divine Comedy was the work of a disciple of 
 "Wycliffe. At a later date, when Italian literature, freed from the 
 fatal influence of the seicentisti, fell back upon better traditions, 
 the veneration for the older poets of the land was skilfully em- 
 ployed by the secret societies and associated with their political 
 and religious theories. And finall}-, in our own days, when 
 the leaders of a party vanquished, but deserving of respectful 
 commiseration, sought an asylum in England, the need of whiling 
 away the sad leisure of exile, perhaps also the desire of making 
 some return for Protestant hospitality received, inspired the new 
 system of interpretation proposed by Ugo Foscolo and supported 
 by G. Rossetti, not without a vast displa\' of learning and imagi- 
 nation.' It must be remembered that when the heresy of the 
 Albigenses was suppressed, its remains dispersed throughout 
 Christendom gave rise to numerous sects, whose adherents, under 
 the name of Pastoureaux, Flagellants, Fratricelli, prepared the 
 way for the "WyclifBtes and the Hussites, themselves the pre- 
 cursors of Luther, Henry YIII., and Calvin. More prudent than 
 these divers sects, but animated by the same anti-papal spirit, a 
 mysterious association is supposed to have been formed, to which 
 Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio devoted their sworn allegiance 
 and the service of their genius. Their writings, from that date. 
 
 * La Commediadi Dante AUghieri, Ultustrata da Ugo Foscolo.— Ros- 
 setti, Stdlo spiritn ant i-papalc die prodtisse la R^forma.
 
 In the Tkirtetfith Century. 347 
 
 are presumed to cover an enigmatic sense to which the key has 
 been lost: tlie celebrated women sung by them, Beatrice, Laura, 
 Fiammetta, become so many figures of the civil and religious lib- 
 erty whose reign they desired to establish; the Divine Comedy, 
 the Rime^ and the Decameron were to be at once the New Testa- 
 ment and the constitutional charter destined to change the face 
 of Europe. More especially is Dante supposed to have constitut- 
 ed himself the chief of this apostolate — that particular mission 
 having been bestowed upon liim in one of his visions, wherein he 
 represents himself as questioned, approved of, and blessed by the 
 three privileged disciples of Christ, — Peter, James, and John. 
 
 Thus has the poor exile failed to find, even in his grave, the 
 repose which there at least awaits the remainder of mankind. 
 He has been dragged from it to be cast (still robed in his shroud, 
 like a phantom intended to excite terror in vulgar minds) into the 
 arena of contending factions. Happily, pious hands have been 
 stretched forth to save him from such profanation. In Italy, 
 Foscolo encountered learned controvertists ; ' and the oracle of 
 German criticism, A. "W. Schlegel, by condemning Rossetti's chi- 
 merical interpretations, has effectually set aside the brand of dis- 
 
 ' Preface of the Milanese editors to the Paduac ,;dit;on jf Dante's Con, 
 vito. See also Cesare Balbo, Vita di Ixtntt ; Fao. Zmeiil, 'xntor:.n aL( 
 ifpiritu rdigioso di DaiUe.
 
 348 Da?ite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 honesty which they would, if true, have imprinted on the brows 
 of three great men. ' 
 
 2. Now, if we may be permitted to offer our opinion in corrob- 
 oration of such grave authorities, we shall do so merely hj sum- 
 marily adducing the texts which seem to us decisive; we shall 
 let the accused speak for himself, confiding his apology to his 
 own words. 
 
 To begin with, we find him distinctly separating himself from 
 modern naturalism, when he proclaims revelation to be the final 
 criterion of logical trutli and the moral law ; wlien he formulates 
 his opinion that the noblest function of philosophy is to lead by 
 means of the marvels which it explains, to the unexplainable 
 miracles on which the faith is stayed ; when, finally, he gives all 
 glory to that faith descended from on high, through which alone 
 one can merit to philosophize for eternity in the bosom of the 
 celestial Athens, where the wise men of all schools meet in the 
 contemplation of the infinite intelligence.'' Severe toward her- 
 esy and schism, he prepares for them the most frightful tor- 
 ments known to his Hell. Neither political sympathies nor civil 
 and military virtues avail to soften him in this regard ; he im- 
 
 ' Letter by A. W. Scblegel on G. Rossetti's work, remie des Deux Mon- 
 des, Aug. 15th, 1836. Rossetti's interpretations have been learnedly re- 
 futed by Father Pianclani. in the Annali dellc scienze reliffiose. 
 
 « Couvlto, Hi., 7, 11 ; iv., 15. Be Munarchia, lit.
 
 In the Thirtccfith Century. 349 
 
 prisons in burning sepulchres, Frederic II. and Cardinal Ubaldini, 
 idols of the imperial party, as well as Farinata and Cavalcanto, 
 two of the most eminent citizens of Florence: he does more, and, 
 as if to refute in advance the calumniators of his memorj', he 
 prophesies the miserable end, and pronounces the eternal damna- 
 tion of the monk Dolcino, the principal leader of the very Fratri- 
 celli in whose errors he is presumed to have been a participant. 
 If the poet, really endowed with the second sight which he 
 sometimes feigned, had, in place of this obscure monk, perceived 
 the Wittenberg professor casting into the flames the hull setting 
 forth his condemnation, he would certainly have marked out for 
 him his place among the sowers of schism and of scandal, and 
 we should read with a shudder of admiring horror the episode 
 of Luther, no whit inferior to that of Ugolino.' 
 
 If these general indications are not enough, and an express 
 profession of faith upon each of the contested points is considered 
 nccessarj', this requirement can readily be met. Peter of Bruy;', 
 "Waldo, Dolcino, and the otlier innovators of the same period had 
 attacked the ecclesiastical hierarcl'.y. the forms of the sacraments, 
 the honor shown to the cross, and prayers for the dead.- Dauto 
 
 ' Inferno, ix., andxxviii., paxaim. 
 
 - See Peter the Venerable, rnntra Pctri)busiofs.—'BossueU IIM. ''fs 
 varkilions, liv. xi.— Raynaldus, tlie continuer of Baronius, Annates eccle^. 
 1100-1200. Reinerli, Contnt vaI(Jcn><es hwrctU-ns:, liber in BihUotrcn 
 Patrum maxima. Muratori, Antiquitatcn, dissert. 40, de H(vrc><ibus.
 
 350 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 renders homage to the Church, the spouse and mouthpiece of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, incapable of falsehood and of error.' He 
 ■places tradition alongside of the Holy Scriptures, and assigns to 
 both a like power over consciences ; '-^ he recognizes the power of 
 the keys, the force of excommunication, and the value of vows.^ 
 He describes the economy of penance with especial predilection ; 
 he doubts neither of the legitimacy of indulgences nor of the 
 merit of works of satisfaction.-* He has himself justified the ven- 
 eration paid to images ; he is never weary of recommending the 
 suffering souls to the suffrages of the living ; his confidence in 
 the intercession of the saints is redoubled when he addresses 
 himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary." Finally, the religious 
 orders, even the institution of the Holy Oflfice, find favor in his 
 sight, and St. Dominic is lauded in his poem as " the jealous lov- 
 er of the Christian faith, filled with mildness toward its disciples, 
 but formidable to its foes." '^ 
 
 When thus placing himself under the patronage of the holy 
 
 ' Convito, ii., 4, 6. 
 
 "^ Paradiso v., 25. 
 
 ' Purgatorio, ix., Zti ; iii., kl ; Paradiso, v., 19. 
 
 ' Purpatorio, ix., pa)<xim ; ii., 33.— Paradiso, xxv., 23 ; xxvii., 37. 
 
 * Paradiso, iv., 14.- Pmyatoiio, ((axsiDi.— Paradise, xxxiii., 1. 
 
 ° Paradise, xl. and xii., pnsiiitn.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 351 
 
 doctor who, under Uic title of Miisltr of the Sacred Palac', was 
 tlie lirst person oflicially charged with the ministration of the 
 censorsliip, could the poet possibly liavc imagined that we, a 
 far-off posterity, very slightly versed in theology, would one day 
 venture to discuss the accuracy and sincerity of his behefs ? 
 
 But one reproach made against him still subsists, and that is, 
 the persistency witli which his invectives pursue the Roman court 
 and tlie sovereign pontiffs, heaping plenteous blame on the heads 
 of those whose feet he should have kissed. To this we may re- 
 ply, first, by making a distinction between the office of the sover- 
 eign pontiff, indefectible and divine in its origin, and ihe person^ 
 consecrated, but mortal and open to temptation, who is invested 
 with that office. Catholics have never been required to believe 
 in the impeccability of their pastors. The most ardent defenders 
 of the rights of the priesthood, as St. Bernard and St. Thomas of 
 Canterbury, never concealed the vices wliich sometimes dis- 
 honored the sacred profession. The Church invested with an in- 
 violability far graver than that suriounding kings, cannot beheld 
 responsible for the iniquities of sundry among her ministers. 
 Doubtless it is more pious to turn aside our gaze, and, like the 
 sons of the patriarch, throw a mantle over the turpitude of tliose 
 who are our fathers in the faith. But if Dante forgot this, if, in 
 the evil days he passed far from his native city, he accused the 
 chiefs of the party that kept its gates closed against him ; if, in
 
 352 Datite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 the ardor of an indignation which he deemed virtuous, he often 
 repeated caUunnies founded upon hearsay ; if he failed to appre- 
 ciate the piety of St. Celestine, the inipetous zeal of Boniface YIIL, 
 the learning of John XX 1 1., \vc may indeed characterize such ac- 
 tion as imprudence and the result of anger, as a mistake and a 
 fault, but not as heresy. And besides, we must pardon much to 
 genius, because, like every other greatness on this earth, it is as- 
 sailed by stronger temptations, and exposed to more numerous 
 perils than fall to the ordinary lot of men. However, it should 
 here be remembered tliat Dante, the contemporary of fourteen 
 popes, has lauded two of tliem, said nothing about seven, and, in 
 the five remaining, has undertaken to blame only the imperfections 
 of humanity : he never ceased to venerate the sacredness of the 
 office.^ When he purposes immolating Boniface VIII. to his po- 
 etic vengeance, he begins by despoiling him of the august charac- 
 ter which he is fearful of profauhii^- ; and, with a temerity not 
 devoid of some renuiant of respect, he declares on his own au- 
 thority the vacancy i)f llie Holy See.''' Then all at once, when 
 this same pope appears to hiiu girt about with the added majesty 
 of misfortune, a captive ainiil the emissaries of Philip the Fair, 
 he no longer sees in him aught but the vicar and image of Christ 
 
 ' Adrian V. in Piirsratory ; .lohn XXT. in Paradise. See for the others : 
 Inferno, xix., 31 ; Furgatorio, xix., 43. 
 ^ Purgatorio, xxxiii., 13.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 353 
 
 crucified anew.' He alwaj's bows before the Papacy as before a 
 sacred magistracy, a power which Peter received from Heaven 
 and transmitted to his successors; he in fact makes it the primor- 
 dial object of tlio designs of Providence in regard to Rome, the 
 secret of the grand destinies of the Roman empire, the bond unit- 
 ing antiquity with later times.^ He insists on the necessity for 
 the religious monarchy, which he contrasts with the temporal 
 monarchy ; and, altliough he calls for a reciprocal independence 
 between the sacerdotal power and that of the empire, he requires 
 that in the spiritual order the heir of the Csesars should profess 
 a filial deference toward the successors of the Apostles.' Tf this 
 language be pleasing to our '• reformed " brethren, and can decide 
 them to reckon the poet as one of themselves, let them speak in 
 a like manner, and at this rallying word the south and the north 
 will exchange salutations ; the doctors from London and Berlin 
 will meet at the gates of Rome ; the Vatican will enlarge its por- 
 ticoes for the accommodation of the reconciled generations ; and, 
 
 ' Purgatorio, xx., » Paradise, xxx., 48 ; xxiv., 12. Inferno, ii., 8. 
 
 3 De Monarchia, ili. The book, dc Mntiarchia, was placed on the in- 
 dex, as favoring the excessive pretensions of the temporal power. But 
 this condemnation was never extended to the Divine Comedy. One great 
 pope held him who failed to admire the beauties of this poem as possessed 
 of an uncultured mind. See the anecdote as told by Arrivabene Amori 
 di Dante.
 
 354 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 in tlie joy occasioned by a universal alliance, will be realized the 
 prophecy inscribed on llie obelisk of St. Peter's : Christus vin 
 3IT, Christus regnat, Christus imperat. 
 
 3. Our task is accomplished. The orthodoxy of Dante, sufficient- 
 ly established by the proofs tluit have been adduced, seems to us 
 still more plainly evidenced from the entire course of the work 
 undertaken by us and now drawing to a close. "We tiud it to be 
 a dominant trntli, the resultant of all our researches and induc- 
 tions. When studying the circumstances environing the poet, we 
 found that he was born, so to speak, on the latest verge of the 
 heroic days of the Middle Ages when Catholic philosophy had 
 reached its apogee, and in a country illumined by its purest rays. 
 Amid these salutary influences, and through the vicissitudes of a 
 life filled with misfortunes, with moral emotions and profound 
 .studies, the whole concourse of wliich must have tended to de- 
 velop withui him the religious soutimeut, we have beheld him 
 conceive a magnificent work, tlie plan of which, borrowed from 
 the methods of legendary iiuetry, was intended to embrace both 
 the most sublime mysteries uf faitii and the loftiest conceptions 
 of science. A scrui)ulous analysis lias taught us to know tliat 
 collection of doctrines, which, under the three categories of ]*]vil, 
 of Good and Evil in conHict, and linally of Good, comprises the 
 individual man, society, the future life, tlic external world, the 
 world of spirits, God Ilim.self. If in iiuuiv wavs Dante holds re-
 
 In tJie Thirteenth Century. 355 
 
 lations with the systems of tlic East, with Greek idealism and 
 Greek sensism, even willi tlie empiricism and rationalism of mod- 
 ern times, he belongs above all to the two great schools, the mys- 
 tic and the dogmatic, of the thirteenth century, of which he do- 
 cilely accepts not only the essential dogmas, but also the accessory 
 ideas, often even the favorite expressions. It has been said that 
 Homer was the theologian of pagan antiquity, and Dante, in his 
 turn, has been represented as the Homer of Christiau times. This 
 comparison, while honoring his genius, wrongs his reUgion. The 
 blind poet of Smyrna was justly accused of having brought the 
 gods down too near to the level of man ; on the contrary, no one 
 has known better than the Florentine to lift man up and cause 
 him to ascend toward the Divinity. It is through this quality, 
 through the purity and the immaterial character of his symbol- 
 ism, as also through the limitless breadth of his conception, that 
 he has left far beneath him poets ancient and recent, more espe- 
 cially, Milton and Klopstock.' If, then, we desire to make one of 
 
 ' See, for example, the gateway of Hell as portrayed by Dante and by 
 Milton. The singer of the Paradise Lost exhausts himself in gigantic im- 
 ages. Forming his gates of nine layers of metal and of adamant, he adds a 
 palisade of Are ; he seats before them two formidable monsters. Death 
 and Sin, and only succeeds in astonishing his readers. 
 
 Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid roof, 
 
 And thrice threefold the gates ; three folds were'brass.
 
 356 Dafitc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 those comparisons whicli fix in the memory two names so associ- 
 ated together that tliej^ recall and explain one another, we may 
 say, and such expression would contain an epitome of this worls, 
 that the Divine Comedy is the literary and philosophic Summa 
 
 Three iron, three of adamantine rock 
 Impenetrable, impaled with circling Are, 
 Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat 
 On either side a formidable shape, etc. ; 
 
 Dante, on the contrary, here describes nothing. He needs neither iron 
 nor Are ; he is content with an inscription nine lines long, but he leaves 
 us dismayed. Inferno, iii., 1. : 
 
 Per me si va nella citta dolente. 
 
 Per me si va neir eterno dolore. 
 
 Per me si va tra la perdiita gente. 
 Giustizia mosse II mio alto fattore : 
 
 Fecemi la divina potestate, 
 
 La somma sapienza e il primo amore. 
 Dinanzi a me non fur cose create, 
 
 Se non eterne, ed io eterno duro : 
 
 Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate. 
 Gary's Trans. : 
 
 Through me you pass into the city of woe : 
 Through me you pass into eternal pain : 
 Through me among tlie people lost for aye. 
 Justice the founder of my fabric moved : 
 To rear me was the task of Power divine, 
 Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love. 
 Before me things creati; were none, save things 
 Eternal, and eternal I endure. 
 All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 357 
 
 of the Middle Ages, and that Dante is the St. Thomas of poetry.' 
 Thus do we find ourselves brought back to our point of depart- 
 ure — to the admirable fresco in the Vatican, in which Dante is 
 placed among the doctors, and to the solemn and popular honors 
 which Italy has paid to his memory : we now know the reason 
 of the fame awarded to him. It is that the knowledge he pos- 
 sessed of his own prodigious endowments never made him forget 
 the fatal flaw common to liuman nature, condemned to suffer and 
 to remain in ignorance of many things to the very end, and con- 
 sequently obliged to believe and to serve. Far above others as 
 he might stand, he never deemed that the distance separating 
 
 ' The " Universal Journal of Literature " of Halle (Allgemeine Lltera- 
 tur-Zeitung), in which this book and its author are treated with a truly 
 flattering attention aud kindness, nevertheless attacks this chapter upon 
 the orthodoxy of Dante. The critic complains that no heed has been paid 
 to the traces of heterodoxy found in the poem. I regret that he did not 
 point these out, and that he has presented no new objections, which I 
 would have carefully considered. Thus far, I can shelter myself behind 
 two great authorities. I have on my side Catholic criticism, which has 
 never found heresy in the Divine Comedy, and which has reprinted it, 
 commented upon it, praised it, lauding it to the skies, even in Rome, with 
 all the required approbations, and without fear of the rigors of the Index. 
 I also ground myself upon modern Protestant criticism, of which the most 
 competent spokesman, A. W. Schlegel, has so emphatically condemned 
 the paradox of Foscolo and Rossetti.
 
 358 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 mortals from heaven was lessened in his case ; he entertained 
 for them too much respect and love to seek to impose upon them 
 the tyranny of his personal opinions, to wish to detach them from 
 that which they held most dear, their beliefs : he remained within 
 the communion of the eternal ideas wherein are found the hfeand 
 the salvation of the human race ; he so acted that the humblest 
 of his contemporaries and the remotest of their descendants might 
 call him their brother and rejoice in his triumphs. More than 
 five hundred years have passed since the old Alighieri " went to 
 sleep " at Ravenna, where his body still rests under the sepul- 
 chral marble. Since that day, twenty generations of " speaking 
 men," to use the energetic expression of the Greeks, have fol- 
 lowed one another ; and the words wliich have fallen from their 
 lips, even more than the dust raised l)y their footsteps, have 
 changed the face of the earth. The Hoi}- Roman Empire no 
 longer exists. The disputes which agitated the Italian republics 
 have vanislied with the republics themselves. The palace of the 
 Priors of Florence is deserted : and on the opposite bank of tlie 
 Arno, a foreign dynasty, naturalized by benefits conferred, peace- 
 ably wields the grand-ducal sceptre of Tuscany ' T)ie resting- 
 place of the ashes of Beatrice is unknown ; the very name per- 
 
 1 (This was written before the recent changes in the grovernment of Italy. 
 
 — TRAN.S.)
 
 /// tlic Thirteenth Ce?itnry. 359 
 
 taining to her family would be lost, had it not been inscribed 
 among the founders of an obscure hospital. The chairs are silent 
 whence issued the dissertations of the scholastic masters. Navi- 
 gators have e.xplored the distant seas once closed to men through 
 superstitious dread ; and seamen have found on their confines, 
 instead of the mountain of Purgatorj' and its immortal inhabitants, 
 lands and peoples similar to our own. The teletscope has been 
 directed to the heavens, and tlie nine spheres presumed to move 
 in harmony round our earth have vanished into nothingness. 
 Thus have passed away the various species of interest, political, 
 elegiac, and scientific, wherein the poem of Dante was indebted 
 to the passing things of this nether world ; outside of its beau- 
 tiful poetic form, it would retain no other merit than that of an 
 historical document difficult to comprehend were it not that it 
 had borrowed from another class of topics a universal attraction. 
 The mysteries of death, whicli of yore gave men whereon to 
 speculate, have not ceased to employ our thoughts, and no light 
 other than that afforded b_v the Catlwlic faith has come to illumine 
 them for us. As Dante guided the iirdent imaginations of our 
 fathers, he still leads our adult and disputatious intelligences; 
 he occupies a place above all the developments of the human fac- 
 ulties, immutable amid the ruins of the older science and the cont 
 structions of tlie new: ho has no need to fear the Christopher 
 Columbuses and the KoiJorniks that are still to come; for. as
 
 360 Da7ite, afid Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 those two great men, by discovering the true form and the real 
 relations of ovir globe settled once for all the wavering opinions 
 held upon those two principal points in the S3'stem of the physical 
 world, and left to the navigators and astronomers of the fiiture 
 only discoveries as to the details ; so the Catholic faith, by mak- 
 ing known man and his relations to God, has revealed for all 
 time the system of the moral world : a new earth and new heavens 
 are no longer discoverable, only individual truths and subordinate 
 laws : too little to satisfy pride, but enough to occupy to the end 
 of ages the laborious assiduity of the human mind. 

 
 FART IV. 
 
 INQUIRIES AND DOCUMENTS IN AID OF THE HISTORY 
 OF DANTE AND OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 I,— Dante's Political Life. 
 Was he a Guelf or a Ghibelline ? 
 
 'T'^felaT'E have seen liovv the Florentine poet took part in the 
 Aryf civil discords agitating his country ; we readily under- 
 stand that historians have been tempted to range him on the 
 side of one or other of the two factions which divided Italy dur- 
 ing the Middle Ages : general opinion has placed him among 
 the Ghibellincs.' However, as by his family and his first associ- 
 ations he seemed to belong to the Guelfs, some critics have, distin- 
 guished in his political life two periods, devoted to the defence 
 of two opposing causes, and separated from one another by the 
 fatal day of his exile.* Without wishing to undervalue the au- 
 thority of the critics and of general opinion, we cannot refrain 
 from entertaining and expressing some doubts on this subject: 
 we fear that the question has been confused by the uncertainty 
 
 ' F. Schlegel (History of Literature, vol. II.) reproaches Dante with "the 
 harsh impress of the Ghibelline spirit found throughout his poem." 
 * See especially the learned pamphlet of Count Troja ; Dd Veltro allc- 
 
 Qorico di Dante. 
 
 361
 
 362 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 of meaning in the terms used ; we shall begin bj' examining the 
 different significations successively pertaining to the rival names 
 of Guelf and Ghibelline, and then we shall inquire by what title 
 the one or the other could justly be applied to Dante. 
 
 I. 
 
 I. The name of the Guelf s dates from a remote period ; we find 
 it even during the time of the great barbarian invasions. Among 
 the companions of Attila, historians speak of a German chieftain 
 named Eticho, to whom they give two sons, an elder, Odoacer, 
 and a younger, Welf. We find that the descendants of Welf es- 
 tablished themselves in the county of Altdorf in Suabia,' in the 
 duchies of Alsace and Zaehringen, and in tlie marquisate of Tus- 
 cany. Adelbert T., marquis of Tuscany (850), was the head of a 
 branch which, later on acquiring the marquisate of Este, became 
 sufficiently powerful to give, in 1071, dukes to Bavaria. About 
 the same time (1080) Die ducliy of Suabia was conferred upon 
 the counts of Hohenstaufen, originally from tlie castle of Weib- 
 ling in Wurtemberg. The attainment of the imperial dignity by 
 Conrad of Suabia, and the rebellion of Henry the Proud (1138), 
 gave rise to a bloody quarrel between the two families, which 
 quarrel, suspended for a while, was renewed more fiercely than 
 ever under Frederic Barbarossa and Henry the Lion (1180), and 
 
 ' Memoir on the origin of the house of Brunswick.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 363 
 
 finall3' divided Germany between Philip, duke of Stiabia, and 
 Otlio IV., the two competitors for tiie imperial crown. Welf and 
 Weibling were the war-cries calling together the armies of the 
 two inimical houses : it is said tliey were first heard at the bat- 
 tle of Weinsberg (1140); soon they were repeated from the 
 shores of the Baltic to the banks of the Danube, but, stayed by 
 the Alps, they were some time in reaching the Italian Peninsula. 
 2. Italy l^ad long served as the arena of still more serious 
 struggles, those existing between the Church and the Empire. 
 The Papacy, the more surely to exercise its sanctifying and civ- 
 ilizing action upon the Christian world, then disturbed by so many 
 barbarian instincts, needed to occupy an independent and central 
 position: thence, for it, the necessity of a temporal domain. Nor 
 were legal titles lucking. Since the time when the people of 
 Rome placed themselves under the patronage of Gregory II., the 
 donation of the Exarchate and the Pentapolis (751), the homage 
 rendered by Robert Gniscard for the duchy of Apulia (1059), and 
 the legacy of the Countess Matilda (1102) had strengthened the 
 apostolic power. It had also in its favor the heroic virtues of 
 many Pontiffs, the mildness and wisdom of the ecclesiastical laws, 
 and the natural inclination of the human conscience to receive in 
 the civil order an authority already acknowledged in matters 
 of religion. It possessed, in fine, all that could create a right, 
 even where such right did not already exist, — the respect, love,
 
 364 Dafite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 and admiration of the people. On the other hand, the emper- 
 ors were saluted as kings of the Romans ; they wore the iron 
 crowns of Lombardy ; they had, unopposed, distributed fiefs in 
 Italy; and the decrees of the diet of Roncaglia (1158) ascribed to 
 them the plenitude of regal rights. They likewise alleged the 
 supposed act by which Otho the Great (963) was said to have 
 obtained for himself and his successors the privilege of interven- 
 ing in the election of the popes. Neither did they^ disdain llie 
 support of traditions and theories. "While they showed ■ them- 
 selves to be the guardians and the heads of the feudal system, 
 they also claimed to be the continuators of the old Roman empire' 
 the laws of which, restored to honor by the jurisconsults of Bo- 
 logna, were pleaded by them. The German Csesar, the heir of 
 Charlemagne, and the successor to Augustus {semj)er Augustus), 
 considered himself under this title to be the sole master of the 
 world.' 
 
 • We And a curious monument of the pretensions made by the imperial 
 monarchy, m the Constitution of Henry VII., inserted in the Corpis juris 
 civilis, which begins as follows : " In order to repress the crimes of many 
 persons, who break the bonds of that entire fidelity which they owe, and 
 take up arms with hostile intent against the Roman Empire, on the 
 peace of which the order of the whole world reposes ; to say nothing of 
 the precepts, not only human, but divine, which command that every hu- 
 man soul shall be subject to the Prince of the Romans," etc.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 365 
 
 The question of investitures set in opposition these two sover- 
 eign powers of Cliristendom, in tlie persons of Henry IV. and 
 Gregory VII. The Pontiff, attacked by a force of arms, found an 
 unexpected ally in Welf I., duke of Bavaria (1077). Welf II. 
 married the Countess Matilda, the benefactress of the Church. 
 "When Frederic Barbarossa crossed the Alps for the third time, 
 threatening to crush with a single blow Alexander III. and the 
 Lombard League fonned under his auspices, the defection of Hen- 
 ry- the Lion at the battle of Lignano (1176) saved them from cer- 
 tain defeat; The son of this prince, Otho IV., was sustained in his 
 pretensions to the imperial throne by Jrinocent III. Meantime, 
 the marquises of Este continued by their fidelity to render the an- 
 cient name of Welf loved and.respectedby. the papal party. On 
 the other hand, never did the imperial domination seem more se- 
 curely esuibli shed' in Italy than under the reign of the Hohen- 
 staufen, especially after the marriage of Henry IV. to Constance 
 (1190) had added the crown pf Sicily to the possessions of their 
 house. The banners of the Weiblingen then rallied round them 
 all the cnomics of the Holy See. 
 
 Thu.s became popularized the names of Welf and Weibling, mod- 
 ified, aecording to the usage of the Italian tongue, into Guelf and 
 Ghibellinc. From that period, applied respectively to the defend- 
 ers of the pricsiliood or of the empire, they kept their new signi- 
 fication down to the timewhen Frederic II.. at the height of his
 
 366 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 victorious career, was stricken by the censures of the Council of 
 Lyons (1245). Tlie tyrant, overcome in his turn, and pursued by 
 an avenging fatahty, died, smotliered by tlie hand of one of Jiis 
 own bastards (1250). The triumph of the sacerdotal party sus- 
 pended the struggle for many years. 
 
 3. But we have already seen the monarchy of the Holy Em- 
 pire represented as the necessary crowning-point of the feudal 
 system whose broad base covered the half of Europe. Now, feu- 
 dalism, founded on the south side of the Alps by the Lombards 
 (who divided their possessions into thirty-six duchies), and 
 strengthened by concessions of fiefs, of which the emperors were 
 by no means niggardly, was perpetuated by the Constitution of 
 Conrad the Salic, who estabKshed in perpetuity the hereditability 
 of mihtary fiefs. 
 
 Still, these institutions introduced by northern populations 
 could not meet with unreserved devotion among Italians, who 
 preserved the memory and the remains of the municipal or- 
 ganization introduced, in tlie days of the Roman rule, into 
 all the cities of the Peninsula. Following the example of the 
 maritime cities, enfranchised at an early period, the towns of 
 Lombardy, Romagna, and Tuscany demanded liberties which tlieir 
 rulers sold to them for gold. They found a more disinterested 
 protection on the part of the sovereign pontiff : they confederated 
 into powerful leagues, of. which tlio Holy See was the central
 
 In the Thirtee7itli Century. 367 
 
 point — leagues which more than once protected the national ter- 
 ritory against German invasion. The peace of Constance (1183) 
 the result of their courageous efforts, secured to them the riglit 
 of enclosure, of laying taxes, of choosing magistrates, of making 
 war iir peace, and thus raised them to the rank of independent 
 powers. From that time, tlie nobles were to be found engaged 
 in the service of monarchj^ ; they fought under the banners of 
 the Ghibellines : whereas the people were, by their interests, influ- 
 enced in favor of the papacy ; they contributed to tlie success 
 of the Guelfs. When the main struggle between the two powers, 
 the spiritual and the temporal, was ended, the aristocracy and the 
 democracy remained armed, and felt desirous of trying tlieir 
 strength against each other: they retained their standards and 
 tlieir watchwords. The Guelfs became the party of comuumal 
 franchises, and the Ghibellines that of feudal privileges.' These 
 
 1 We can see from the admirable discourse addressed by Pope Gregory X. 
 to the Florentmes, what, as early as 1373, was the confusion of parties and 
 the imoertaiuty pertaining to their names : " He is a Ghibelline ; but yet 
 he is a Christian, a citizen, a neiglibor. So, then, so many and such valid 
 names of union shall succumb to the name Ghibelline ? . . . and this single 
 and moreover empty name (/or what it ifi(jitifie>< (lo/wdi/ /t*i()i<\s) .shall 
 avail more toward hatred than all those sound, honorable names avail 
 toward love ?.. . But since you assert you have taken up these party 
 efforts on behalf of the Roman Pontiffs and again.st their enemies ; I, the 
 Roman PontifT, although up to the present time these citizens of yours 
 may have offended, nevertheless, on their return, have taken them to my 
 bor.om, and, their misdeeds being pardoned, I hold them as sons."
 
 368 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 new discords filled the latter half of the thirteenth century and- 
 were continued far down into the fourteenth. Democracy at 
 first held fast to its acquisitions, but ere long began to imperil 
 them by its own excesses. In the cities of Bologna, Brescia, 
 Padua, and Florence, the nobles were declared incapable of hold- 
 ing political offices (1285-1295). Banished from publiclife, they 
 shut themselves up in the menacing solitude of their palaces ; 
 they there determined upon the ruin of that jealous liberty in 
 which they were allowed no share. Favored by the intestine dis- 
 sensions which they were careful to foment, they found no dilB- 
 culty in again seizing upon the reins of power ; as early as the 
 year 1300, the republics began to see hereditary seigniories ris- 
 ing up within their walls. But the seigniors, of whom the greater 
 number were first introduced under the titles of podestas, gonfal- 
 oniers, captains of the people, retained somewhat of the munici- 
 pal magistracies which had thus been borrowed to veil their des- 
 potic ambition. Beneath them, they maintained that equality 
 wliich consoles populations under servitude. Above them, they 
 acknowledged no sovereign authority. There then remained no 
 vesiige of the hierarchic order which gives to the feudal sj-stem 
 its characteristic form ; the aristocracy were thus enabled to rule, 
 only on condition of making a compromise modifying the usages 
 of feudalism. 
 
 4. Down to this point in the contest, we have followed the
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 369 
 
 principles around which the warring passions of the time would 
 naturally group themselves. It is easy to see that the passions, 
 after having made proof of prowess in support of one or another 
 principle, would sooner or later come to blows on their own ac- 
 count. Underneath the general interests of the aristocracy and 
 the democracy were working the especial interests again divid- 
 ing cities, villages, and families. Venice rose up against Genoa, 
 Florence against Pisa, Pistoja against Arezzo : at Verona there 
 were the Montecclii and the Capelletti ; the Gieremiei and the 
 Lambertazzi at Bologna ; the Torriani and the Visconti at Milan ; 
 at Rome, the Orsini and the Colonnas : thus there were private 
 wars, in other words, brigandage, the arming of all against all, 
 the return to social chaos. In this state of things, intervention 
 from without could hardly be a greater evil : it might even ap- 
 pear as a benefit. At that period, three great nations stood readj' 
 to intervene in the affairs of Italy. Tlie Germans added to their 
 close proximity the habit they had acquired of being received 
 with their emperors as masters. The French were not far away ; 
 they had in their favor the popularity conceded to their language 
 and their character, also the memory, still recent, of St. Louis. 
 Finally, the Aragonese, whose domain extended from the gates 
 of Valencia to those of Marseilles, naturally coveted the empire 
 of the Mediterranean, and consequently of its shores. The usur- 
 pation of the kingdom of Sicily by Manfred, the natural son of
 
 3/0 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Frederic II., obliged Pope Urban IV. to exercise his right of suz- 
 erainty over the crown of that countrj^ : he called upon Charles 
 of Anjou to take possession of it. As a captain of the Church of 
 Rome, and the vanquisher of Manfred and Conradin (the last of 
 the Weiblingen), the Angevine prince seemed to continue the 
 work of the older Guelfs. The use of the name was extended to 
 include all who were friendly to France, and it continued to be 
 thus applied even after the sacrilegious outrage at Anagni. But 
 Conradin found an heir in Peter of Aragon, who meantime had 
 founded a Spanish dynasty on the other side of the pharos of 
 Messina (1282). Thirty years later, Henry VII. (of Luxemburg) 
 led the German eagles back into Lombardy and Tuscany (1311). 
 All who followed the fortunes of the new leader, all whom hatred 
 to the Frencli united together, acknowledged the appellation of 
 G-hibelline as pertaining to them : they kept it, even when their 
 ranks had been swelled by the multitude of the oppressed who 
 groaned under the tyranny of the great lords, and who dreamed 
 of the restoration of republican institutions. 
 
 Tiius, during the course of a hundred years, the two magic 
 words, Guelf and Ghibellinc, had passed through no less than 
 four distinct significations. Italy had borrowed them from the 
 internal dissensions of Germany. They then became attached 
 respectively, to the defenders of the priesthood and of the em- 
 pire ; they were later on reduced to playing an humbler role in
 
 In the Thirteejith Century. 371 
 
 the struggle of the communes against the feudal system ; and fin- 
 all}' again descended to become the designations of the imprud- 
 ent allies of foreign domination. Unhappily for the Peninsula, 
 this latter acceptation was the most lasting. Nothing can give a 
 
 better idea of the disorder and terror attached to these names 
 than can the fables by wliich tlie Italians accounted for their ori- 
 gin. They were said to luive arisen from two demons, adored, 
 each in its own temple, on separate heights in Sicily, whose vol 
 aries had declared implacable war against one another ; they were 
 two women who had been seen battling amid the clouds on the 
 day of Manfred's birth; or, according to an opinion popular in 
 Florence, they were the names of two dogs fighting in the public 
 square, whose quarrel had been taken up by two bands of chil- 
 dren, whence it had spread to the families of the children, to the 
 whole city, to all Italy, to the entire world.' 
 
 ' Giacobo Malvagio, Saba Malaspinn, Villani. In this brief summary 
 of the liistory of Italy during the thirteenth century, we have followed, as 
 guides, Daute himself, Villani, Guido Compagni, Macchiavelli, Sismoude 
 Sismondi, and Raynaldus, the continuerof Baronius. For more complete 
 information, an article in the Universite CatholU^ue for October, 1838, 
 may be consulted. The dispute between the priesthood and the empire 
 was miide the subject of an especial examination in a little work I mayT)e 
 pardoned for citing, notwithstanding its incompleteness, both as to matter 
 and to form : Deux Chanceliera cfAngleterre (Paris, 1836) ; Part XL, St. 
 Thomas of Canterbury, reprinted in the CEuvres completefi, t. VII.
 
 372 Dafiie, and CatJiolic PJiilosopliy 
 
 II. 
 
 And now, if we wish to determine Dante's place amid the polit- 
 ical commotions thus hastily sketched, a rapid examination of 
 his actions and his writings will afford us the desired answer. 
 
 1. The future exile from Florence "still slept, a little lamb, 
 within the fold of his native land'' (he had scarcely reached his 
 fourth year), when tlie imperial family of the Hohenstaufen be- 
 came extinct in the person of Conradin (1268). The ancient ri- 
 valry between the princes of that house and the dukes of Bavaria 
 could thenceforth be nothing more than a historical remembrance. 
 The long- continued struggles between the monarchy and the pap- 
 acy, having been fought out on tlie battle-field, were no longer 
 agitated except in the chairs of canonists and jurisconsults. But, 
 on the other hand, the two principles, tlie municipal and the 
 feudal, as masters of the field, were rallying around them the 
 Guelfs and the Ghibellines of Tuscan}^ Early a witness of these 
 collisions, the young Alighieri naturally took part in them : he 
 embraced the side of the people. That was the cause for which 
 ho bore arms at Campaldino ; for it did he exercise the functions 
 of ambassador to foreign parts while Giano della Bella endeavored 
 to strengthen it by internal reforms. But the severity of that 
 Inflexible tribune repelled the nobility until then faithful to the 
 standard of the Guelfs and sharing in the interest common to the 
 whole city. A reaction in their favor occurred, and Giano della
 
 /// the Thirteenth Century. 373 
 
 Bella was banished (1294). Toward the same lime, the inhabi- 
 tants of Pistoja became involved in the dissensions dividing a 
 powerful family of their cit}^, and took sides under the appella- 
 tions of iVenand Bianchi (Blacks and Whites). The leaders of the 
 two parties, sent to Florence, carried to that place something j-et 
 lacking there, namely, new names for the new factions. The ple- 
 beians adopted white as their color, while black was the ensign 
 of the patricians. The mediation of Cardinal Acquasparta, legate 
 of Boniface YIIL, effected nothing, by reason of the obstinacy of 
 the seditious. Blood had already been shed when Dante was 
 named one of the six priors to whom the government was en- 
 trusted during a period of two months (Juno 15, 1300). By 
 his advice, the chiefs among the Whites and Blacks were sent off 
 to the frontiers of the country. The former obtained a prompt 
 recall; the latter, less favored, deputed one of their number to 
 visit Rome, in order to set forth tlieir claims. Dante was sent to 
 the Holy See for the purpose of traversing these dangerous in- 
 trigues. But Boniface VIII. had already invited Charles of Valois, 
 the brother of Philip the Fair, to retake Sicily, invaded by the 
 Aragonese; he at the same time cliargcd him with the task of re- 
 establishing, as he passed along, quiet throughout Italy, confer- 
 ring the twofold title of Captain of the Church and Pacificator. 
 Nov. 4, 1301, Charles of Valois made his solemn entry into 
 Florence ; but faithless to his glorious mission, he permitted the
 
 374 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Neri to enter with him, and with them came vengeance and dis- 
 order. The Bianchi, to the number of six hundred, were exiled ; 
 and two sentences, successively pronounced by a prevaricating 
 judge, condemned Dante, as contumacious, to a fine of five thou- 
 sand small florins, to banishment, and to death by fire should he 
 re-enter Florence (Jan. 27, and March 10, 1302).' 
 
 These circumstances brought about a very remarkable change. 
 The victors, champions of the nobility and deserters from the old 
 party of the Guelfs, still retained the name of Guelf, which they 
 justified by their aUiance with the French princes. They, in 
 fact, sought the friendship of Robert of Naples, received from 
 him, on several occasions, help in money and in men (1308- 
 
 ' The second sentence of exile pronounced against Dante, long unpub- 
 lished, was exhumed by Tiraboschi, vol. V. It is given entire in the ap- 
 pendix to this work, as a singular monument of political and literary bar- 
 barism. [The name of the Podesta who issued the two sentences was Cante 
 de' Gabrielli d'Agobbio. The tlrst sentence imposed the fine, and ordered 
 that if it were not paid within three days, Dante's property was to be con- 
 fiscated, and even if the fine were paid, he was still condemned to remain 
 ontside the province of Tuscany during two years. Whether he paid or 
 not, he was pronounced a forger and bribe-taker, and hence disqualified 
 from holding any office in the gift of the Commune of Florence. The 
 second sentence takes note that Dante had not obeyed the summons to 
 appear before the Podesta, nor had he paid the flue, whence he was con- 
 demned to be burned alive if ever he came within the jurisdiction of the 
 City of Florence.— Tr. extracted from Scartazzinl.]
 
 In the Thirteefith Century. 375 
 
 1311), solicited his presence in their city (1304-1310), and finally 
 conferred upon him, for five years, tlie honors of the seigniory 
 (1313). The vanquished, on iheir side, obeying the inevitable 
 sympathy which results from community in misfortune, joined 
 with the vanquished of an earlier period, and were numbered in 
 the ranks of the Ghibelline party, where, amid memories of the 
 Empire and regrets for feudal institutions, the feehng of hatred 
 toward France held a dominant place. Dante, in the beginning, 
 followed the example of his companions in exile ; he took part in 
 their fruitless effort to obtain by force of arms the re-opening to 
 them of the gates of their native city (1304). Then, wearied by 
 their narrow views and their ill-conducted measures, lie fell back 
 into inaction, whence he emerged only when the emperor Henry 
 VII. arrived on the scene (1310). He penned an eloquent mani- 
 festo in favor of that sovereign, and called upon him to turn his 
 victorious arms against Florence : — an ever-deplorable document, 
 which would have left an ineffaceable blot on the career of tlie 
 poet had it not soon after been in a measure atoned for by a pa- 
 triotic letter addressed by him to the cardinals, in which he 
 sought to persuade tiiem to elect an Italian pope (1314). Tur- 
 ing this period he passed from one house to another of tlie most 
 distinguished defenders of the Ghibelline cause; he became the 
 friend of Uguccione della Pagginola, of Malaspina de Lunigiana, 
 of Can Grande della Scala. But the haughty ways of these pow-
 
 376 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 erful families sometimes rendered the hospitality received from 
 them painful to him. He found life pleasanter under the roofs of 
 two illustrious Guelfs, Pagano della Torre, Patriarch of Aquileia, 
 and Guido Novello, Lord of Ravenna, in whose arms he finally 
 expired. The affections of his later years were thus easily re- 
 knitted to the earliest predilections of his youth.' 
 
 ' Some historians have placed upon the Holy See the responsibility for 
 the miseries that desolated Florence during the deplorable period we have 
 just been considering. But, if we may judge of the policy of the popes 
 by their acts, we cannot doubt the genuineness of their conciliatory in- 
 tentions : we have only to examine the chronicle of Vlllani, who Is not 
 contradicted in this particular by any contemporary writer.— 1273 ; Pope 
 Gregory X. passes through Florence on his way to the Second Council of 
 Lyons : he asks from the Guelfs a general amnesty in favor of the Ghibel- 
 lines; on their refusal, he places the city under interdict. —1275; Renewed 
 efforts on the part of the same pontiff for the re-establishing of peace. — 
 1277; Nicholas III. sends Cardinal Latini to Tuscany, that the Interrupted 
 negotiations may be re-opened ; a general reconciliation, admission of the 
 Ghibellines to public offices.— 1300; First legation of Cardinal Acquas- 
 parta, commissioned by Boniface VIII., to prevent the collisions between 
 the Nerl and the Bianchi.— 1301 ; The .same cardinal, for a second time leg- 
 ate of Boniface VIII., goes to Florence to allay the disorders accompany- 
 ing the entrance of Charles of Valois.— 1304; Benedict XL confides to the 
 Cardinal de Prate the care of bringing the exiled Bianchi back into their 
 country : the cardinal is unable to overcome the obstinacy of the victori- 
 ous faction, and pronounces against it the sentence of excommunication.— 
 1307 ; Renewed and still unsuccessful mediation of Cardinal Napoleon Or- 
 sini, legate of Pope Clement V., etc., etc.— We quote the closing lines of the
 
 In tlic Tliirtccntli Century. 377 
 
 2. These facts will receive full explanation if we compare them 
 with the doctrines of which they are the outward expression. To 
 begin with, Dante never gave to the liouse of Hohenstaufen the 
 enthusiastic veneration with which it was regarded by its ancient 
 partisans. He branded tlie emperor Frederic II. with the merit- 
 ed name of heretic, consigning him to eternal torments with his 
 most noted accomplices, Cardinal Oclavian, Pietro delle Vigne, 
 Eccelino da Romano. It is true that he made himself the apolo- 
 gist of the Holy Empire; he became at once its historian, its jur- 
 
 Pontiflcal letter conferring his second mission upon Cardinal Acquaspar- 
 ta : "To the end that these things may be accomplished more profitably 
 and effectually, in peace and quiet, we are careful to appoint thee, in 
 whose ju.stlce, goodness, circumspection, and mature experience we con- 
 fide, to these duties, granting thee authority in that same our province : 
 protected by thy favor, directed by thy counsel, and aided by thy matur- 
 ity, the said Count of Valois may, with moderation and measure, more 
 tranquilly and usefully discharge the ofllce committed to him according to 
 the divine precepts, and in conformity with the divine good pleasure and 
 with ours. Wherefore we earnestly pray, admonish, and exhort thee. 
 Brother, charging thee by the Apostolic commands, that, girding thyself 
 wiftly, thou speed in person to those parts; . . . that thou address thyself 
 and thy endeavors toward sowing the seed of charity and peace, so that 
 the whirlwinds of wars and dissensions (which have exceedingly prevailed 
 there) being appeased, that province, so sorely shaken by conflicts, may, 
 as it were, after the darkness of night, behold the light of flowery [flourish- 
 ing] days. . . ." LThe reader must remember that the city was Florence.— 
 Trans,]
 
 378 Dante, and Catholic Pliilosopliy 
 
 iscoiisult, and its tlieologian. But. his doctrine was not that of 
 tlic servile pu'Jicists; monarchy, as he understands it, is not the 
 despotism of a military chief, the supreme representative of a sys- 
 tematic feudalism, uniting under his dominion all "the countries 
 once conquered by the German sword; it is a peaceable, civilizing, 
 and universal sovereignty : instituted for the best interests of all. 
 it preserves the liberty of each one, it rectifies such inequalities 
 as rend to destroy the general level ; and finally, it claims no 
 rights o\er tlie interior court of conscience, nor over the internal 
 constitution of the Church. On the contrary, the Church is rec- 
 ognized as a distinct power, divine in its origin, inviolable in its 
 action ; the priesthood and the empire (each independent of the 
 other in its own sphere) are mutually subordinated, the one to the 
 other, in their relations: the pontiff is the temporal vassal of 
 Csesar. but the emperor is of tlie spiritual flock of St. Peter. Thus, 
 in the famous controversy which, during three Jnnidrcd years, 
 liad occupied the minds and divided the npinions of doctors and 
 statesmen, the philosopher-poet strove to fill the difficult part of 
 conciliator.' 
 
 ' We are aware that he failed in his well-meant intention. The treatise 
 Df Monarrliia was stricken by ecclesiastical censure. In fact, was not a 
 system which established the absolute suzerainty of a prince in the tem- 
 poral order, which freed liiui from all control, and made him responsible 
 to no tribunal in this world, which denied to the pontiff the power of re- 
 leasinfr sulij''cts from their oaths of fealty, dangerous for all nations in 
 timts so ni'ar to those of l-'rederic U.. and Philip the Fair?
 
 hi the ThirteeiUJi Century. 379 
 
 Yet, when thus advocating; the cause of the Empire, lie at- 
 tacked with fiery logic feudal privileges, the inheritability of 
 offices, and even that of property. While lie took a certain 
 pleasure in mortifying the pride of the rising seigniories, he 
 could not restrain the overflowing of filial love toward the free 
 city which had proscribed him. But the citj' of his love was the 
 old Florence, with the gravity of its government, the severe in- 
 nocence of its manners, the peaceful and happy life led by its 
 people ; that was the ideal country whose dear image he kept in 
 his heart amid the most distressful realities. He held in slight 
 esteem the new men and the new institutions : the corruption of 
 the old Florentine blood by the immigration of strangers, the in- 
 trusion of 'parvenus into the iiiagistracj% the instability of the 
 laws, the eagerness of the crowd to mingle in the conduct of pub- 
 lic affairs ; — all these conditions, inseparable from democracy, be- 
 came to him subjects for ceaseless complaint and pitiless sarcasm. 
 Himself the scion of a noble family, he kept in the depths of his 
 soul a patrician turn of mind, the frequent expression of which 
 in his poem contrasts singularly with the democratic doctrines 
 set forth in his prose writings.' Finally, if he showed himself iu- 
 
 ' See the beginning of Sect. II. of the present chapter, the whole of Book 
 IV. of the Convito, and the following passages : Inferno, xv., il ; Purga- 
 torlcvi., 44; Paradiso, xvl., 1, 17. We cannot agree with Foscolo (Ln 
 Comediu cli Dante iUustrata) when he suggests that certain pages of 
 the Convito, wrltt€n amid the .sorrows of exile, mav have been intended to 
 flatter the party of the Giielfs. in order to pave the way for a re-opening to 
 Dante of thR cates of his native city. The Canzone explained in'Book iv. 
 of the Convito, is a work of the poet'."? youth : the commentary was written 
 between the years 1302 and 1308. Hence we see in it a serious conviction, 
 twice set forth, under different forms.
 
 380 Dank, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 imical to the French, it was for a reason which justifies him and 
 honors us. He had well apprehended that distinctive trait in our 
 national character, that bold-spirited effusiveness which in all 
 times carried our arms and our ideas beyond the limits of our own 
 borders, a trait menacing the political and the moral independence 
 of our neighbors. He beheld, in the course of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, no less than five diadems — the crown of Jerusalem, of Con- 
 stantinople, of England, of Sicily, and of Navarre — placed, with 
 varying fortunes, upon the heads of oiu' soldiers and our princes.' 
 He was dismayed at the sight of so much glory, and held up to 
 the mistrust of his contemporaries the royal race of Capet, " which 
 was obstructing the whole world." - His jealous patriotism was 
 more especially roused by undertakings which seemed to imperil 
 Italian liberty, such as the conquest of Naples, the carrying off 
 of Boniface VIII., and the removal of the Holy See beyond the 
 Alps. If, in view of these repeated enterprises, he invoked the 
 imperial power and greeted with applause the appearance of Hen- 
 ry Yll^-he never laid .aside- his Jiorror of Joreign domination ; he 
 had no intention of conferring upon the Germans rights refused 
 
 ' Baldwin, Count of Flanders, Emperor of Constantinople (1204) ; John 
 of Brienne, King of Jerusalem (12()9) ; Louis VIII., called to the throne of 
 England by the revolted barons (1215) ; Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily 
 (1265) ; Philip the Fair, heir to the kingdom of Navarre (1284). 
 
 * Purgatorio, xx., 15.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. ' 381 
 
 to their rivals on the other side of the Rhine. He made no pro- 
 fession of any especial respect for that grave nation, and admired 
 the ghittony of the Teuton as little as he did the vanit}' of the 
 Gaul.' 
 
 But, faithful to- his principles, lie reverenced in the Em- 
 peror the head of the human race, not the chief of any isolated 
 people, the King of the Romans, ihemselves the kings of the 
 world, and hence the natural protector of Italy. This is why he 
 invited him " to visit this garden of the Empire wasted by war, 
 and to end the widowhood of the noble spouse who day and night 
 weeps over his desertion." ^ 
 
 Thus, through his respect for the Church, through his philo- 
 sophical attacks upon feudalism, Dante inclined toward the party 
 of the Guelfs; the monarchical principles which he professed, 
 and the enmity that he nourished against France, brought him 
 into relations with the Ghibellines. But the effect of these two 
 differing impulses was not to impel him now one way and now 
 another, in two contrary directions : he followed, not without 
 sundry deviations, but without pusillanimity, the mean line thence 
 resulting. He did not wander, an irresolute deserter, between 
 the two rival camps; he set up his tent on independent ground, 
 not that he might repose in an indifferent neutrality, but that he 
 
 • Inferno, xvii., 7 ; xxix., 41. * Purgatorio, vi., 33, 38.
 
 382 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 might fight out the fight alone, with all the strength of his own 
 individual genius. When the factions seemed to be drawing him 
 in as a partaker in their turbulent movements, and to be making 
 liim a sharer in iheir crimes, he loudly protested against them ; 
 his stern words of blame fell, as blows from an untiring arm, al- 
 ternately on the heads of the authors and of the companions of 
 his exile, on the Xeri and on the Bianchi, on the Ghibellines and 
 on the Guelfs.' He had no fear of increasing the number of 
 his enemies in the ranks of his contemporaries, provided he might 
 keep his name pure from every humiliating alliance in the eyes 
 of posterity. Posterity long ago falsified this his legitimate hope. 
 But the present progress of historical studies now leaves vulgar 
 prejudices without excuse. The hour has come to restore to the 
 old Alighieri the wished for testimony which he caused his an- 
 •estor, Cacciaguida, to render to him in the remarkable interview 
 described in the Paradiso, namel}', that he never confounded his 
 cause with that of an impious race of men, and that he couM 
 claim the glory of being himself alone his own party.'' 
 
 > Paradiso. vi.. 34 ; xvii., 31. 
 2 Paradiso, xvii., 33. L. 
 
 Thou Shalt abandon every thing beloved 
 Most tenderly, and this the arrow is 
 Which flrst the bow of banishment shoots forth. 
 Thou Shalt have proof how savoureth of salt 
 The bread of others, and how hard a road 
 The going down and up another's stairs.
 
 II. — Beatrice. 
 
 Influence of Women in Christian Society, and or Ga.thoj,v^ 
 
 Symbolism in the Arts.— St. I-vgy. — The 
 
 Blessed Virgin. 
 
 MIE personality of Beatrice bus much exercised the penetrai- 
 "Wl) ive powers of biograpliers and commentators. For some, 
 she is simply a young girl loved with a human love, and taking 
 her place amid the throng of such graceful personages celebrated 
 in elegiac song in every country and in every age. For others, she 
 is an allegorical creation, presenting under a visible form an ab- 
 stract idea, which following different interpretations, might bo The- 
 ology, Grace, or Liberty. Others again attribute to the beautiful 
 
 And which most shall weigh upon thy shoulders 
 
 Will be the bad and foolish company 
 
 With which into this valley thou shalt fall ; 
 For all ingrate, all mad and impious 
 
 Will they become against thee ; but soon after 
 
 They, and not thou, shall have the forehead scarlet. 
 Of their bestiality their own proceedings 
 
 Shall furnish proof ; so 'twill be well for thee 
 
 A party to have made Ihee by thyself. 
 383
 
 384 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Florentine a double role, real in the life of the poet, and figurative 
 in the structure of the poem. Ourselves holding to this last men- 
 tioned view, we have tluis fur only partially indicated the proofs 
 supporting our opinion: we must now set these forth more large- 
 ly, and look at them in relation to some general considerations 
 which may perhaps throw a new light upon them. Thus, a brief 
 examination into the influence accorded to women in Christian 
 society will enable us to understand what Beatrice may have been 
 10 Dante ; and, on the other hand, a rapid review of the re- 
 sources which the Arts found in Catholic theology, will readily 
 permit us to divine what Dante could do for Beatrice. 
 
 I. 
 1. The condition of woman in the ancient world seemed close- 
 I3' connected with a primitive tradition, contained in the records 
 of China and Greece as well as in those of Judea: That the com- 
 j)anion oj man had become his temptress, and that through her, evil 
 had entered into the vmrld. The anathema naturally fell the more 
 heavily on the head of her \\ho had called it forth. She was 
 then excluded from the ranks of civil society, the laws of which 
 declared her stricken with a perpetual incapacitj', consigned to 
 the lowest rank in the family, degraded in her own person by im- 
 prisonment, polygamy, and divorce, and reduced to the condition 
 of being no more than the slave and the chattel of man. When 
 .she sought to free herself from the prcssin-e of this harsh destiny,
 
 In the TJiirtceiith CeiiUiry. 385 
 
 when she flung open the doors of the household prison, when by 
 the publicity of her cliarms she endeavored in her turn to subju- 
 gate warriors, philosopliers, and artists, she only succeeded in 
 making them sharers in her degradation ; when she had become 
 the mistress, she found in this name merely another species of 
 shame : men then called her Helen, Aspasia, or Phryne. Be- 
 tween servitude and this blameworthy empire, there was no ref- 
 uge for her except in the sliadow of the temple, under the veil of 
 virginity, among the priestesses and vestals ; and who can say if 
 some traditional memory was not even there preserved of the or- 
 acle which had announced the intervention of a virgin in the re- 
 demption of the world ? 
 
 In fact, as Christianity, through the doctrine of the Incarna- 
 tion, rehabilitated the whole liuman race, so, by that of the divine 
 maternity, did it lift woman from her own especial degradation. 
 While it did not destroy for her any more than for man the ma- 
 terial consequences of the Fall, it did make good its disastrous 
 moral results. In religion, it was impossible not to recognize as 
 a fact, the inequality of the sexes, but the equality of souls was 
 duly professed. The daughters of Eve were deemed too fragile 
 to bear the burden of the priesthood, but they shared in the 
 power of prayer and in the respect due to virtue. Saintly wom- 
 en received the honors of canonization, and pontiffs, amid all the 
 splendors of a solemn liturgy, bent the knee in presence of their
 
 386 Dante, atid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 effigies. In civil life, they continued outside of the cares and 
 perils attendant upon power, but they enjoyed civil liberty. They 
 moulded manners, which are of greater weight than laws. They 
 held the initiative in education, on which depends the future of 
 any people ; to them was committed the sacred magistracy of 
 alms : their domain included childhood, sorrow, and poverty, tluit 
 is to say, the largest part of all hunuui tilings. Similar changes 
 took place within the family circle. The mother sat among her 
 children, a queen beside the home hearth ; the wife exercised a 
 pious apostolate in regard to her lnisl)and ; sisters became the 
 guardian angels of their brothers. Down to any depths of isola- 
 tion to which misfortune or penitence might condemn these frail 
 beings, they preserved not only their personal dignity, but even, 
 so to speak, their social rank. They could call by the sweet name 
 of son the new-born babe whom they bore in their arms to the la- 
 ver of baptism. They found in the priest a father who stood ready 
 to wipe away their tears. Faith united them by the bonds of a 
 real fraternity, b}^ an unceasing iiiterconmuuiion, with millions of 
 fellow-Christians. 
 
 One might say that thenceforth nothing great was to be ac- 
 complished within the bosom of the ( 'hurch without some woman 
 jiarticipating in the deed. First, many of tliom stood as mar- 
 tyrs in the amphitheatres; others shared with the anchorites the 
 possession of the desert. Ere long, Constantine set up the Lab'
 
 hi the lliirteeiitk Century. 387 
 
 arum at the Capitol, and St. Helena planted the cross on the 
 ruins of Jerusalem. Clovis at Tolbiac invoked the God of Clotilda. 
 Meantime, the tears of Monica were redeeming the errors of Au- 
 gustine ; Jerome was dedicating the Yulgate to the piet}- of two 
 Roman ladies, Paula and Eustochium ; St. Basil and St. Benedict, 
 the first legislators of the cenobitic life in the East and in the 
 West, were being aided by their sisters, Macriiia, and Scholastica. 
 Later, the Countess Matilda upholds with her chaste hands 
 the tottering throne of Gregory YII. ; the wisdom of Queen 
 Blanche is felt throughout tlie reign of St. Louis ; Joan of Arc 
 saves France ; Isabella of Castile presides over the discovery of 
 a new world. Finally, in times nearer to our own, we see St. 
 Theresa standing amid the group of bishops, doctors, and founders 
 of orders, by whom the internal reform of Catholic society was 
 accomplished: St. Francis de Sales cultivates the soul of Madame 
 de Chantal as a most precious flower, and St. Vincent de Paul 
 entrusts Louise de Marillac with the most admirable of his de- 
 signs, the establishment of tlie Daughters of Charity. 
 
 2. Thus far, we have considered the influence of Christian 
 women as exercised in spheres above all suspicion, within the 
 inflexible circle of duty. We are now to watch its development 
 under forms less austere, modified by the requirements of sur- 
 rounding conditions, and even sometimes lending itself to the 
 exigencies of human passions that it may direct their perilous 
 impulses.
 
 388 Da7itc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 "We readily recognize something akin to this in the chivalric 
 usages of the Middle Ages, before such usages had degenerated 
 into mere profane gallantry. Chivalry was originally a sacred 
 institution, an order exacting from its members solemn vows and 
 numerous observances. In return, they received the mission of 
 waging war ; they became the ministers in this world of the God 
 of battles ; they were called upon to realize among the still un- 
 tamed peoples the eternal idea of Good. Guardians of every 
 kmd of helplessness, they protected those needing their aid with 
 a zeal proportioned to the touching nature of the claims made 
 upon them, succoring the despoiled widow, the betrayed wife, 
 the orphan exposed to the violence of an unjust lord, rhe accused 
 whose innocence demanded a champion. Among tnese fair cli- 
 ents, there was often one who attracted the especial preference of 
 the knight. Sometimes it was an illustrious princess toward whom 
 he dared not lift his eyes, sometimes an unknown dame whose 
 name he never learned : then a look, a smile, paid the entire re- 
 ward due to his long continued service. And yet tliis respectful 
 tenderness, a feeling so delicate that we should profane it were 
 we to bestow upon it any other name, exerted a powerful influence 
 over the heart. Doubtless, it could not altogether renovate the 
 wild blood still coursing through the veins of the knight, but it 
 could moderate its effervescence. Military pride voluntarily 
 humbled itself ; the career of arms became ennobled through the
 
 In the Tliirtcenth Cc?itury. 389 
 
 adoption of a disinterested motive ; sensual instincts were dis- 
 pelled at the call of honor — honor, that manly modesty which for- 
 bade a brave man to commit any action that could call a blush to 
 the countenance of his lady. It was not in vain that he proclaimed 
 her the queen of his thoughts ; ever present to his mind, she often 
 caused him to triiunph over himself, and hence still more easily 
 over his enemies. More than one noble chatelaine thus even 
 from the seclusion of her oratory contributed to tlie maintenance 
 of discipline in the camp, perhaps to the attaining of victory on 
 the battle-field. 
 
 But chivalry may also bo regarded as a public institution ; it 
 formed the first step in the feudal hierarch}'. From this point of 
 view, it enjoyed in Italy but a doubtful popularity. When in 
 various cities a decree of ostracism was pronounced against the 
 families of the nobility, this name embraced all that counted a 
 knight as a member. Amid the common equality, the sole per- 
 sonal distinction to which the ambition of the citizen could aspire, 
 the only national glory looked upon as the especial appanage of 
 Italy among the peoples of Europe, was the glory pertaining to 
 the Arts. Art thus became for those who faithfully devoted 
 themselves to its service, an august ministry : their mission was 
 to seelt, aniiid the chaos of fallen nature, the scattered remains of 
 tlie primal design, then to reproduce these in new works, to grasp 
 and to express the divine idea of the Beautiful. Now, among the
 
 390 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 uorks of God, there was one that seemed to crown all the rest, 
 the one that embellished the solitude of Eden and ravished the 
 father of the race at his first awaking from slumber. The mar- 
 vellous attraction experienced by him has not ceased to be felt in 
 the souls of his sons. But the common herd of men appreciate 
 beaut}- chiefly on its sensuous side ; they approach it only in tran- 
 sitor}' unions, whence issues a posteritj' destined to die. The ar- 
 tist, on the contrary, beholds it on its intelligible side ; he perceives 
 mirrored in it a ray from on high ; he pursues and possesses it 
 by contemplation; in his fruitful ecstas}', he engenders immortal 
 productions. To this has been given the name of Platonic love. 
 Plato set forth its theory in the books of the Phasdrus and the 
 Banquet. But the perversity of the pagan world did not allow of 
 the application of such doctrines. Catholic society in the tliir- 
 teenth century offered more favorable conditions. Already, from 
 the banks of the Adige to the pharos of Messina, rose a concert 
 of poetic voices. Amid the hills of Umbria, St. Francis of Assisi 
 improvised hymns, wherein his ardent charity overflowed down 
 even to the humblest creatures. The Blessed Jacopone de Todi 
 (composed religions r^juiticles in prison. Outside of the cloister, a 
 larger liberty authorized Guittone of Arcz/.o to sing by turns the 
 Queen of Angels and the daugliters of men. Guido Cavalcante 
 wrote the famous canzone defining the nature of love, the com- 
 pletely philosophic thought of which attracted the attention of
 
 /// iJie Thirtce7ith Century. 391 
 
 the doctors. The rhymes of Danle de Mujano took captive the 
 heart of Miiia. the Sicihan, whom he never saw. The star of Pe- 
 trarch was soon to rise. Sucli was the epoch which gave birth to 
 the narration we are about to read — the beginning of the Vita 
 Nuova, tlie first work of Dante, the preface, perhaps, to the Divine 
 Comedy. 
 
 3. " Already nine times since my birth had the heaven of light 
 accomphshed its revolution on itself, when there appeared to my 
 eyes the glorious lady of my thoughts, wlio was called Beatrice 
 by many who knew not wherefore she was so called. Since she 
 had existed in this life, the starry heaven had passed over from 
 west to east the twelfth part of a degree, so that I beheld her 
 about the beginning of her ninth year, and toward the close of 
 mine. She appeared to me garbed in a most noble color, a mod- 
 est and becoming red, and girdled and adorned as befitted hor 
 youthful age. At that moment, I say truly that the spirit of life 
 which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began lu 
 tremble with such violence that it appeared fearfully in the least 
 pulses, and trembling said these words : Behold a god stronger 
 than /, luho has come to ride over me. At the same instant, the in- 
 tellectual spirit, which dwells in the high chamber whereto the 
 spirits of the senses carry all their perceptions, was stricken wiili 
 wonder, and, addressing himself to the spirits of sight, said: 
 Now has your beatitude appeared. However, the natural spirit,
 
 392 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 which dwells in that part where our nourishment is supplied, be- 
 gan to weep, and weeping said these words : Woe is me ! for I 
 shall henceforth be often troubled. From that hour, Love was mas- 
 ter of my soul, which had so suddenly inclined to him ; and he 
 began to exercise over me such control and such lordship, through 
 the power that my imagination gave to him, that it behooved me 
 to do completely all his pleasure. He commanded me oftimes 
 that I should seek to see this youthful angel, so that I in my boy- 
 hood often went seeking her, and saw her of such noble and 
 praiseworthy deportment, that truly of her might be said that 
 word of the poet Homer: ' She seemeth not the daughter of mor- 
 tal man, but of God.' And albeit her image, which stayed con- 
 stantly with me, gave boldness to Love to hold lordship over me, 
 yet it was of such noble virtue that it never suffered that Love 
 should rule me without the faithful counsel of the Reason in those 
 matters in which it were useful to hear such counsel." ' 
 
 > The erudite expressions so prodigally employed in this first page of the 
 Vita Nuova, cannot be regarded as a mere display of useless learning. 
 On the contrary, we find in them the mystic sense which thejpoet attached 
 to the emotions of his childhood, his anxious care to avoid every sugges- 
 tion of an ordinary passion, in tine, his desire to render most solemn the 
 first appearance of Beatrice. On the other hand, in presence of so many 
 precise indications, it becomes impossible to reduce her who bears this 
 name to the exclusive role of an abstract idea. An abstract idea nine years 
 old ! Theology scarcely yet ready to throw a.-^ide its swaddling bands in 
 the thirteenth century of the Christian era ! Boccaccio {Vita di Dnnte) 
 relates the meetiug of the two children, aud Hcnvenuto da Imola recalls
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 393 
 
 Beginning from that day, May 1st, 1274, Dante continues the 
 history of his interior life, and permits us to be present at the 
 simultaneous development of his conscience and his genius. 
 Beatrice was for him a type of perfection, a something celestial to 
 wliich he must attain by disengaging himself from the slime of 
 vicious inclinations, and by tending upward through the sus- 
 tained efloit of an indefatigable will. Still a child, a secret voice 
 called upon him often to visit the neighboring house, wherein 
 the young girl was growing up, and whence he returned always 
 better and better. Later, at the age when the passions assert 
 their power, amid the temptations natural to a fiery temperament, 
 surrounded by undisciplined youths who rarely hesitated at the 
 shedding of blood, it was quite enough that he should have seen. 
 
 its main features : " When a certain Falco Portinari, an honorable citizen 
 of Florence, according to custom made an entertainment celebrating the 
 Kalends of May, having invited his neighbors with their dames, Dante, 
 then a boy of nine years old, accompanied his father, Alighieri, who was 
 one of the numerous company. He (Dante) saw at the house among 
 other young girls, a child, the daughter of the said Falco, aged eight years, 
 a wonder of beauty, but of still greater excellence. Tliis wimtier suddenly 
 penetrated into his heart in such a way that it never departed thence so long 
 as life endured, whether from conformity of disposition and behavior, or 
 through some special influence of the heavens. And with his years contin- 
 ually increased the flames of love ; whence Dante, wholly given up to her 
 image, followed her whithersoever she went, believing that in her eyes 
 he beheld the sovereign beatitude." The name of Falco Portinari is in- 
 scribed among those of the benefactors of the hospital, Santa Maria Novel- 
 la, on a stone tablet still preserved within that fine building.
 
 394 Dafite, and Catholic PJiilosopJiy 
 
 even from afar, the pious countenance of liis beloved, to render 
 him incapable of evil, to restore to him the energy of well-doing. 
 She appeared to him among her young companions as an immor- 
 tal being descended from on high to endue with honor the weaiv- 
 ness of women here below and to protect their virtue. 
 
 When she knelt at the foot of the altar, he beheld her, crowned 
 with an aureole, associated with the power of the blessed in heav- 
 en, interceding for sinners ; and he felt prayer more readily and 
 more confidently flow from his own lips. But, when he stood by 
 the way, awaiting her return, and received from her the kindly 
 greeting of Christian fraternity, he alone is capable of expressing 
 what he then felt. '• As soon as she appeared, a sudden flame of 
 cliarity was enkindled within me, which made me pardon all and 
 have no more enemies. When she was about to salute me, a 
 spirit of love annihilated for the moment all the other sensitive 
 spirits, leaving strength to those of sight alone, and saying to 
 them : Go and honor your sovereign ! And one who wished to 
 know what it is to love, would have learned it by seeing all my 
 limbs tremble. Then, at tlie moment when that noble lady bowed 
 her head to greet me, nothing could veil the dazzling brightness 
 which filled my sight ; I stood as if stricken by an unendurable 
 beatitude. ... So that in that alone was found the last end of all 
 my desires ; in that alone rested my liappincss, a Jiappine.ss far 
 surpassing the capacity of my soul." Moreover, this impression
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 395 
 
 was so vivid and so disinterested, tliat Dante fancied it shared by 
 many others, and rejoiced tliat it shonld be so. •' When the noble 
 Lady walked through tiie streets of tlie city, people ran to see her 
 pass, which gave me great joy ; and those whom she canie near 
 were seized by so respectful a feeling that they did not dare to 
 lift their eyes. She, wrapping herself in her humility as in a veil, 
 passed on without seeming affected by what the crowd said and 
 (lid. And when she had gone by. some cried out as they walked 
 away, 'This is no woman, but one of the fairest angels from heav- 
 en.' ' A miracle,' answered others, ' Blessed be God, who can 
 fashion such admirable works ! ' " 
 
 But the will cannot take so high a flight without carrying the 
 understanding along with it: the affections cannot become en- 
 nobled without a corresponding enrichment of ideas; the trans- 
 port of the understanding and the plentitude of ideas are mani- 
 fested in the fecundity of the word. Tluis the potent charm 
 which held dominion over the mind of Dante did not hold him in 
 a blind captivity. The remembrance of Beatrice illumined his vigils, 
 encouraged his labors, and did not drive from his memory the 
 learned lessons of Brunetto Latini. 
 
 He delivered from the latter the elements of the arth and 
 sciences; from the former he received tlie inspiration which 
 vivifies and holds them in mutual relation. Between the grave 
 secretary of the republic and the gentle daughter of Porti-
 
 39^ Datite, atid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 nari, the predestined youth had uo difficulty iu entering upon 
 the path that leads to fame. At the age of eighteen, the need 
 of communicating his secret emotions to a small number 
 of friends led him to pen his earliest verses, which were fol- 
 lowed by a long series of sonnets, canzoni, sirvente, and ballads 
 — the ever more vivid outpouring of his chaste love, and more 
 brilliant fore-shadowiug of his poetic future. At first there 
 appeared enigmas and plays upon words, strange dreams whose 
 meaning was to be guessed ; sixty names gathered together in a 
 single sirvente, so that the chosen one might be placed there with- 
 out fear of betrayal ; aimless hopes and motiveless alarms. All 
 this was the childish shame-facedness of a new-born passion and 
 of a novice in the art of writing. Soon, to the fear of profane in- 
 terpretation was added the impatience to be understood : then 
 came allusions, veiled but not concealed ; circumstauce.s adroitly 
 used ; words of joy and harmonious sighs corresponding to all the 
 joys and all the sorrows of the beloved ; confidences prepared from 
 afar off and half withheld. The thought and the expression be- 
 come more and more refined ; they ac()uire a virginal grace and 
 delicacy. Finally, the feeling once so timid, now tried by experi- 
 ence and reflection, sure of its own legitimacy, is ready to brave the 
 light of day. For her whom he so long honored by a-secret ven- 
 eration, Dante is about to prepare a public triumph, and hence- 
 forth nothing will be too precious for him to use to this end ; he
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 397 
 
 will count neither the boldness of the forms selected nor the 
 abundance of his figures, the contrast of coloring nor the difiScul- 
 ties of rhyme and rhythm. We here recognize the virile genius 
 whom the capricious language of Italy is to obey, to whose work 
 " heaven and eartli will lend a hand." Tiie following fragment 
 marks, so to speak, the transition from the second to the third 
 manner, perhaps the most interesting moment in the poet's history: 
 " Ladies who have intelligence of love, 
 
 With you of my loved lady I would speak ; 
 
 Not vainly thinking to exhaust her praise. 
 
 But in discoursing to relieve my mind. 
 
 I say that in reflecting on her worth, 
 
 Love's inspiration is so sweetly felt. 
 
 That, it my courage did not fail me then. 
 
 The world should be enamor'd by my words. 
 ******* 
 An angel in the dialect divine 
 
 Exclaims, and says : Sire, in the world is seen 
 
 A miracle in action, which proceeds 
 
 From a fair soul whose splendor mounts thus high. 
 
 Heaven, that no want had ever known but her. 
 
 Entreats to have her presence of Its Lord, 
 
 And every saint aloud implores the grace. 
 
 Pity alone opposes our request. 
 
 What is Madonna's doom ? What God's decree? 
 
 My well-beloved, suffer now in peace 
 
 That, while my pleasure is, your hope should stay
 
 398 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Wliere there is onewl»Li must abide hrr loss. 
 And who shall say to the condemn'd in hell, 
 The hope of blessed spirits I have seen 
 Madonna is in highest heaven desired : 
 Now will I tell you of her excellence. 
 I say then that the lady who would show 
 True gentleness should walk with her ; for when 
 She moves. Love casts o'er vulgar hearts a chill. 
 Which freezes and destroys their every thought ; 
 And he whom Love permits to see her long, 
 A thing ennobled will become, or die ; 
 And when one finds that he may worthy be 
 To look on her, his virtue thus is proved ; 
 For he receives the gift, conferring health. 
 And humbleth him till he forgets all wrong. 
 And God hath given her for greater grace. 
 That who hath spoke with her cannot end ill." ' 
 The mournful presentiments blended with these transports were 
 speedily to be justified. " Tlie Lord called to Himself this yoinie: 
 saint ; lie was minded to nialvo iior shine in glory, imder the en- 
 signs of the august Queen, Mary, whose name she had always re- 
 vered." Beatrice died on the ninth day of June, in the year of Our 
 Lord, 1292. How then relate the grief of tlie pool, wlien, in the 
 
 • The New Life, Canzone L [English translation of Charles Lyell, A. M., 
 with the exception of a few lines bettered by that of C. Eliot Norton, and 
 by the use of a suggestion of Fraticelli's.— Tr.].
 
 In tJic Thirteenth Century. ' 399 
 
 bewilderment of his tbonghts, he wrote to ah the princes of the 
 earth to notify tliein of this loss, as of a presage menacing the 
 future of the world ; when his eyes, inexhaustible fountains of 
 tears, seemed to him no longer anything but " two desires of 
 weeping " ? And yet, when time liad lightened the sombre mem- 
 ories of the bed of death and tlie sepulclire, and the tokens of 
 mourning had passed out of sight, she whom Pante liad loved lived 
 on ill liis memory, radiant, immortal, more Ijeautiful than ever, 
 more than ever potent. Slic lived for him a .second life, she 
 brought to him light and inspiration.^ From that hour, the songs 
 that had been interrupted began again : now she was extolled as 
 having left without regret the state of exile of this world that she 
 might enter into the abode of eternal peace ; then the song would 
 commemorate the anniversary of tlie day when she was placed by 
 the side of the blessed Virgin in that portion of heaven peopled 
 by the humble ; and again, she would be represented as seen amid 
 the topmost heights of the Empyrean, receiving unexampled 
 honors.- 
 
 But these fugitive preludes announced a greater work : a mar- 
 vellous apparition suggested the design of it ; and with this ends 
 
 ' Convito, ii., 3 : " That blessed Beatrice, who lives in heaven with the 
 angels, and on the earth with my soul." 
 
 = See the Canzone : "The eyes that grieve," and the Sonnets: " The gen- 
 tle lady to my mind had come ; " '* Beyond the sphere," C. E. Norton's Tr.
 
 400 Dante, aiid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 the Vita Nuova. " After having written the verses that have 
 been cited, I was visited by an admirable vision, in wliich I was 
 permitted to contemplate such matters that I determined to speak 
 no more of that blessed one until the lime came when I could 
 speak more worthily of her ; I am now making every effort to fulfil 
 my intention, as she truly knows. If then it may please Him for 
 whom and through whom all creatures exist, to grant me a few 
 more years of life, T hope to say of her that which has never 
 been said of any other ; and when my task shall be completed, 
 may it please Him who is tlie Lord of Grace, that my soul may go 
 to rejoice in the glory of my well-beloved, of that blessed Beatrice 
 who in glory looks upon the face of Him, who is Blessed forever 
 and ever! " ' 
 
 From this simple exposition may doubtless be inferred the real, 
 historical existence of Beatrice and the purity of the love which 
 she inspired ; but we may also perceive a new and entirely poetic 
 era beginning in regard to her, the first ghmmerings of her apothe- 
 osis. The vision is to receive its explanation, and we are to 
 see what art, aided by Christianity, can do in the way of glorify- 
 ing human nature. 
 
 II. 
 
 1. And here we must revert to the origin of Christian symbol- 
 
 ' The New Life. The preceding pages are merely a brief but faithful 
 analysis of that work.
 
 In the Thirteentli Century. 401 
 
 isra. traces of wliich we have already freciuently indicated.' An- 
 cient pliilosophy had attempted, but unsuccessfully, to solve a 
 difficult problem, namelj-, to reconcile and unite the two principles 
 of knowledge and existence — the ideal and tlie Real. Tlie Pla- 
 tuuists recognized the existence of ideas, but went astray in 
 futile eflEorts to give them an independent life: they were led to 
 deify the abstractions they had dreamed of : thence the paganism 
 of Plotinus and Proclus. The Peripatetics stopped at the study 
 of realities ; but they spent themselves in vain labors to bring 
 these into categories which often had no value but a logical or a 
 purely arbitrary one : they left science exposed to the danger of 
 materialism. The theology of the Fathers decided the question 
 by the light of faith, permitting some philosophical difficulties still 
 to subsist, which difficulties were subsequently taken up by the 
 schools. Theology showed the real and the ideal blended from 
 the beginning in the primal Unity, and thence finding themselves 
 united in every step of creation, in every phase of history. In 
 fact, the eternal Word is the word that God utters to Himself, the 
 image which He engenders, the infinite idea which He conceives. 
 It is at the same time a distinct Reality, a divine Person. What 
 the Word is in Himself, He reflects in His works. Thus, all 
 created beings have a substance which is proper to them, an in- 
 
 1 See above. Part I., Chap. iv.
 
 402 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 comnuuiicable essence ; they cannot be reduced, as they are by 
 oriental pantheism, to mere phantoms and shadows : and yet 
 we read in their visible forms the invisible thonghts of their 
 Antlior; nature is a living language. In the same way, the in- 
 spired writings contain doctrines typified by actions, truths per- 
 sonified under the names of men; the wliole of revelation is de- 
 veloped in a scries of events which are signs. Thence the system 
 of interpretation which passed from the Synagogue to the Church, 
 from St. Paul to St. Augustine, and from St. Augustine to St. 
 Thomas, a system attributing to the sacred books two senses, one 
 hteral and the other mystical.^ The mystical sense was still 
 f urtlier subdivided according as it related to the coming of Christ, 
 to the future life, or to the divers states of the soul in its present 
 condition. The philosophers of the Middle Ages found types on 
 ever}' page of the Bible to define, to depict, and to animate their 
 most abstract conceptions ; we see a striking example of this in 
 the treatise of Richard of St. Victor, de Prmparatione ad conteni- 
 jilationem, where the family of Jacob is taken to symbolize the 
 family of the human faculties. Rachel and Lia there fill the 
 roles of the intellect and the will ; the two sons of Kacliel, Joseph 
 
 ' St. Paul, I. Corintb., x.; Galat., iv.; Helm, x.— St. Peter, 1, 3.— Or- 
 igan, de Priwcipiis, 4.— St. Jerome, in Oscam., 2.— Casslan, CoUat., 14, 
 4.— St. Augustine, dc Utilitate credendi, 3.— St. Eucber, Liber formu- 
 lanon.—St. Tbomas, Summa, pars q. 1, art. 10 ; Quodliheta, 7, art. 16.
 
 In the Thirteeiith Century. 403 
 
 and Benjamin, are in their turn taken to represent the two main 
 operations of the intellect, namely, knowledge and contemplation. 
 One would scarcely believe with what subtlety and cliarni the 
 relations of the oljjects compared are pursued down to their last 
 terms.' 
 
 This twofold function, historical and allegorical, attributed to 
 the personages of the Old Testament, was still better suited to 
 the saints of the New Law. A saint, in the eyes of faith, is a 
 great man ; that is to say, he reproduces heroically in his own 
 person some of the most excellent atributes pertaining to human- 
 ity : he has banished from his heart selfish affections, egotistic 
 passions, that their place may be occupied by qualities that are of 
 all times and all places, justice, charity, wisdom. In him, the me 
 is effaced in presence of the moral idea to tiie honoring of which 
 he has devoted his life; he becomes the example of that idea, and 
 consequently its type. But the saints in heaven are not merelv 
 abiding types offered to the admiration of the world; they inter- 
 vene in its fortunes by means of a mysterious jjower known un- 
 der tlK> name of patronage. Patronage is not limited to a simple 
 individual relation determined b}' a bajilisnial name selected at will ; 
 it is exercised on a much larger scale and according to more cer- 
 
 ' Thus, in the ecstasy of contemplation, the conscious intellect evan- 
 ishes : this is Rachel dying in the act of giving birth to Benjamin. T)c 
 friTiHirafiour aninuv ad contrmiAatidnem. cap. liv.
 
 404 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 tain laws. Families, cities, kingdoms, have glorious mediators, 
 who are of their blood or have been chosen through gratitude ; 
 during many ages, the orders in the state, learned societies, cor- 
 porations of artisans, lovingly celebrated those \\\\o had sancti- 
 fied their especial class of life or lalwr. Every condition and 
 every age still has its privileged intercessors. There are places 
 protected by a revered memory ; every day in the year is placed 
 under some invocation wliich consecrates it. The saints also di- 
 vide among them the influencing of consciences : some of them are 
 presumed to be mainly interested in the virtues wherein they most 
 excelled ; others take pity on the frailties from which they them- 
 selves were not always exempt ; there are consolers for all afflic- 
 tions, guardians against every peril ; there are pious guides for 
 every species of study, for every exercise of genius.' So that 
 these elect of God represent every condition of human naiuro ; 
 they represent such conditions, not merely under favor of a sim- 
 ple association of ideas, but in virtue of a special power which 
 constitutes a portion of their glory and their felicity. It would 
 take us too long here to dwell upon the beautiful harmouieg sug- 
 gested by the choice of the patron saints dearest to Catholic piety. 
 It will suffice to instance St. Louis, wlio has become the figure of 
 Christian royalty ; St. Joseph, who honors laborious poverty ; St. 
 
 See the last chapter of the Life of Saint Elisabeth, by Montalembert.
 
 /;/ the 'niirtcciitli Century. 405 
 
 Jolin ihe Baptist, typifying innocence, and St. Mary Magdalen, 
 repentance; painting and music glorified under the names of St. 
 Luke andSt. Cecilia; St. Catherine chosen to personify philoso- 
 pln-. It was certainly a graceful thought wliicli for this ministry 
 gave to a virgin martyr the preference over so many illustrious 
 doctors. Tt would seem as if there must have been an intention 
 of softening the asperity of the scholastics, of abasing their pride, 
 and of confirming their faith, when they were given for their pa- 
 troness a young girl of Alexandria, who had confounded the 
 learning of the pagan sophists, and who, after defending the Gos- 
 pel in the Museum, had confessed it under the torments of mar- 
 tyrdom. 
 
 Thus, in theology, each thing has its objective value and its rep- 
 resentive value ; everj-thing is positive, and everything is figur- 
 ative ; realities and ideas meet at all points, and this relationship 
 constitutes sj'mbolism.' It i.« easj- to see what help the arts 
 
 • Thence, in our opinion, results the unlawfulness of two historical meth- 
 ods, one opposed to the other, and either one followed by numerous 
 partisans. The first, attaching itself to the literal sense of books and the 
 commemorative character of monuments, refuses to see in these any ul- 
 terior signification ; its adherents argue from the reality against the sym- 
 bol : the Erhc in crista of all ages have thus reasoned. The second fastens 
 ;ipcin tlic poetic side of traditions, the moral scope of works of art; it in- 
 terprets astronomical myths and religious dogmas as contained in the 
 narrations of the ancient world ; but in return it denies to ttiem iheir posi- 
 tive value as actual facts : those who adopt this method argue from the
 
 4o6 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 must derive from such relationship. In truth, the fate of the arts 
 depends entirely on the problem indicated above. If tlic}' aban- 
 don themselves to the pursuit of an ideal model which has no ex- 
 istence here below, they degenerate into mathematical processes, 
 into superstitious rules, the application of which can produce 
 nothing but delusive beauties. If tbey give themselves up to 
 mere imitation of actual objects, they will lose their way amid the 
 disorder infecting nature, they will justify its deformities by 
 whimsical theories, of which the result will be the rehabilitation 
 of ugliness. They must learn to recognize the eternal types of 
 the beautiful amid the living multitude of creatures, and recom- 
 pose, according to its imperfect imprints, the characters of the 
 divine seal : they must make mind apparent under tlie veil of 
 matter, and thought illumine the creation of the artist. Christian 
 symbolism reveals to the arts tiie secret of such a result; it does 
 more; it furnishes them with admirable subjects whereon to ex- 
 symbol against the reality ; such is, for example, the entire polemical sys- 
 tem of Strauss as against Christianity. Now both these methods begin 
 with a vicious circle, since the two elements whose incompatibility they 
 assume, to wit, the Ideal and the real, on the contrary, form by their union 
 the essence of true symbolism. The robust intelligence of the men of 
 yore readily admitted the presence of two conceptions under one and the 
 same sign. Our analytic habits of thought scarcely allow us fully to grasp 
 either one— like the degenerate heroes described in the Iliad, who could 
 no longer lift, without great effort, even the half part of the heavy rocks 
 which had been as playthings to their fathers.
 
 In the Thirteenth Ce?itury. 407 
 
 ercise their powers. In the early days of the Christian era, paint- 
 ing, called in to console the sadness of the catacombs, borrows 
 from the sacred Scriptures, and reproduces with pious prodigality, 
 figures of resignation and of hope. Xoah in the ark, on the 
 surging waters, signifies faith sure of its future amid the bloody 
 deluge of persecutions ; Job, on the dunghill, preaches patience ; 
 Daniel among the lions, is the man of desires overcoming by 
 prayer the powers of evil ; Elias, borne upward in the fiery char- 
 iot, foreshadows the triumph of the martyrs. The multiplying of 
 the loaves, the Samaritan woman at the well, the healing of the 
 paralytic and the blind, foretoken the propagation of the sacred 
 word, the healing of the Gentiles, the moral and intellectual re- 
 generation of the world. ^ Eleven hundred years later, wlien the 
 Church celebrates her triumph in the places where of old she 
 wept her captivity, the arts, reassembled in Rome, execute the 
 monumental decorations which there seem to keep endless festi- 
 val. Then, in the palace of tlie successors of St. Peter, Raphael 
 designs a series of wonderful pictures which in a few pages con- 
 tain the grand thesis of the papacy, a thesis so long in debate, 
 then triumphant, but soon again to be delivered over by Luther 
 to new disputes. The Delivei-ance of the Prince of the Apostles, the 
 Punishment of Heliodorus, Leo the Great staying the progress of the 
 
 1 See Bosio, d'Agincoiirt, and CuurfKrhiernqluphique chritioinc, by M. 
 Cyprlen Robert, iu the Univcr!<itc Calholiqio:. vol. vii., page 198.
 
 408 Da)ih\ and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Iluns. the Mirack of Bolsena, are so many magnificent chapters, 
 wherein are set forth the divine mission of the sovereign pontifi- 
 cate, the sacredness of its cliaracter, tlie invincible power of its 
 action, the infallibility of its most mysterious teachings. We see 
 all the sciences and all the arts called into its service in the ad- 
 mirable confronting of the School of Athens with the Disputa of 
 the Blessed Sacrament, of Justinian with Gregory IX. Every 
 abstract idea made use of is shown under real forms : philosophy 
 is figured by its noblest disciples, jurisprudence by the most fa- 
 mous legislators, theology by its confessors and its Fathers : — stay 
 a moment, I ought to say that theology is seen there also depicted 
 under the lineaments of a woman. But that woman, easily rec- 
 ognizable liy the garb she wears, is the same whom we find ap- 
 pearing in the vision of Uante; she is Beatrice.' 
 
 2. The vision of Dante (referred to in the Vita Nuova), wheth- 
 er it really occupied one of his weary nights, or whether it was 
 merely the result of his poetical invention, doubtless unveiled to 
 him strange wonders, since he felt a certain pity for his earlier 
 songs, and announced as about to appear, imaginings unexampled 
 before his day. And yet, he had more than once represented 
 Beatrice amid the glories of Paradise: it is indeed a pleasant and 
 easy illusion to figure a triumph in heaven in honor of tliose 
 
 ' In the Stanze of Raphael, frequent allusions to contemporary events 
 iUf discoverable; but they are by no means out of keeping with the deeper 
 inoanings we hnve indicated.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 409 
 
 whose loss we are mourning on earth. Poets espcciahy have 
 never been chary in awarding divine honors ; in olden days, they 
 consecrated the locks of Berenice, and since ilien they have can- 
 onized many a memory not above suspicion. It was then alto- 
 gether necessary tliat in this latost apparition tlie fair Florentine 
 should appear embellished witli new .Tttributcs distinguishing her 
 from the ordinary crowd of saintly women : for licr, the usual palm 
 and crown were not enough ; she was to obtain an exalted rank 
 in the hierarchy of the elect, an ample share in tlio empire grant- 
 ed to them over terrestrial things T\'e have seen that the piety of 
 the Middle Ages took pleasure in selecting the most graceful fig- 
 ures to fill the most austere roles ; we know what parts were as- 
 signed to Benjamin and St. Catherine. Dante was no stranger to 
 this tendency of his times, if we may be permitted to judge from 
 some passages in the Convito (ii., 2, lo), where he comments 
 upon the Canzone : '■ Ye who comprehending move the third 
 heaven." In the literal sense, he naively confesses that after the 
 death of his well-beloved, the daily sight of his tears seemed to 
 touch a young neighbor, whose compassion was not devoid of charm 
 for him, perhaps indeed, not devoid of peril. In tlie allegorical 
 sense, it was philosophy which alone consoled the bereavement 
 of his youth. And lie fancied (he said) philosophy made in the im- 
 age of a noble lady with a compassionate countenance ; luminous 
 demonstrations were her looks, and the persuasion accompanying
 
 410 Dante, and Catholic -Philosophy 
 
 discourse, an enchanting smile {iii., 15). If then his imagination, 
 certainly very accommodating, had gone so far as to confound the 
 loftiest of human sciences with the beautiful unknown who had 
 filled but a fleeting and subaltern place in his thoughts, wliat re- 
 mained for her who always occupied '• the citadel of his soul " ? 
 What was left to reach liis end except to liken her to the diviue 
 science ? Sundry circumstances, each one heightening the 
 other, tended to give color to tins association of ideas. With a 
 little superstition (and what is more superstitious than love?), it 
 was easy to find many mysteries in the personality of Beatrice. 
 First there was the mystery of numbers. Dante met lier at the 
 age of nine years, sang her praises at the age of eighteen, and lost 
 her at the age of twenty-seven; as tlie difference between their 
 ages amounted to taut,a few mouths, tliis fact bore a double sig- 
 nificance. The number nine was everywhere to be met with; and, 
 if need were, a little collusion could be employed to aid the coin- 
 cidence.' 
 
 But nine is the square of three, and tliree is the number of 
 the Divine Persons. The destiny over which that number 
 presided seemed a peculiar manifestation of the Holy Trinity. 
 
 > Thus, in the Sirvente containing the si.\ty names, to which allusion 
 was made above, that of Beatrice was placed the ninth. Thus also, the 
 month of June, in which she died, was the ninlli mouth iu the Judaic 
 year. — See the New Life, pu«i.si/ti.
 
 /// the Thirtcentli Century. 4 1 1 
 
 Then tliere was tlic mystciy of tlie name, an imporuuit considera- 
 tion of that epoch, and one wiiich hagiographcTS rarely neglected. 
 Beatrice signifies, " she who gives happiness." Now, the sover- 
 eign happiness, vainly songhl by all tlie schools of anliqne wisdom, 
 is fonnd only by the light of the holy teaching which came down 
 after the lapse of fonr thousand years to regenerate the earth. 
 And finally, there was the mystery of the ascendency obtained 
 without effort over the mind and heart of the poet, over his stud- 
 ies and his moral nature. She was for him an image of religion, 
 which is at the same time heat and light, purifying as well as il- 
 luminating. The beneficent influence of Beatrice so happily felt 
 by himself and believed by him to have affected a]l those among 
 whom she lived, was now consecrated by death, and seemed as if 
 it must still continue to be exercised, but upon a wider circle, thus 
 being transformed into a veritable j^a^ro^ia^re. It is hence easy to 
 conceive how, taking seriously the analogies we have just pointed 
 out, he had made of the mystical daughter of Portinari the pa- 
 troness, and consequently, the figure, of Theology. 
 
 These suppositions are verified, and the wonderful vision seems 
 to be set forth, in the last five cantos of the Purgatorio. There 
 is unfolded a scene already described by us, of which we shall 
 here recall only the main features. Following the twenty-four 
 Ancients of the Old Testament, and surrounded by the four 
 Evangelists, represented by tiie four animals, a Griffon, the em-
 
 412 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 blem of Christ, draws the car of the Church : ihe remaining writ- 
 ers of tlie New Testament fohow, and the seven Virtues complete 
 the procession. On llie car, a lady appears; she names her- 
 self : she is indeed Beatrice ; the Beatrice of the Vita Nuoi:a, 
 which she calls to mind; the same who once wore lineaments 
 so fair, and who so early chang-ed them for an ideal, incor- 
 ruptible beauty.' But may we not discover in her something 
 still higher, when we see her girt with the olive branch of 
 wisdom, wearing the white veil of Faith, the green mantle of 
 Hope, the flaming tunic of Charity ; when in lier eyes the two 
 forms of the Griffon are, each in turn, reflected; when the Car- 
 dinal Virtues are given her as forerunners, and the Theological 
 Virtues alone give permission to contemplate her face to face ; 
 when finally, the inspired Ancients sing licr praises, and one of 
 them salutes lier three times with tliese words : Veni spotind de 
 Libano? Doubtless, there can be little temerity in recognii^ing 
 under these signs the science whicli teaches men to love, to trust. 
 to believe : and wliose doctrines all lead back to the idea of Clirisi, 
 considered by turns in either one of His two natures. Ere she 
 descended from heaven, the natural virtues liad prepared the 
 
 ' Pm-gatorio, XXX., 25. " In sooth, Tm Beatrice.'"— Z/dV;., 39. "Such 
 il this man become in his new life, etc." May we not here su-spcct an 
 ntion (if connecting the Divine Comedy with the little work wherein 
 in [ eiiii of the great poem was first deposited?
 
 bi the T/iirtec/ith Century. 4 1 3 
 
 way for her; the supernatural vu'tues which she brouglit down 
 with her, accompany her and lend their aid in the comprehension 
 of the doctrines which she teaches. She it is who unveils the 
 meaning of the scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles ; she 
 also who, according to Dante's interpretation, is the mystical 
 bride of Solomon.' The sacred drama then continues : the pro- 
 cession divides ; the damozel remains alone to guard the car suc- 
 cossivel}^ raenanced by the eagle, the fox, and the dragon : she 
 l)uts to flight the second of these allegorical enemies. She has 
 become a participant in tlio history of the Cliiuch, the guardian 
 of tradition, victorious over error. The young Florentine disap- 
 pears under a role wliich can be no other than tliat of Theology. 
 Tl)e reality is transtigured into tlie symbol. "'' 
 
 Here, undeniablj^, we find something that no previous poet had 
 ever dreamed of. something that Dante himself had not foreseen 
 
 ' Convito, ii., Vi. "Of this one (the divine science) Solomon says: 
 ' Thert! are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and young 
 maidens without number : one is my dove, my perfect one.' He calls all 
 the sciences queens and concubines, and young maidens, but this one he 
 calls a dove, because she is without blemish of variance ; this one he calls 
 perfect, because she makes that truth to be perfectly seen in which cur 
 soul finds r^t." 
 
 - This interpretation is also that of M. Villemain, C(yi.ir&Atlitter(xt\irt 
 tableau de la litt^rature au moyen age. pages 378, 382.
 
 414 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 in his first transports ; this probaljly is the apparition, the secret 
 of which he kept to liiniself for several years, until he was ready 
 to unfold it, adorned with every jwetical charm, to the amaze- 
 ment of posterity. Viewing the subject from another point, if 
 we consider the place which this singular scene holds in the 
 poem, we find that it occupies very nearly the centre, and there 
 fills a space far-greater than that accorded to the most interesting 
 episodes, those for instance of Francesca or of Ugolino, of St. 
 Dominic, St. Francis, or Cacciaguida: this may seem to be a 
 minute observation, but it is one not without value when we are 
 considering a work so learnedly constructed, so strictly propor- 
 tioned. There seems to be the apogee, so to speak, of the chief 
 role. The blessed damozel triumphant in Purgatory, divined from 
 afar off, amid the horrors of lioll, is to a certain degree effaced 
 amid the ultimate glories of Paradise. Virgil stands in her 
 stead at the beginning of the journey; and at its close, St. Ber- 
 nard takes her place. It is in the intermediary halt that she 
 gleams with a lustre unborrowed and unshaded, tliat she avow- 
 edly sits a ({ueen, that slie receives the respectful homage of all, 
 and that the most imposing figures of Christianity are gathered 
 togetlier at her feet. The apotheosis of Beatrice then seems to 
 be the primal theme of the Divine Comedy.' 
 
 ' We think we have already amply shown that in the course of the poem 
 Beatrice continues to sustain her syiuholir charafter : she proes on dogma-
 
 In the TJiirtecntJi Century. 4 1 5 
 
 Thus was this magnificent work subjected to the law which 
 weighs upon every human production ; it was brought forth in 
 sorrow, to grow up in the sweat of tlie brow. The first inspira- 
 tion, undoubtedly, came from love. But, as under the lineaments 
 dear to him the Christian poet recognized the refiection of the 
 creative thought; as for him, far more than for Plato, the Beau- 
 tiful was the Splendor of the True, so did he blend in one and 
 the same veneration, so was he to blend in a common glorifica- 
 tion. Love and Science. Later on when (his lot having cast him 
 into the midst of civil conflicts) he devoted his life to the service 
 of the ideal Good, and beheld that sacred ideal outraged and dis- 
 torted by the perversity of factions, he set to work to make rep- 
 aration to it by the power of words, and, in the epos of Love and 
 of Science, he allotted a place to Justice. These three great 
 lights of the moral world. Justice, Science, and Love, illumine 
 the three divisions of the poem ; they form, as it were, the triple 
 aureole which Dante purposed placing on the head of his well- 
 bclovcd. An obscure child of the banks of the Arno, scarcely 
 
 tizing through all the spheres of Paradise ; in the very beginning of the 
 Inferno Virgil had addressed to her these significant words: "Thou, by 
 whose aid the human race penetrates heyimd sublunary things." She is 
 also called " the praise of God, the light interposed between the intellect 
 and the truth." Are these attributes pertaining to a young woman of 
 twenty six ?
 
 4i6 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 known to the denizens of her own city, so soon forgotten in her 
 earl}' grave, he ]iad promised to make her for ever famous. He 
 fuhilled his vow, and, if tiie epistle written by him on her decease 
 to all the princes of the time failed to reach its address, the Di- 
 vine Comedy has gone much farther ; the name of Beatrice lias 
 penetrated to every spot where the soft Italian tongue is not un- 
 known, and it will be repeated in every age still retaining the in- 
 heritance of Christian literature. In presence of this miraculous 
 power of genius, -whicli confers at will life and immortality, we 
 are lost in admiration, and we ask ourselves: If Art can thus 
 crown its chosen ones, what will not God do for His elect ? 
 
 rs. "We have now to offer some explanations regarding two 
 other personages, who at the beginning of the Inferno intervene 
 in the action of the poem, then vanish to re-appear, but always 
 seem to elude the investigations of commentators. Beatrice 
 charges Virgil to aid Dante, who has gone astray in the forest. 
 She thus speaks. " In Heaven there is a noble lady . . . whose 
 compassion softens the rigor of the divine judgments ; she ad- 
 dressed herself to Lucia and thus besought her: ' Thy faithful 
 one now stands in need of thee, and unto thee I recommend him.' 
 Lucia, foe of all that is cruel, hastened awaj', and came unto tlie 
 place where I was sitting with tlie ancient Rachel. ' Beatrice,' 
 said she, ' the true praise of God, why succorost thou not him who 
 loved thee so?' ... I, after suCh words as these were uttered.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 4 1 7 
 
 came hither downward from my blessed seat, confiding in thy 
 discourse. . . ." And again, Virgil, when encouraging the dismayed 
 poet to cross the threshold of the invisible world, says to him : 
 " Why dost thou delay? Canst thou be wanting in courage and 
 confidence when three blessed women are caring for thee in the 
 court of Heaven ? " ' 
 
 Of tliese blessed women, the third alone is thus far fully known 
 to us: we must try to solve whatever mystery may remain, in re- 
 gard to the two others. Lucia appears again in the Purgatorio: 
 she takes up the sleeping poet, and bears him in her arms to the 
 entrance of the " dolorous way." He finds her once more, at the 
 end of the journey, in the first circle of the radiant amphitheatre 
 of the Empyrean, seated near St. John the Baptist and St. Anne.'- 
 He certainly intended to depict in her a living figure, a daughter 
 of men, like to the other blessed ones whose felicity she shares, 
 a saint to whom he doubtless felt grateful for some signal favor 
 conferred. Now, Giacopo di Dante, a decisive authority in an\ 
 matter of biography, tells us that liis illustrious father professed 
 an especial devotion toward St. Lucy, the virgin martyr of Syra- 
 cuse." Her name is inscribed in the canon of the Mass in the Ro 
 man Liturgy, and she has long been in Italy the recipient of wide- 
 
 ' Inferno, li., pa.«sim. ' Purgatorio, i.x., 17; Paradise, xxxii., 46. 
 
 ' Giacopo di Dante, MS. Commentary : " Blessed Liii-y, to'vard whom 
 Jie had a special devotion."
 
 4i8 Dante, and Catholic Pliilosophy 
 
 spread veneration; churches under her invocation were found in 
 all the large cities; her feast-day was kept, and her name contin- 
 ued popular, until somewhat cclij)scd in later times b}- newer 
 names rendered by recent memories more prominent or more be- 
 loved. Repeated miracles attested the efficacy of her prayers : one 
 of the most renowned took place at Verona, in 1308, the era at 
 which many fix the sojourn of the Florentine exile in tliat city. 
 But his devotion had still other motives in the pious beliefs of, and 
 even in the mistakes made by, his contemporaries. The heroic 
 action of another Christian woman was attributed to St. Lucj^ ; 
 namely, that when closely pressed by the evil desires of a Ro- 
 man magistrate, she tore out her eyes and sent them in a golden 
 cup to her persecutor: she was usually represented as holding 
 the vessel containing the eyes thus sacrificed. Now, a touching 
 custom led the men of that day, when seeking aid under any es- 
 pecial form of misery, to the altars of such martyrs as had rnost 
 meritorit)usly passed through like afflictions. St. Lucy was thus 
 hivokod by all suffering from afflictions of the eyes.' As a nat- 
 ural consequence, she came to l)e looked upon as the dispen- 
 ser of the spiritual cnlightennKnit tliat dispels doubts in the mider- 
 standing and darkness in the conscience. The Golden Legend, 
 which dwells with pleasure upon mystical etymologies, does not 
 
 ' Cajetan, Viiae, SS. FAculorum acta sanctae Luciaa Syracusanae marty- 
 ris. Halllet, V\t des Saints.
 
 In the Thirteenth C'efitury. 419 
 
 permit this one to pass unnoticed : Lucia a luce; Lucia quasi lucis 
 viaJ Dante, whose intelligence so ardently aspired to the eternal 
 lights of truth, and whose eye-sight (injured by close application 
 in reading and by the tears shed after the death of his well-bc- 
 lovcd) had suffered from a long and dangerous impairment,'^ had two 
 reasons for placing confidence in the intercession of the virgin 
 who illumines. He knelt before her effigies with the theologian 
 of the cloister and the blind man of the wayside. His praj'er 
 answered, he hung up his votive offering, not in any obscure 
 chapel, but in the poetical edifice raised by his own genius. 
 
 There now only remains to make known her whom Lucy her- 
 self obeys, and to whom alone belongs the initiative of the mir- 
 aculous pilgrimage. "We cannot here join in the general opinion 
 of commentators, who see in her simply the Divine Clemency or 
 Prevenient Grace : an allegory based upon no real personality 
 could scarcely properly be bound together with two actual, his- 
 torical personages. We even expect to find the imknown re-ap 
 pearing, as do her two companions during or toward the close of 
 the Paradiso : thus much is required by the symmetrical ordering 
 of the narration. But who is in Heaven the noble lady whom it 
 is not necessary to name, whose intercession softens the decrees of 
 the immutable Judge, whose commands make Lucy and Beatrice 
 
 ' Jacob, de Voragiue, Legenda aurea, de vita sanctae Luciae. 
 2 ConvUo, iii., I'.— The New Life ; near the end.
 
 420 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 rise from their places ? Wlio should it be, if not she who was 
 
 called Our Lady in the ancient tongue of Christian nations ? It 
 
 is indeed she, the Blessed Virgin, whom the poet descries seated 
 
 as a queen, occupying the first place in that assemblage of the 
 
 M-ified; he beholds the angels showering upon her all the joys 
 
 ' !ornity: in her august countenance he contemplates, more 
 
 loiis than ever, the divine resemblance : to her he addresses 
 
 Uie sublime prayer with which h.is last canto begins. He makes 
 
 no secret of his devotion toward her whom he invokes morninf 
 
 and evening: 
 
 The name of tbe fair flower I e'er invoke 
 Morning and eveninff.' 
 
 He desires this beloved figure to be found at the beginning and 
 at the end of his poem, as it was found on the threshold and at 
 the summit of all religious edifices during the Middle Ages. 
 
 We can the better comprehend the poetic part assigned to the 
 Mother of our Lord, when we find her several times alluded to in 
 the Vita Nuova as the object of the pious love of Beatrice, as the 
 model of her virtues and her especial patroness. Mary was for 
 her what Lucy was for Dante.- He himself, in a philosophical 
 
 ' Paradise, xxiii.. 30. 
 
 2 The New Life. Thus, one of the mcst interesting scenes related in the 
 book takes place in a churcli where the praises of the Blessed Virgin are 
 being sung. Also, we And ttie name of Mary profoundly venerated by 
 Beatrice, and the young saint finally placed by the side of her protectress, 
 " in the Heaven of humility."
 
 In the ThirteentJi Century. 421 
 
 fragment until now little noticed, would seem to have done away 
 with the last remaining doubts in this regard. He undertakes to 
 explain the annual revolution of the sun ; and, in order to give to 
 his hypotheses a more readily comjDrehended form, he imagines at 
 the poles of the terrestrial globe, two cities, wliose inhabitants 
 become spectators of the supposed phenomena. But, instead of 
 indicating these two points by an algebraic sign, as would be done 
 by astronomers at the present day, he gives the name of Maria to 
 the city situated at the north pole, beneath the star that never 
 sets, and that of Lucia to the city placed at the souti: pole. Then, 
 bj' the construction of the disquisition, Mary, in three pages, is 
 mentioned nine times (always the mystic number), while Lucy is 
 named only six times.' 
 
 1 Convito, lii., 5. " Then imagining, tbe better to understand, that in the 
 place of which I spake there is a city, and its name is Maria, ... let us im- 
 agine another city, named Lucia, etc."'— Dante has sung the Blessed Vir- 
 gin in a sonuet, which we cannot refrain from quoting here, as one of 
 the most beautiful tributes proHered by men to the Mother of God 
 (Lyell's Tr., except the first word) : 
 
 Mother of virtue, light eternal, thou, 
 
 Of whom was boni the meek benignant Fruit 
 That suffered on the cross a bitter death, 
 To save us sinners from the dark abyss : 
 Thou, queen of heaven, and of this world, supreme. 
 Vouchsafe to entreat thy ever- worthy Son 
 To bring me to His heavenly kinsrdom's joys. 
 By virtue of His never-failing grace. 
 Thou knowest my hope was ever placed in thee ; 
 Thou knowest in thee was ever my delight :
 
 422 Da?iie, and Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 These favorite names thus interwoven in tlie web of tlie discourse, 
 as two ciphers in a monogram, plainl}' enough betray the intention 
 dictating their use in this manner. Tliis is one of those charming 
 puerilities which so greatly please us when we find them in great 
 men ; a distraction of the heart amid the labor of thought. It is 
 at the same time an ingenious modesty, which, not venturing to 
 emploj' together the names of the two clients, makes use, in their 
 stead, of the names of their sainted patronesses. Finally, it is a re- 
 ligious care to place his chaste affection of this nether world un- 
 der the safeguard, under the responsibility, so to speak, of the two 
 heavenly virgins. We here find amid the very thorns of scholas- 
 tic erudition, a fiower of most delicate sensibility blooming in the 
 light of faith. Hero is indeed a revelation of Dante's character, 
 the explanation of the personality of Beatrice, the secret of the 
 poem. For we now understand why, in the second canto of the 
 Inferno, that first conversation is held between Mary and Lucy, in 
 consequence of which the well-beloved Beatrice descends to aid 
 the poet, and on which depends the entire action of the poem, 
 with all its lessons and its beauties. 
 
 O goodness infinite, support me now ; 
 Help me, for at the bourn I am arrived 
 
 Wliich I must soon inevitably pass ; 
 
 O now, cliief coinforter, forsake me not : 
 For every fault committed bere on eartb 
 
 My soul deplores, and contrite is my heart.
 
 Hi. — Dante's First Studies in Philosophy. 
 
 how he was led to the examination of moral and political 
 Questions.— His respect for the Authority of Aristotle. 
 — Extracts from the Convito ii., 13; iv., 1, 6.' — Conjec- 
 tures IN regard to the Period of Dante's Journey to 
 Paris. — Researches of M. Victor le Clkrc concerning 
 SiGER DE Brabant. — Conclusions, in Aid of the Inter- 
 pretation OF the Poem. 
 
 I- 
 "^f^djiT'HEN slie was lost to me who was th efirst joy of my 
 V^V soul, 1 remained pierced with so pungent a grief 
 that no sort of solace seemed to touch my malady. Yet, after 
 the lapse of some time, my reason, which sought to heal the 
 wound, betliought itself (since my own efforts and those of others 
 
 ' We regret that we cannot here offer still more ample extracts, and 
 
 thus make that fine work, the Convito, better known. Bouterweck com- 
 
 part's it to the most excellent philosophical treatises of antiquity (Ge- 
 
 svhiihlc der Schcenen Wisitevscliaften, vol. I., p. 61). At least we have 
 
 endeavored to preserve the simple and fandliar form of the style. 
 
 433
 
 424 Dante., and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 had not availed to soothe iiie) of having recourse to the means by 
 which sundry mourners hud found consolation. 1 began to read 
 in that book by Boethiu ?. unknown to man}-, in wliich he charmed 
 away the sorrows of his downfall and captivitj'. Then, liaving 
 heard that Cicero had written a book on Friendship, wherein he 
 related how Lelius was consoled for the death of his friend Scipio. 
 I applied myself to the reading of that book. Although it was at 
 first difficult for me to enter into the thought of these writers. I 
 finally penetrated into its meaning so far as my knowledge of the 
 art of grammar and some degree of intelligence on my part would 
 permit — the said intelligence giving me to see, as in a dream, 
 many truths, as may be observed in tlie Vita Nuova. Now. as 
 it sometimes happens that a man looking for silver, contrary to 
 his expectation finds gold, which some unknown cause has placed in 
 his way, not perhaps without design on the part of the DivineWill, 
 so, I seeking consolation, found not only a remed}' for my teai's, 
 but names of authors, terms of science, and titles of books, which 
 led me to think that Philosoph}', the sovereign inspircr of sucli 
 authors, sciences, and books, must be something very great. I 
 imagined her forn-.ed as a noble lady, to wliom I could not but as- 
 cribe a sweet and pitying countenance, so that my ravished sen- 
 ses could scarcely detach themselves from her image. From tliat 
 moment I began to frequent the places wliere she showed herself, 
 namely, the schools of religious orders and tlie assemblies of those
 
 /// tJic Tliirtccnth Cetifury. 425 
 
 wlio pliilosophize, so tliat. at tlie end of a short space of time, 
 about tliirty months, I felt myself so touched by the sweetness 
 of her conversation, tliat my love for her excluded every other 
 
 thought For this lady of my mind was the daughter of God, 
 
 queen of all things, mosr noble and most beautiful ; slie was 
 philosoph}'. . . ." 
 
 2. " Love, according to the unanimous opinion of the wise men 
 who have discoursed thereupon, and according lo the daily teach- 
 ings of experience, has, as its essential effect, the power of bring- 
 ing together, of uniting, the person who loves and the person 
 
 loved ; whence it comes that Pythagoras said : ' In friendship, 
 of more tlian one, one is made.' And, as two things united to- 
 gether naturally communicate to each other their several quali- 
 ties, so that one may become entirely like the other, the passions 
 of the person loved may pass into the heart of the person lov- 
 ing . . ., so that this latter cannot help loving the friends and hating 
 the enemies of the former. Tliis is why a Greek proverb says : 
 ' Among friends all things are in common.' Having thus become 
 the friend of the noble lady whom I have mentioned, I began to 
 measure out my aversions and my affections according to her 
 hatred and her love ; like her, I began to love the disciples of 
 truth and to hate the followers of error. But everything is in 
 itself deserving of love, and nothing merits hatred except in so 
 far as some evil is mingled with it. It is then reasonable and
 
 426 Dante, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 jusl to hate, not things, but the evil wljich is in them, and to try 
 to free them fioni such evil. Now, if anyone in the world exer- 
 cises this wonderful art of freeing things from the evil that ren- 
 ders them hateful, it is, above all, my most excellent lad}', since 
 in her are to be found, as in their source, all reason and all jus- 
 tice. Desirous then of imitating her in her works as well as in her 
 sentiments, I decried, I anathematized to the extent of my power, 
 public errors; not in order to dishonor those who professed them, 
 but in the hope of making them detest, and consequently of mak- 
 ing them banish from their minds, the defects rendering them 
 obnoxious to mc. Among such errors, I more especially pursued 
 one, dangerous and fatal, not only to its sectaries, but also to its 
 adversaries. This was the error relating to the nature of nobil- 
 ity. It had become so firmly rooted by custom and by lack of 
 reflection that the general opinion regarding nobility remained al- 
 most entirely perverted. From that perverted opinion false 
 judgments arose, and from the said false judgments issued unjust 
 respect and unjust disdain ; so that the good were held in con- 
 tempt and the wicked in honor, whence resulted the worst con- 
 fusion in the world, as may readily be imagined. Meantime it 
 liappened that the sweet countenance of my noble lady became 
 somewhat obscured to mc, and did noi allow me to read clearly 
 in her eyes that which I sought to know, namely, whether God 
 had created, by a formal act of will, the first matter of the cle-
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 427 
 
 merits. In consequence of this, I for sonic time suspended my 
 assiduities in her service, and, in the absence of her accustomed 
 favors, I occupied my leisure in meditating on the general error 
 which I liad come to perceive . . . The lady alluded to is the same 
 one mentioned in the previous chapter, to wit. Philosophy, that 
 potent light, under favor of whose rays the germ of nobility de- 
 posited in the heart of man develops, blossoms, and fructifies. 
 
 3. "Authority is a character which inspires faith and com- 
 mands obedience. Now, that Aristotle is supremely worthy 
 of obedience and of credence, may be demonstrated as follows. 
 Workmen and artisans in various occupations which all concur in 
 the intent of some principal art, ought to obey and believe in him 
 who exercises that art, in him who alone knows the end common 
 to all their labors. Thus to the knight ought to be subservient 
 those whose callings are intended for the service of kniglithood. 
 those who forge swords and bucklers, and the makers of saddles 
 and bridles. And, us all the works of man suppose a last end, to 
 attain which is the destiny of iiumaii nature, the master whose 
 business it was to lay down and to make us acquainted with that 
 end, may, with good reason, claim to be believed in and obeyed. 
 
 "That master is Aristotle. ... To understand how Aristotle really 
 came to know in what way to lead human reason to the discovery 
 of the last end of man, we must not forget that from the oldest 
 limes the researches of the wisest men were directed to this aim.
 
 428 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 But, as men are many, and the appetites from which none are ex- 
 empt vary with every individual, it was difficult to determine the 
 point where all tlie appetites pertaining to humanity could find 
 legitimate satisfaction. There were, in daj-s long gone by, an- 
 cient pliilosophers, the first of whom was Zeno, ' who thought that 
 the end of human life was to be found in rigid uprightness, 
 which consisted in following strictly and without any external 
 considerations the way of truth and justice, in giving utterance 
 to no pain and to no pleasure, in rendering oneself impassible. 
 And they defined uprightness, thus conceived, ' that whicli, in the 
 sight of reason, is evidently praiseworthy in itself, without any 
 consideration of interest or of profit.' Those belonging to this 
 school were called Stoics, and of their number was tlic glorious 
 Cato, whom I scarcely dare to name. There were otiiers who 
 saw and believed differently, of whom the first was a philosopher 
 named Epicurus. Tliis latter considered that each animal, from 
 tlie in star.t of Lis birth, when it is still under the immediate im- 
 pulsion of nature, sliuns pain and seeks pleasure. Tie concludes 
 from tliis that the last end to which wc tend is enjoyment, that 
 is, pleasure without any mixture of pain. And, admitting no in- 
 termediate condition between pain and pleasure, he defines enjoy- 
 ment, the absence of pain. His reasoning is reported by Cicero 
 in tlie first book c^e Finibus honorvm. Among the disciples of 
 
 ' Dante seems to have confounded Zeno of Pit in m with Zeno of Eltea.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 429 
 
 Epicurus, called after him Epicureans, we must count Torquatus, 
 a noble Roman, descended from the celebrated Torquatus, judge 
 of his own son. There were finally others, who had for their 
 head Socrates, and then Plato, his successor ; and these, being 
 endowed with more penetration, discovered that in all our 
 actions, we may err, and in fact that we do commonly err, either 
 by exaggeration or by insufficiency. Consequently, they decided 
 that the exercise of human activity, in a mean freely chosen be- 
 tween excess and deficiency, between the too much and the too 
 little, is precisely the supreme end in question ; they delincd 
 the Sovereign Good, '• activity within the limits of virtue.' 
 These were called Academicians: Plato, and Speusippus his 
 nephew, bore this title, borrowed from ilie place where Plato pur- 
 sued his meditations. Socrates did not leave them his name, be- 
 cause he had laid down no body of doctrines. But Aristotle, the 
 Stagyrite, whom nature had endowed wiih a genius almost divine, 
 and Xenocrates of Chalcedon, who shared in his labors, having 
 recognized the true end of man very much according to the views 
 held by Socrates and the Academy, gave to ethics a more regular 
 form, and reduced it to its most perfect expression ' . , . And be- 
 
 ' This singular estimate whlcti represents Aristotle as the continuer of 
 Plato, jusiifles the views set forth in Clnip. II.. Pait III. It is by no 
 means irreconiilahle with the letter written by Marsilius Ficinus, referred 
 to in that connection, and from which we cannot deny ourselves the
 
 430 Dante, and CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 cause Aristotle argued while he walked up and down, he and his 
 companions were called Peripatetics. As Aristotle gave the final 
 touch to ethics, the name of Academician fell out of use, and 
 that of Peripatetic designated tlie entire school which at the pres- 
 ent time holds the intellectual government of the world; so that 
 the opinions maintained by it may, in a certain sense, be called 
 Catholic. Hence we may see that Aristotle was the man who 
 directed the eyes and the steps of the human race toward the end 
 to which it ought to tend ; and this is the proposition we wished 
 to demonstrate." 
 
 pleasure of quoting a few lines : " Dante Alighieri, celestial, as to coun- 
 try ; a Florentine, by his place of residence ; by race, angelic ; and by pro- 
 fession, a poet-pbilosopher ; although he did not converse with that re- 
 vered father of philosophers and inteipreter of the truth, in the Greek 
 tongue, he nevertheless spoke in the spirit of Plato and in the same man- 
 ner, adorning his book with many Platonic sentences. And by such great 
 adornmeuts he conferred so great honor upon the city of Florence, that 
 one might as truly say, the Florence of Dante, as, Dante of Florence. We 
 find three realms described in our most correct leader, Plato ; one of the 
 beatified, one of the wretched, and one of wanderers. He calls those be- 
 atiQed, who are in the city of life, restored, reestablished ; wretched, they 
 who are forever shut out of that city ; and pilgrims or wanderers, they 
 who are outside of that city but not condemned to eternal exile. In this 
 third order, he places all the living, and such among the dead as are des- 
 tined to temporal purgation. This Platonic order was first followed by 
 Virgil ; the same was, later on, followed by Dante, who drank with the 
 cui) of Virgil at the springs of Plato."— See Appendix, No. 3.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 43 1 
 
 II. 
 
 The passages just quoted make clear to us the first steps of 
 Dante in the philosophical studies into whicli he was to penetrate 
 so deeply. We here see his earliest teachers, Cicero and Boethi- 
 iis ; the monastic schools, that is, the schools in the monasteries 
 of Santa Croce and of San Marco, of the Franciscans and the 
 Dominicans, whose beneficent rivalry revived instruction through- 
 out Christendom ; and finally, the " assemblies of those who 
 philosophize," in which I think I recognize those solemn disputa- 
 tions so passionately loved by the Middle Ages. I find these at 
 an early da}' at Florence, when, in 10G3, the people, under tlie 
 guidance of the monks of Vallombrosa, rose against the bishop and 
 the Xicolaites ;' when iu 1 1 1 j, tlic Epicureans, as Yillani relates, 
 became numerous enough to constitute a formidable faction. It 
 was tlie controversies iu matters of religion that had completed, 
 if I may be allowed thus to express myself, the political education 
 of the Italian cities which dictated conditions to emperors, and 
 whose podtiias set their plebeian signatures to the treaty of 
 Constance. 
 
 It seems that these lights sufficed to satisfy the curiosity of 
 Dante, and tliat he did not leave Florence during the thirty 
 
 ' Voigt, Life of Gregory VII.
 
 432 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 months following the death of Beatrice,' that is, not until the end 
 of the year 1294. Starting from this date, we lose track of him, 
 and do not recover it until 1299, when, on the eighth of Maj-, we 
 find him charged with the conduct of a negotiation between the 
 commune of Florence and that of San-Geminiano.^ About the 
 same time we find his name inscribed in the books of the corps 
 of physicians and apothecaries, one of the six arts called to the 
 election of the six priors of the city.^ lu this space of live years 
 must bo placed his maiTiage, sundry of the embassies ascribed to 
 him by Filelfo, the studies that Boccaccio and Benvenuto da Imo- 
 la represent him as pursuing at the universities of Bologna and 
 Padua: to these must perhaps be added his journey to Paris. 
 This latter question still stands in need of elucidation. It is cer- 
 tainly not uninteresting to know what sights were offered to the 
 poet's view when he visited the great schools of France. 
 
 Witnesses worthy of credence put off tnis journey to the period 
 of Dante's exile. Here are the words of Boccaccio : ■• " "When 
 
 ' (The" thirty months " mentioned are, according to some of the later 
 commentators, to be reckoned from the date of the first acquaintacce 
 with philosophy, and not from the date of Beatrice's death).— T/-. 
 '■' Pelll Memorte, p. 91. 
 
 ' Idem, i7:iul., p. 90. The reffister has inscribed on it these words: 
 " Dante d'Aldighiero degli Aldighieri, poeta Oorentiuo." 
 ^ Bnpriiccio, Life of Dante.— Cf. QeneaJno. <1eortim, xlv., 2.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 433 
 
 lie beheld every way closed against hope of return, he abandoned, 
 not only Tuscany, but Italy ; crossing the Alps, he went, as best 
 he might, to Paris. There he gave himself up to the study of 
 theology and philosophy. He often entered the schools and 
 maintained propositions in all the sciences against those who 
 wished to argue with him. . . . One day when he was maintaining 
 a thesis de quolibet in a school of theology, several learned men 
 proposed to him fourteen questions on different subjects, with the 
 arguments for and against: he, without taking any time to reflect, 
 repeated them in the same order in which they had been laid 
 down : then, keeping on in the same sequence, he resolved them 
 skilfully, and replied to the arguments on the opposite side; the 
 which was regarded by all present as almost a miracle." Ben- 
 venuto da Imola and Yillani indicate the same period,' but witli- 
 out entering into the above details, which show memories care- 
 fully preserved. But the reminiscences of Boccaccio are not al- 
 ways without flaw. Born in 1313. he was the recipient of a 
 tradition already somewhat antiquated, and fables find tlieir way 
 into his narrative : the birth and the death of the poet are therein 
 encompassed by apparitions and dreams. We see the beginning 
 of that circlet of popular legends so often woven for tlie crown- 
 ing of great names. 
 
 ■ Benvenuto, apud Muratori, Antiquit. ItaL, i., 1036.— Villanl, apud 
 Muratori, Scriptores, xiii., 508.
 
 434 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 I find a first motive for doul)t in the contrary assertion of John 
 of Serravalle, bishop of Fcrnio, one of the first commentators of 
 the fifteenth century, wliicli assertion takes Dante in his earlier 
 years to Padua, Bologna, Oxford, and Paris. ' '• He was a bache- 
 lor in the University of Paris, where he read in public tiie Book 
 of Sentences, to fullil llie conditions of mastership: according to 
 custom, he replied to all the doctors, and went through all the 
 acts required to obtain a doctorate in theology. Nothing re- 
 mained undone except the act of installation {inceptio seu coii- 
 ventus). But he lacked the requisite funds, and hence he re- 
 turned to Florence (witliout the doctorate, but) an adept in the 
 arts, and a perfect theologian. He was of a noble family, skil- 
 ful in affairs ; he was made a prior of the Florentine people, so 
 that he became absorbed in the functions of public office, forgot 
 the School, and never went back to Paris." This text is easily 
 reconcilable with the testimony of Filclfo, who, writing at Flor- 
 ence where he had access to documents lost to us, relates that 
 Dante visited Paris in the capacity of ambassador from the Flor- 
 
 1 Apud Tiraboschi, from tlie year 1300 to 1400, lib. iii.,c. ii. : " Diu 
 studuit tam in Oxonlis In regno Angliae, quam Parlsiis in regno Francisp ; 
 et fult Bachalarius in universitate Parisiensi, in qua legit sententias pro 
 forma magisterii, legit Biblia, respondlt omnibus doctoribus, ut moris est, 
 et fecit omnes actus qui fieri debent ad doetorandum in sacra tbeologia," 
 etc.
 
 In the Thirteenth Ce?itury. 435 
 
 entines, consequently, previous to his banishment, and that he 
 pleased the Iting by the agreeability of liis conversation.' Tliis is 
 sufficient, not indeed to refute Boccaccio, but to present another 
 view of the facts, and at least to prove the uncertainty of the 
 tiadiliun relating to this matter. One point remains undeniable, 
 ami that is, the fart of the journey to France, for whicii I can 
 again appeal to tiio authority of the commentary by Giacopo di 
 l)ante. When explaining the lines in the ninth canto of the In- 
 ferno relating to the famous tombs at Aries, he states that his 
 father had seen them.' But the time ivhen is not specified, and 
 hence there is a free field for arguments of another kind. 
 
 If we consider the implacable resentment against France pro 
 fessed by Paiite from tlie day of liis exile, a resentment which 
 appears throughout the poem whenever occasion offers, we can 
 scarce!}' believe that he would at that very time have visited a 
 people so detested by him, that he could have desired to behold the 
 capital of the Capetian princes who had become the persecutors 
 
 ' Pelli, Memnrie, 93. 
 '^ Inferno, ix., 38. 
 
 "Even as at Aries... 
 
 The sepulchres make all the place uneven. 
 " The author in this part speaks of having seen many tombs of the dead. 
 He introduces a similitude, that, as in a city named Aries, etc. . . ." 
 Manuscript Commentary by Giacopo di Dante, Royal Library, No. 7765.
 
 436 Dante, ami Catholic Philosophy 
 
 of himself and the oppressors of his country. How could that 
 close observer, whom nothing escaped, have frequented the Uni- 
 versity of Paris in 1308, without finding it filled with the renown 
 of Duns Scotus, who died that same year, and who is not once 
 mentioned either in the Divine Comedy or in the Convito ? I can 
 find in these works no trace of the philosophical revolt, the noisy 
 protest of the Franciscan school against the triumph of St. Thom- 
 as Aquinas and the Preaching Friars. (Jn tlie contrary, in the 
 tenth canto of the Paradiso, we see St. Thomas in possession of 
 an uncontested empire : he is among the saints what Aristotle is 
 among the philosophers, the Master of those ivho know. It is he 
 who sets the ranks in order, who resolves difficult questions. 
 We recognize the sovereign authority which the writings of the 
 Angelic Doctor kept in the school until the close of the thirteenth 
 century. As an instance, we need only adduce Godfre^y dcs 
 Fontaines, who, in 1289, examined if one could censure the opin- 
 ions of St. Thomas without committing mortal sin.' Among the 
 contemporaries of St. Thomas. 1 find named only St. Bonaventura, 
 as approaching but not equalling him. Among those who suc- 
 ceeded him, the poet names but one: "That is the eternal light 
 of Siger, who, reading lectures in the Street of Straw, did syllo- 
 gize invidious verities." '^ Such precise particulars, so lively' an 
 
 ' Qiietif and Echard, Scriptores ordinis prcBdicatorum, vol. i. 
 ^ Paradiso, x. 46. 
 
 Sigieri ought regularly to bo rendered in French by Siger as Ruggieri 
 by Roger.
 
 /// the Thirtcctith Ccfitury. 437 
 
 admiration for a man whose renown was soon dimmed in France 
 and never passed beyond the Alps, to my mind undoubtedly point 
 out the doctor at whose feet Dante himself had sat. And as he 
 meets in heaven only persons dead before the year 1300, the date 
 assigned by him to his vision, we are permitted to conclude that 
 the poet visited Paris in the interval between 1294 and 1299. 
 We may thus explain the period of disorder in his father's life 
 which Giacopo di Dante places before his thirty-fifth year, that 
 is, before the year 1300.' During that stormy season of life, at 
 so great a distance from Florence and from the memorials of 
 Beatrice, I can understand the errors of the poet thus borne along 
 amid the noisy crowd frequenting the schools of Paris. Euro 
 sanctijicantur qui multum peregrinantur — Rarely are they sancti- 
 fied who travel much. 
 
 III. 
 
 We must now seek to convey some idea of the instruction 
 which left such enduring memories in Dante's mind. And here 
 come in the admirable researches of M. Victor Le Clercin regard 
 to Siger of Brabant. While awaiting their publication, accom- 
 panied by their full proofs, in the one and twentieth volume of 
 the Literary History of France. M. Le Clerc has had the kindness 
 
 to send me the notes I am about to quote. May I here be 
 
 ' • 
 
 ' See the notes to the following section.
 
 438 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 permitted to thank him for allowing me to use them in my work 
 which he has thus enriched, to thank him also in behalf of the 
 poet's friends, who will henceforth be spared manj^ doubts and 
 misconceptions touching this matter. 
 
 We find in the anonymous treatise de Recuperatione terrcb sanc- 
 tcB (Ap. Bongars, t. ii., p. 316-361), written about the year 1306. 
 tlie eulogiura of an excellent doctor in philosophy, Siger de Bra- 
 bant (pnecellentissimus doctor philosopMce. magister Sigerius dt 
 Brabantia), whom the author had listened to in his youth. ]n 
 another place, in a plan for study drawn up for the use of the 
 young people whom he wishes to call to the conquest of the 
 Holy Land, he recommends the Quastiones naturales extracted 
 from Uie writings of Brother Thomas, of Siger, and of some other 
 doctors.' Again, and previous to the year 1300, we find a legacy 
 of sundry parts of the works of St. Thomas bequeathed to poor 
 masters in theology of the house of Sorbonne, by Siger, then dean 
 of the collegiate church of Courtray.- Finalh^, the historians of 
 the order of St. Dominic are acquainted with a Siger of Brabant, 
 called up (in 1278) for the offence of heresy before the tribunal 
 
 ' Item expediret quod quaestiones uaturaleshaberentextractas descrip- 
 lis tam fratris Thomwquam Segeri et aliorum doctorum.— Bongar.s, i. II.. 
 p. 337. » 
 
 2 Quetlf and Echard, Scrijytores ordinis proedic, vol. i., p. 295.
 
 /// the TJiirteenth Century. 439 
 
 of the Dominican, Simon du Val, and acquitted.' The name Bra- 
 bant then covered much more territory than it covers at the 
 present time : Courtray might have been inckided in it without 
 any considerable lack of geographical exactitude, a quality, be it 
 said, somewhat rare among the writers of that time. "We may 
 here recognize the Siger of the Paradiso, the same person called 
 by sundry commentators, Siger of Brabant (Brabante and some- 
 times Bramante", who appears in company with St. Thomas 
 Aquinas, and thus, so to speak, under the responsibility of that 
 glorious champion of orthodoxy, and who indeed requires such 
 patronage to cover the suspicions aroused by tlie boldness of liis 
 pubhc teaching : " Reading in the Street of Straw." 
 
 But to unearth the biography of Siger was not enough ; M. Le 
 Clerc was also to discover liis works. Among the manuscripts 
 of the old Sorbonne foundation, sundry fragments have been pre- 
 served of the QucEstiones naturales, and of se\'eral treatises on 
 dialectics, bearing the name of Siger, tlie whole crowned by a 
 book in which clearly appears the character of the mind so rashl}' 
 judged by his contemporaries. The book bears the name of Im- 
 
 ' Quetif and Ecliard, vol. i., p. 39.5. The Ottimo cnmmentn thus speaks : 
 " This is master Sigier, who comiMSid and read Logic in Paris, and held 
 the chair many years in the Street of Straw, which is a place in Paris 
 where Logic is read — and he says that he read invidious verities because 
 he read the elenclmses.'''' We are then concerned with a doctor who 
 read and who composed, one by turns a professor and an author.
 
 440 Da?ttc, and CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 possihilia^ and opens with these words : " The doctors of the 
 School of Paris being assembled together, a dialectician proposed 
 to prove, and to defend before them, several impossible theses, of 
 which the first was this: Tliat Bod does not exisV^ Then fol- 
 low other propositions not less scandalous, supported by appro- 
 priate arguments. Here we see the cliaracteristics of the inde- 
 fatigable logician ; enamored of controversy, and defying the 
 School to the combat of syllogisms, sillogizzo. 
 
 After the writings of Siger, nothing remained to be discovered 
 except his legend ; M. le Clerc found this in simdry manuscript 
 commentaries on the Divine Comedy. The first one contains the 
 following narrative. " The poet says that St. Thomas pointed 
 out to him also the soul of Siger of Brabant, who was a man ex- 
 celHng in all sorts of sciences ; he was an infidel, and a doctor at 
 Paris. Now this adventure happened to him ; one of his pupils 
 who had died appeared to liim one night in a vision, and showed 
 liim how he was suffering great torments. Among other pangs, 
 he made Siger hold out his hand, and he then let fall into it a 
 drop of his sweat; that drop made him experience so sharp a 
 pain that he awoke ; in consequence of this, Siger abandoned 
 study, had himself baptized, became the saintly friend of God, 
 
 ' Convocatis sapientibus studii Parisiensis, proposult sophista quidam 
 impossibilia multa probare et defendere. Quorum primum fuit, Deuin 
 non esse.
 
 /// tJic Thirtccntli Century. 44 1 
 
 and tlienceforth strove to lead the opinions of philosophers back 
 to the holy Catholic faith." Another commentary adds that the 
 disciple appeared all covered over with sopliisms. The Latin 
 glosses say co-opertus sophismatibus, or cum cappa plena cedulis. 
 Soma texts give only the first words of the narrative, and sud- 
 denly break off as if the occurrence was one well known to their 
 readers. We in fact find the same tale before the time of Siger, 
 in the authors quoted by Duboulay {Ilist. de V Univ. de Paris, 
 annee 1172) ; in Vincent of Beauvais {Speculum historiale, lib. xxv., 
 c. 89). It has passed into the Golden Legend as having taken 
 place on All Souls' Day. The confusion is explained by the sus- 
 picion surrounding the doctrine of Siger, wliicli had led to liis 
 appearance before the tribunal of the inquisitor. Tliese are again 
 the ill-received truths of which the poet speaks : " Invidiosi veri." 
 
 IV. 
 These biographical studies lead to important conclusions. When 
 Dante was about to begin his immortal work, he had already 
 passed through the course of instruction given at the Paris Uni- 
 versity (in the laborious fashion of the students of the thirteentli 
 century, seated on straw, at the feet of the masters), and hence 
 through the dialectic schools and tlie noisy disputes of the rui- 
 du Fouarre. Thence he carried over into his poetry all the modes 
 of contemporary learning, and consequently the method of al- 
 legorical interpretation, applied not only to the Sacred Scriptures,
 
 442 Danti\ a)id Co thai ic PJiiUnopJiy. 
 
 but to the texts of Virgil or Ovid. Moreover, lie was full of the 
 teaching of St. Thomas, which he had found in all the glory of a 
 new reign. How could his great soul, captivated and deeply im- 
 pressed by these doctrines, not have felt the need of inculcating 
 them by casting them in a form of his own invention, and thus 
 handing them over to the men of his day tliat tjiey might he pre- 
 served to future ages ? Hence we are entitled to seek in the 
 Divine Comedy all that the poet could have put into it, — philoso- 
 phy as its foundation, allegory as its form, and labor in its every 
 part. At the same time, we may once more have learned the 
 lesson, opposed to the prejudices of many, that science never 
 kills inspiration, and that discipline does not stifle geni\is. 
 
 (Father Bowden, in his translation of Dr. Hettinger's com- 
 mentary on the Divine Comedy, says that Siger was " Sigebert, a 
 monk of the Abbey of Gemblours. His chief work, the Chronica, 
 is intended to justify from liistory, the Ghibelline claims." 
 Whether this person is, or is not, the same as that unearthed by 
 M. le Clerc, the present writer cannot say.— TV'.)
 
 DOCUMENTS 
 
 In Elucidation of the History of Philosophy 
 in the Thirteenth Century. 
 
 I. Bull of Innocent IV. for the Revival of 
 Philosophical Studies.! 
 
 Gil 
 
 Jr NNOCENT, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all tli* 
 L prelates of tlie kingdoms of France, England, Scotland, 
 Wales, Spain, and Hungary, health and apostolic benediction. 
 
 A deplorable rumor is current, and passing from mouth to 
 nioulh has come to afflict our ears. It is said that the greater 
 number of aspirants to the priesthood, abandoning, nay, disdain- 
 ing philosophical studies, and consequently the lectures on the- 
 ology, frequent only schools where the civil law is explained. 
 It is added, and this it is that more especially calls down the 
 rigors of divine justice, that in many countries the bishops re- 
 serve the prebends, ecclesiastical honors and dignities, for those 
 who fill chairs of jurisprudence or who can lay claim to the title 
 of advocate; whereas these qualities, if not covered by others, 
 ought rather to be regarded as motives for exclusion. The 
 nurslings of philosophy, so tenderly gathered to her bosom, so 
 
 ' Duboulay, Histoire de V Univemiti de Paris, year 1254. 
 
 443
 
 444 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 assiduously nourished with her doctrines, so well fashioned by 
 her care to the duties of life, languish in a misery which al- 
 lows to them neither their daily bread nor the covering of tlieir 
 nakedness, and this obliges them to shun the eyes of men and 
 seek darkness, like birds of night. And meanwhile, our men 
 of the Church (become men of tlie Law), mounted on fine steeds, 
 clad in purple, covered witli precious stones, with gold, and widi 
 silk, their raiment reflecting the rays of the scandalized sun, 
 parade everywhere the spectacle of their pride, exhibiting in 
 their persons, not the vicars of Christ, but the heirs of Lucifer, 
 and thus provoking the anger of the people, not only against 
 themselves, but also against the sacred authority of which tliey 
 are the unworthy representatives ... Sara is then a slave, .and 
 Agar has become mistress.' 
 
 We have desired to find a remedy for this uncustomary disor- 
 der. "We have wished to lead minds back to the teachings of 
 theology, the science of salvation ; or at least to philosophical 
 studies, which do not indeed yield the sweet emotions of piety, 
 but in which are to be found the first glimmerings ' of eternal 
 truth, whereby also tbe soul is freed from the wretched preoccu- 
 pations of cupidity, root of all evils and like unto the worship of 
 
 ' This eloquent Invective calls to mind, and perhaps excuses, the severe 
 words of Dante in regard to the abuses and scandals of his day.
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 445 
 
 idols. Wherefore, we decide by these presents that henceforth 
 no professor of jurispnidenee, no lawyer, whatever may be the 
 rank or the renown enjoyed by him in the faculty of the law, 
 can lay claim to prebends, to ecclesiastical honors and dignities, 
 nor even to inferior benefices, if he has not given the requisite 
 proofs of capacity in the faculty of arts, and if he is not recom- 
 mended by the innocence of his life and the purity of his mor- 
 als .. . In case that any prelates through blameworthy presump- 
 tion, shonld allow themselves in any way to contravene this sal- 
 utary order, by the fact itself, and with full right, they shall be 
 deprived for that time of the power of conferring the vacant 
 benefice ; a repetition of the offence may be punished with the 
 spiritual divorce, which we shall pronounce against the prevari- 
 cator by depriving him of his prelature. 
 
 Given at Rome, in the year of the Incarnation 1254. 
 
 II. General Classification of Human Knowledge.- St. 
 Bonaventura, " de Reductioneartiutnad Theologiam." i 
 " Every best gift, and every perfect gift, Is from above, coming down 
 from the Fattier of lights." 
 
 Thus speaks the Apostle, St. James ; and these words, which 
 point out the source of all intellectual illumination, enable us to 
 
 ' The fragment we are about to give is also found in the Precis cfhis- 
 toire de la Philosophic, issued by the Directors of Juilly. But the limits 
 of their work necessitated numerous omissions, and we have endeavored 
 to furnish a more complete translation. The encyclopedic efforts of St.
 
 446 Dante, aiid Catholic Philosophy 
 
 foresee that the light emanating from so fruitful a source must 
 be multiple. For, admitting that every illumination is accom- 
 plished in us in the same manner, that is, by the internal percep- 
 tion of the true, we nevertheless can distinguish an exterior light 
 which illumines the mechanical arts ; an inferior light which is 
 reflected in the knowledge acquired by the senses; an interior 
 light, that of philosophic thouglit ; and a superior light, that of 
 Grace and of the Holy Scriptures. The first enables us to grasp 
 artificial forms ; the second, to apprehend the natural forms of 
 matter; the third reveals to us intelligible truths; the fourth, 
 the truths pertaining to salvation. 
 
 1. The light of the mechanic arts illumines the artificial opera- 
 tions by which we, in some sort, go out from ourselves to satisfy 
 the exigencies of the body ; and as these are servile labors, de- 
 rogatory, foreign to the speculative functions of thought, thb 
 light proper to them may be called exterior. It is divided into 
 seven rays, which correspond to the seven arts recognized by 
 Hugh of St. Victor, namely : weaving, working in wood, stone, 
 and metals, agriculture, hunting, navigation, theatrics^ and med- 
 icine. The correctness of this classification may be demonstrated 
 
 Bonaventura, preceded by those of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, and 
 Imitated *^v Vincent of Beauvais, Brunette, etc., attest the breadth of thise 
 minds so greatly calumniated : they anticipated Bacon of Verulam by 
 more than three centuries.
 
 /;/ tlic Thirteenth Century. 447 
 
 as follows: All the mechanical arts have for purpose either the 
 Solace of our ills, which ma}- be [irocurcd b}' excluding sadness 
 or want ; or llie niulliplicuiion of our ijuods^ thai is, of all that 
 can serve or please us, according to these lines from Horace: 
 
 Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poeta? . . . 
 Omne tulit punetum gui miscuit utile dulcl . . . 
 
 The solace and the pleasing of the mind form the object of 
 theatrics; it may be defined, " tiie art of play." It comprises 
 all exercises capable of furnishing recreation : singing, instru- 
 mental music, dramatic fictions, and gesticulation. The goods 
 which serve to satisfy the material wants of men exact different 
 kinds of labor, according as the requirement is to cover, to feed 
 them, or to complete these two good things by accessory means. 
 If our object be to cover or to shelter ourselves, we may use pli- 
 able and light materials, and the management of such pertains to 
 Weaving; or again we may require durable and solid materials, 
 and this will be the art of those who work in metal, in stone, or 
 in wood. If we seek to procure food, there are also two ways of 
 providing it: nourishment may be obtained either from vegetables 
 or from animals ; the first belong to the domain of Agriculture, 
 the second pertain to the Chase. Moreover, it may be said that 
 Agriculture is mainly restricted to the production of alimentary 
 stibstances, .and that the functions of the Chase extend to every 
 sort of preparation which these substances may undergo, not ex-
 
 448 Dante, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 cepting the care of the oven, the kitclien, and the cellar. Here 
 one of the parts of the art gives its name to the other portions, 
 iu virtue of its pre-eminence over all, and its relations with each 
 one. And finalh', if we turn our attention to the accessory 
 means that are required to ensure and to prolong the well-being 
 thus brought about, we may see that it is needful sometimes to 
 supply a deficiency of resources, and sometimes to turn aside the 
 danger of hindrances. The first of these functions is that of 
 Navigation, under which we may include the divers species of 
 Commerce, all destined to furnish food and clothing. The other 
 pertains to Medicine, whether it have for its special end the 
 preparation and administering of electuaries, balsams, and potions, 
 or devote itself to the treatment of wounds, taking the name of 
 Surgery. We have then reason to conclude that the classification 
 of the seven arts is legitimate. 
 
 2. The light of the senses permits us to apprehend the natural 
 forms of matter;- we call it inferior, because the knowledge ac- 
 quired through the senses comes from below, and is obtained only 
 under favor of corporeal light. Now, it is susceptible of five dif- 
 ferent modifications, corresponding to the division of the five 
 senses ; the five senses in turn form a complete system ; this 
 may be proved V)y the following argument, borrowed from St. 
 Augustine. The elemental light which enables us to distinguish 
 visible things may remain in all the purity of its essence, and
 
 hi the Thirtee7ith Ce^itiiry. 449 
 
 then it is the principle of siglit ; when it unites with the air, it 
 becomes the principle of hearing ; laden with vapors, it is the 
 cause of smell; impregnated with moisture, taste results; it en- 
 ters into combination with the element of earth, and thence pro- 
 ceeds touch. For the sensitive spirit is also of a luminous nature; 
 it dwells in the nerves, of which the texture is transparent : it is 
 thickened in the organs of the senses, where by degrees it loses 
 its native limpidity. As then simple bodies are five in number, 
 that is to say, the four elements, and the fifth essence, man has 
 been provided with the five senses which are related to them, 
 that it may be possible for him to perceive all the forms of bodies. 
 In fact, there can be no perception unless there be a correlation, 
 a concurrence between the organ and the object, to call forth tlie 
 sensation proper to them.' Other proofs exist whence we may 
 also conclude that the five senses constitute a complete system ; 
 but those that we have just adduced unite in their favor the au- 
 thority of St. Augustine and the sufiErage of reason ; they exhibit 
 the whole perfection of human sensibility, by showing the exact 
 correspondence of the divers conditions on which it depends, 
 namely : the orjan, the object, and the medium \>y which these 
 arc placed in communication. 
 
 3. The light of philosophic thought leads us to the discovery of 
 
 * These ideas, beneath their antique form, offer singular analogies with 
 sundry bold guesses of modern science.
 
 450 Dante, a /id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 intelligible truths ; it is called interior, because it is devoted to 
 the search for hidden things, and, inoreu\cr, results from the gen- 
 eral principles and primary notions which nature has placed 
 within the human mind. This light is distributed between li.e 
 three divisions of philosophy, which are: rational philoso])iiy. 
 natural philosophy, and moral philosoph}-. The correctness of 
 this tri-partition may be demonstrated in several ways. Firstly, 
 truth may be considered either in discourse, in things, or in mor- 
 als. Now, the kind of study called by us rational^ seeks to main- 
 tain truth in discourse ; that called nalural, endeavors to la}" hold 
 on the truth in things ; moral philosophj-, or ethics, applies itself 
 to the task of making truth reign in behavior. Secondly, as the 
 Divinity may be successively contemplated as the efficient, the 
 formal, and the exemplar cause, that is, as the principle of being, 
 the reason of the mode of being, the type and rule of action : so, 
 to the interior illumination of thought, arc revealed the origins of 
 all existences, Und this is the object of Physics; the economy of 
 the human mind, and this is tlie object of Logic; 'the conduct of 
 life, and this is the object of Ethics. Finally, the light of philos- 
 ophy enlightens the understanding in its three functions: in so 
 nuich as it governs the will, and this is the philosophy of duty ; 
 in so nuich as it directs its own self and takes note of that which 
 is without, and this is the philosophy of nature; in so nnich as it 
 makes words serve its purposes, and then it may be called the
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 451 
 
 philosophy of language : so th;it man possesses truth under the 
 triple form of practical a{)i)Iicalion, formulated science, and trans- 
 missible instruction. The services of words may be employed in 
 three ways: in making known conceptions, in determining con- 
 victions, and in arousing passions; consequently, the philosophy 
 of language is divided into three parts : grammar, logic, and rhet- 
 oric : the first of these proposes to express, the second to prove, 
 and the third to move. The first considers reason as the appre- 
 hensive faculty ; the second, as the judicial power; the third, as 
 the motive force ; for the three arts relating to the use of words 
 are necessarily related to these three offices of reason, which ap- 
 prehends through the intermediation of correct speech, which 
 judges by the help of exact speech, and which thrills under the 
 charm of ornate speech. If the understanding turns to the 
 things of the outer world, it is always that it may explain them 
 by reducing them to the formal reasons which make them what 
 they are.' Now the formal reasons of things may be considered 
 either in matter, when we call them seminal : or in the abstract 
 ideas of the human mind, when we call them intelligible or in 
 the Divine Wisdom, when we call them ideal. This is wliy the 
 philosophy of nature is divided into three branches: Physics, 
 
 ' Translate /ormal reasons by essential laws, seminal hy pht/sicaU 
 chemical, and physiological, and we find the sarae abstract ideas under a 
 different terminology.
 
 452 Dante, and Catliolic Philosophy 
 
 properly so called, Mathematics, and Metaphysics. Physics ex- 
 amines into the generation and corruption of beings, according to 
 the natural forces and seminal reasons existing in them. Mallie- 
 matica considers forms which are capable of being abstracted ; it 
 combines them among themselves according to intelligible rea- 
 sons. Metaphysics, embracing all things, reduces them (following 
 tlie order of ideal reasons) to the one principle from which they 
 have proceeded, namely, C4od, who is Cause, End, and universal 
 Type. It matters little that these ideal reasons have been a sub- 
 ject of controversy among metaphysicians. Finally, the govern- 
 ment of the will may be restricted within the conditions of the 
 life of the individual, it may be developed within the circle of the 
 family, or extended over the entire multitude of a people to be 
 ruled. Consequently, moral philosophy may be subdivided into 
 three parts : Monastics, Economics, and Politics. Tlie names of 
 these divisions suffice to indicate the three distinct domains that 
 form their several appanages. 
 
 4. The light of the Holy Scriptures initiates us into the truths 
 pertaining to salvation : if we call that light superior, it is be- 
 cause it lifts us to the knowledge of tilings beyond our natural 
 reach; and also because it descends from the Father of lights by 
 the way of immediate inspiration, and notify the way of reflection. 
 But, even if the light of tlic Scriptures be one from the literal 
 point of view, it is nevertheless tripk from tliu mystical and spir-
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 453 
 
 itiuil point of view. For, all the sacred books contain, in addi- 
 tion to the literal sense represented bj' the words, a threefold 
 spiritual sense revealed under the letter, to wit : — the allegorical 
 sense, wherein we discover what we must believe, whether of the 
 Divinity or of the Humanitj' ; the moral sense, whereby we learn 
 in what manner we muse live; and the anagogical sense, where- 
 by we recognize the laws according to which man may unite him- 
 self to God. Thus, all the teaching of the sacred writers relates 
 to these three points : the Eternal Generation and the Incarnation 
 of the Word, the rules by which to govern life, and the union of 
 the soul with God. The first point has to do with faith ; the 
 second, with virtue ; and the tliird with beatitude, which is the 
 end of both the others. The first is the subject of study for doc- 
 tors ; the second, for preachers ; and the third, for contenipla- 
 tives. The teaching of St. Augustine turns upon the first, that 
 of St. Gregory upon the second, and that of St. Dionysius upon 
 the last. St. Anselm followed St. Augustine ; St. Bernard wa.s 
 the disciple of St. Gregory ; Richard of St. Victor preferred St. 
 Dionysius : for Anselni gave himself to discussion, Bernard to 
 preaching, and Richard to contemplation. Hugh of St. Victor 
 embraced all three of these teachings at the same time, and thus 
 became the pupil of all the three masters. 
 
 From the foregoing we may conclude that the light which we 
 have regarded as coming from on high by four ways, may be con-
 
 454 Da7ite, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 sidered under a new aspect, as forming six diiferent irradiations. 
 We may, in fact, distinguish between the hght of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, that of the knowledge acquired by means of the senses, 
 and that of the mechanic arts ; the liglit of rational philosophy, 
 that of natural philosophy, and that of moral philosophy Tlius, 
 in this life, there are six appearances of the intellectual light, and 
 these are as so many days having their evenings, since every 
 science of this nether region will have an end ; and to them suc- 
 ceeds the seventh day, the day of rest that will have no end, that 
 is to say, the illumination of the soul in the glory of heaven. Thus, 
 the six transitory illuminations may be compared to the six days 
 of creation ; so that the knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures cor- 
 responds to the first creation, which was that of physical light ; 
 and so on for the others, in the order that has been indicated. 
 And, as the five successive creations were related to the first, so 
 is all knowledge co-ordinated to that of Holy Writ, is there summed 
 up and perfected, and thus advances to its end in the eternal il- 
 lumination. Hence, all human sciences ought to converge toward 
 the science contained in the Scriptures, especially when the latter 
 is interpreted in its highest sense ; for it is by this means that 
 our lights will return to God, from whom they descended to us. 
 Then the circle now begun will be closed, the sacred number will 
 be tilled up, and the divinely instituted order will be realized by 
 the completion of its harmonious proportions.
 
 In the Tliirtccnth Century. 455 
 
 III. God. 
 
 Existence and Attributes of God. — Unity of Essence, 
 Trinity of Persons. — St. Bonaventura, " Itinerarium 
 Mentis ad Deum," c. v. and vii. 
 
 God manifests Himself in three ways : outside of us, by the 
 marks which His creative action has left in tlie world; within 
 us. by His image, which is reflected in the depths of human na. 
 ture; above us, by the light with which Heillumines the superior 
 region of the soul. Those who contemplate Him in the first of 
 these manifestations, stop in the vestibule of the tabernacle ; 
 those who rise to the second have entered into the sanctuary ; 
 and those who reach the third liave penetrated into the Holy of 
 Holies, where rests the ark of the covenant, shadowed by the 
 wings of two cherubim. And the two cherubim in turn figure 
 the two points of view whence the invisible mysteries of the 
 Divinity may be contemplated, namely, the unity of essence and 
 tlio plurality of persons: the first susceptible of being concluded 
 from the very idea of Being ; and the last, from the very idea of 
 Good. ^ 
 
 ' This is the way In which the holy doctor, in chapters II. and IV. of the 
 same treatise, sums up the principal traits by which God makes Himself 
 known, whether in nature or in humanity : " Material things, considered 
 in general, are subject to three conditions, weight, number, and measure :
 
 456 Da?ite, and Catholic PJiilosophy 
 
 And first, in considering the unity of essence, we must lake 
 note that the idea of Being bears with it the incontestable certi. 
 tude of its own reahty. For Being excludes the presence of not- 
 heing, as nothingness implies the absolute lack of existence. And 
 as nothingness in no sense partakes of existence nor of its con- 
 ditions, so Being cannot have anything in common witli not-being, 
 either actually or potentially, either in the order of objective 
 truths or in the arbitrary order of our judgments : it is impossible 
 to suppose that Being is not. Now nothingness, which implies 
 the negation of existence, can only be conceived by means of ex- 
 istence ; and this latter, on the contrary, cannot be conceived 
 otherwise than by means of itself. In fact, everything is con- 
 ceived, either as not being, or as being possible or actual. If 
 then not-being can only be conceived through Being, and Being 
 
 they exhibit themselves under the threefold aspect of mode, kind, and 
 order. In them. Anally, we discover substance, force, and action, whence 
 we may ascend as by trustworthy fuotprints to creative Power, Wisdom, 
 and Goodness. . . . 
 
 " Enter into your own interior, and see how your soul cannot refrain 
 from loving itself with extreme ardor. And yet it would not love itself 
 if it did not know itself ; it could not know itself if it had no memory of 
 itself ; for the Intellect grasps only ideas represented by the memory. . . . 
 There are then In your soul three powers wherein you may behold reflect- 
 ed as in a mirror, the image of the Divinity."
 
 In tJic TJiirteentJi Century. 457 
 
 in potentiality only through Being in act, Being in act is tlie first 
 idea which enters tlie mind. But the object of tliis first idea is 
 not particular Being, which is limited in its development, and 
 which in this respect remains in a state of potentiality ; neither 
 is it abstract general Being, which has no veritable realitj' : it 
 must then be the Divine Being. Here we may pause to wonder at 
 the blindness of the intellect, which fails to perceive the Absolute 
 Being, even when it knows Him before all other things, and with- 
 out Him could have known none of them : like to the eye, which, 
 agreeabh^ taken by the shades of colors, seems not to see the 
 light by wliich it has been enabled to discern them. . . . 
 
 If, then, Absolute Being can be perceiTed only by means of it- 
 self, it does not emanate from any other. It is the first of all. 
 If it excludes nothingness, touching upon tt in no point, it has 
 neither beginning nor end ; it is eternal. If it includes within it- 
 self no other element than Being, it is without composition, that 
 is to say, entirelj' simple. It has not the character of inert power, 
 because inert power in a certain manner partakes of nothingness: 
 it is then always in action. It admits of no defect, and con- 
 sequently supposes supreme perfection. And as it contains no 
 principle of divisibility, we can say that it is absolutely one. 
 Thus, the Absolute Being is at once the first of all, eternal, 
 entirely simple, always in action, supremely perfect, and of in- 
 divisible unity. And these divers attributes are so certain that
 
 458 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 we cannot even suppose privation of them, and. moreover, each 
 one of them is necessarily bound to tliose which precede and those 
 which follow ; so that tlie intelligence, when contemplating them, 
 feels as though environed by light from heaven. But now comes 
 that which is to complete its amazement and fairly ravish it. 
 This is, that the Absolute Being appears to it as also the last of 
 all, as supremely present, as infinite, immutable, immense, uni- 
 versal. It is the last because it is the first : for the first of Be- 
 ings must necessarily have created for Himself all the others ; 
 He has become their end, as He was their beginning ; Alpha be- 
 comes Omega. He never ceases to be present, because He is 
 eternal. In fact, the Eternal cannot be enclosed within the 
 limits of time; He cannot occupy successively the divers intervals 
 of duration : for Him then there is neither past nor future, but a 
 continual present. He is infinite because He is simple. In fact, 
 where the essence is most simple, there also is the force the most 
 intense ; and the more intense the force, the more does its energy 
 approach the infinite. He is immutable, because He is always in 
 action : Being in action is nothing other than Pure or Absolute 
 Act ; now. Absolute Act can acquire nothing new. can lose noth- 
 ing of tliat which is in it: consequently it can undergo no change, 
 it is immutable. He is mnncnsc, because He is perfect; if He is 
 perfect, we can conceive nothing in wliich He does not excel ; 
 excellency in magnitude is what we name immensity. He is uui-
 
 In the TJiirtccJitJi Century. 459 
 
 versal because He is one : for Unity is llie primal element of ail 
 multiplicity. Such Unity is the cause, efficient, exemplar, final, of 
 all things : the Being of whom we speak is then universal, not as 
 the essence of all that exists, but as the principle, the sufficient 
 reason, the beneficent author of all essences. 
 
 It is time to pass on to the second consideration, the trinity of 
 persons, which must be concluded from the very idea of good, 
 The Absolute Being is infinitely good, since He is perfect, and 
 hence nothing could be better. And, reciprocally, we cannot sup- 
 pose that the infinitely good Being does not exist, since it is bet- 
 ter to exist than not to exist. Now, wc cannot contemplate Him 
 in the plenitude of His existence without coming to perceive that 
 He is triune as He is one. The Supreme Good must in fact be su- 
 premely communicative. But there could be on His part no su- 
 preme communication if He did not commimicatc His entire sub- 
 stance to Him into whom He flows over. The comnuuiication 
 must be substantial and personal, actual and interior, natural and 
 voluntary, free and necessary, incessant and complete. Such, 
 however, is not that wlu'ch is accomplished in creation: for it is 
 enclosed in time and in space, which are no more than a point in 
 presence of the illimitable and ever-diu'ing Goodness. There 
 must then be from all eternity, in the very bosom of the Sovereign 
 Good, a production, consubstantial, as is that operated b)' way of 
 generation and procession : whence results the equality of the
 
 460 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 persons produced. The Eternal Principle, eternally acting, be- 
 gets a Principle equal to Himself, and from these Two proceeds a 
 Third ; and these Three are the Father, the Son. and the Holy 
 Spirit. This is necessary to the realization of that entire pouring 
 forth of Himself, an essential perfection without which the 
 Sovereign Good would not exist. Thus, in the contemplation 
 of the Supreme Goodness, which is endless Act, the limitless ex- 
 pansion of a love at once voluntary and necessary — in the very 
 idea of that Good essentially communicative, are found the prem- 
 ises whence we n:ay elicit the dogma of the Trinity.' 
 
 IV. Man. 
 
 I. Nature of the Soul. — St. Bonaventura, 
 " Breviloquium.'" 
 
 The teachuig of theology in this regard may be summed up 
 in a few words. The soul of man is a form, existing, living, in- 
 
 ' la this fragment, which is not given as a demonfitration, but as a justi- 
 flcatiMi of the Christian dogma, the holy doctor sums up, but without de- 
 veloping them, the proofs scattered through the writings of the Fathers. 
 W<! must not then be surprised that he does not show why the divine 
 communication stops with the Holy Spirit. Theologians adduce several 
 reasons for this, one of which is, that Power, Intelligence, and Love, con- 
 stitute in their triplicity the entire essence of spirits : so that nothing can 
 be added to them, as nothing can be taken away.
 
 /// the Thirteentli Century. 461 
 
 tclligeiit, and free. Existing, not by itself, nor as an emanation 
 from the infinite essence, but by the divine operation, which from 
 nothingness made it pass into being ; — Living, not with a mortal 
 life borrowed from the exterior world, but with a life proper to 
 itself and havuig no end ; — Intelligent, for it conceives created 
 things, and the Creator Himself, wliose image it bears; — Free, 
 that is, exempt from constraint in the exercise of its reason and 
 its will. ... 
 
 "We come now to the philosophical development of these dog- 
 raaa. The First Principle, who is sovereignly happy and good, 
 desires through His goodness to communicate His happiness to 
 all creatures ; not to those alone whom He has made spiritual and 
 nearest to Himself, but also to those that are sunk in the lowest 
 depths of matter. Now, He acts upon these lower creatures by 
 means of intermediaries which connect them with the higher : 
 He has laid down for Himself this general order of things. He 
 has then rendered capable of liappiness, not onh' the pure spirits 
 forming the angelic chou'S, but likewise spirit united to matter, 
 that is to say, the soul of man. And, as the possession of happi- 
 ness is glorious only \vhcn it comes as a recompense, since rec- 
 ompense presupposes mci'it, and as merit could not exist with- 
 out liberty of action, there Jias been given to the soul a liberty 
 which no constraint can destroy. In fact, the will cannot be 
 violated by aggressions from without, although by reason of the
 
 462 Dante, nnd Catholic PhilosopJiy 
 
 Fall it has become weak and prone to sin. If the soul is capable 
 of felicity, it is capable of possessing God. Tlie soul must lay 
 hold on Him by the faculties at its disposal, and first by the in- 
 tellect, which, after having conceived the infinite, will readily 
 cninjirehend finite things. It is characteristic of true felicity 
 that it cannot be lost : conscquentl}', it can be bestowed onls' 
 upon incorruptible natures. That which is liappy is immortal : 
 tiie soul must then live an endless life. Finally, since it derives 
 its felicity from a cause external to itself, and yet is immortal, it 
 is dependent and variable in its mode of being, while remaining 
 incorruptible in its being. It follows that it exists neither by 
 itself, nor as an emanation from the divine essence, for then it 
 would be unchangeable ; nor by the action of the secondary 
 causes of the exterior world, for then it would be corruptible. 
 It is, then, through the creative operation that it has received 
 existence. . . . Thus felicity, considered as the supreme end of 
 the soul, requires in it tlie combination of all the attributes com- 
 prised in the definition proposed above. To still farther explain 
 tli(! first term, which may perhaps appear obscure, we must say 
 that the soul endowed with immortality may be separated from 
 the perishable body which it inhabits; that if it is called a form, 
 it is by no means an abstract conception, taut a distinct reality ; 
 and that it is united to tlic body not merely as the essence to the 
 substance, but as the motor to the thing moved.
 
 In the TJiirteeiitJi Century 463 
 
 II. Of the Faculties of the Soul in General. — St. Bona- 
 ventura, Ibidem. 
 
 The soul, in its union witli tlio body, constitutes the whole 
 man : it makes him exist; it also makes liim live, feel, and under- 
 stand. We may consequently recognize in it a threefold power, 
 vegetative, sensitive, intellectual. By its vegetative power, it 
 presides over generation, nutrition, and growth. By its sensi- 
 tive power, it grasps that which is sensible, retains that which it 
 has grasped, combines what it has retained. It grasps by means 
 of tlic live exterior senses, which correspond to the five elements 
 of the material world; it retains by means of the memory; it 
 combines and divides by means of the imagination, in which is 
 found the power of combining impressions received. By its in- 
 tellectual power, it discerns the true, repels the evil, and tends to 
 the good. It discerns the true by the rational instinct; it repels 
 evil bv the irascible instinct; it tends to the good by the con- 
 cupisciblo instinct. 
 
 But discernment supposes knowledge; aversion and appetite 
 are affections : the soul will then be by turns knowing and affective. 
 Now the true may 1)0 considered from two points of view, either 
 as true or as good. The true and the good are eternal or transi- 
 tory : hence the faoilty of knowing, which we name intellect or 
 reason, may be subdivided into speculative and practical intellect, 
 into inferior and superior reason. These names indicate rather
 
 464 Dante, a?id Catholic Philosophy 
 
 different functions than distinct powers. The affections may be 
 inchned in the same direction in two different manners : by a nat- 
 ural movement, or by a dehberate choice. This is why tlie fac- 
 ulty of willing is divided into natural will and a will of clioice. 
 And, as free choice results from a deliberation in wliich discern- 
 ment is exercised, it follows that free will is the common work of 
 the reason and the will ; so that it unites in itself all the intel- 
 lectual forces of man. St. Augustine has said the same : " When 
 we speak of free will, it is not a part of the soul which we so des- 
 ignate, but indeed the soul entire." 
 
 III. Memory, Intellect, and Will, Considered in Their 
 Especial Functions. — St. Bonaventura, " Itinerar- 
 ium Mentis ad Deum," cap. iii, 
 
 I. The office of memory is to retain, that when needed they 
 may be re-presented, not only ideas of actual, corporeal, perisli- 
 ablo things, but also those of things successive, simple, eternal. 
 To begin with, memory keeps for us the recollections of the past, 
 the conceptions of the present, and the previsions of the future. 
 Further, in it are found the most indecomposable ideas, such as 
 the elements of discrete and continuous quantities, unity, the 
 point, the moment, without which it would be impossible to call 
 to mind numbers, space, and duration, which are composed of 
 these. Finally, it preserves invariable tlic luivarying axioms of
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 465 
 
 the sciences: for these we cannot so far forget, except in case of 
 insanitj', that on hearing them propounded, we would not imme- 
 diately assent, as to truths recognized, familiar, and, so to speak, 
 natural. We experience this when asked to pronounce upon ^ 
 proposition such as: The whole of anything is greater than a 
 part of the same. Now, in the first place, as memory embraces 
 the past, the present, and the future, it bears the image of eter- 
 nit}', which contains all times in an indivisible present. In the 
 second place, since it contains indecomposable ideas, we must con- 
 clude that it is not modified solely by the material impressions re- 
 ceived from the exterior world ; but that it has within itself sim- 
 ple forms which have been impressed upon it, from on high, which 
 could not enter hx the gates of the senses, nor take on sensible 
 features. Thirdly, from its fidelity in retaining axioms, it results 
 that it is aided by a light which doe.s not waver, and which al- 
 ways makes it see unvarying truths under an unchanging aspect. . . . 
 II. The function of intellect is to comprehend isolated terms, 
 propositions, reasonings. The intellect comprehends the mean- 
 ing of terms when it knows their respective definitions.' Xow. the 
 definition of each term is to be made by another term more gen- 
 eral, which in turn will be defined by a third still more extended, 
 until we reach those terms which are the broadest of all, and 
 without which it would be impossible to define anything. Tlius, 
 if we were devoid of the general idea of Being, we could not grasp
 
 466 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 the definition of any particular being. . . . But Being may be con- 
 ceived as defective or perfect, relative or absolute, in potentiality 
 or in act, transitory or permanent, dependent or free, secondary 
 or primal, simple or compound. . . . And, as defects are negative 
 terms perceivable only by help of the corresponding positive 
 terms, the intellect could not analyze the idea of any created being, 
 defective, relative, compound, transitorj-, unless it had the idea of 
 a being, complete, absolute, simple, eternal, in whom are con- 
 tained the reasons of things. . . . The intellect comprehends prop- 
 ositions, then, especiaOy when if recognizes them as certainly 
 true, that is, when it knows that it cannot err in adhering to 
 them. This infallibility supposes that the truth cannot be other- 
 where, that truth does not change place, that it is immovable. But 
 the intellect, itself subject to change, cannot be assured of this 
 perfect immutability except by the aid of an unalterable light 
 which beams forth unceasingly, and which cannot 1)0 a mere 
 creature ; which consequently must be that light which enhghlens 
 every man coming into this world, the Divine "Word. Finally, 
 the intellect is sure that it comprehends a reasoning, when it sees 
 the conclusion result necessarily from the premises. Now the 
 necessity of the conclusion remains the same, whether the prem- 
 ises rest upon facts necessary or contingent, real or merely pos- 
 sible. " If the man runs, he moves." The consequence does not 
 cease to be true, even if the man does not run, or if indeed he no
 
 Iti the Tlm'teentk Century. 467 
 
 longer exists. Thus logical necessity does not depend upon the 
 real and material existence of tilings in nature ; neither does it 
 depend upon their imaginary existence in human thought : but it 
 requires their ideal existence in the eternal exemplars according to 
 which tlie Divine Artist lalmrs, and whicli are reflected in all His 
 works. Thus, as St. Augustine says, tlie torch which illumines 
 our reasonings is kindled at tlio focus of infinite trutli. whereto 
 its light leads us back. Il follows that the intellect is in relation 
 with infinite truth ; for. without the assistance received from 
 that truth, it could obtain no certitude. Hence we are able to 
 find the truth which teaches us, if concupiscences from within, 
 and appearances from without, do not interpose themselves be- 
 tween onr gaze and the August Master, always present in tlie 
 depths of our souls. 
 
 III. The will in its free action passes successively through 
 three stages, which are : deliberation, judgment, and desire. 
 Deliberation has for its end. to examine which of two objects 
 is the better. But, of two objects, one can be called the better, 
 only by reason of a greater resemblance to a third which is per- 
 fectl}' good : moreover, resemblance is appreciated by comparison, 
 which in turn supposes some knowledge of the objects com- 
 pared. . . . Hence the will which is deliberating, takes as its start- 
 ing point an innate idea of perfect Goodness. Judgment can be 
 pronounced only in accordance with a law. But one cannot conti-
 
 468 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 dently judge according to the text of a law. if one is not al- 
 ready sure of the justice of its provisions: otherwise, it would be 
 necessar}' to suspend judgment, and first judge the law itself. 
 Now, the soul is its own judge. Hence ihe law according to 
 whicli it must judge, and which is not to he judged hy it, — that 
 law which is in it. is yet distinct from it, and comes to it from on 
 high. And as nothing is higher than the soul, if not He whose 
 work the soul is, we may conclude that the will, in the moment 
 of judging, takes as its 'point crappui the Divine Law. Finally, 
 desire is proportioned to the attraction exercised by the thing de- 
 sired. Of all things, that which exerts tlie most lively attraction is 
 felicity ; and felicity can be acquired only by the accomphshnient 
 of our last end, that is, b}' the possession of the Sovereign Good. 
 Desire, then, tends necessarily toward the Sovereign Good, or at 
 least toward whatever is related to it by some analogy, toward 
 whatever m some features represents it. 
 
 IV. Mutual Relations of the Physical and the Moral. — 
 " Compendium Theologicae Veritatis," lib. II., cap. 
 
 Iviii., liv.' 
 The disposition of the parts, tlie sum total of which constitutes 
 
 ' This work has had the honor of being attributed in turn to the niOh.t 
 illustrious doctois of the School : Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 Thomas Sutton, Hugh of Strasburg (see the Histoirc Littn-nire de la 
 France, t. Xix.). The opinion which holds St. Bonaventura to be its au- 
 thor is founded : 1st, on the analogy between the ideas and expressions 
 of the Compendium and those of the lincihKiuium ; 2d, on the testimony 
 of two old manuscripts in the Vatican Library.
 
 /;/ the TJiirieenth CcntJoy. 469 
 
 the human body, presents numerous variations, wliich, skilfully 
 interpreted, seem to correspond to tlie divers dispositions of the 
 soul. . . . Our masters in this art of interpretation are Aristotle, 
 Avicenna, Constanline, Palemon, Loxus, Palemotius. We shall 
 follow in their tracks. 
 
 To begin with the complexions, we must perceive that melan- 
 choly complexions bear the impress of sadness and gravity ; the 
 contrary qualities pertain to the sanguine ; the bilious show 
 themselves inclined to anger ; the phlegmatic, to sleepiness and 
 sloth. Sex does not fail to exercise a powerful influence : men 
 are impetuous in their movements, friendly to intellectual labors, 
 and steadfast in presence of danger. Women are timid and 
 compassionate. 
 
 The bigness of the head, when disproportioned, is ordinarily 
 an indication of stupidity : its extreme smallness betrays want 
 of judgment and of memory. A flat head, depressed on the top, 
 bespeaks a lack of self-restraint in mind and heart; elongated 
 and shaped like a hammer, it has all the marks of foresight and 
 circumspection. A narrow forehead bespeaks an indocile intelli- 
 gence and bestial appetites ; too broad, it would indicate but a 
 small share of discernment. ... If it is square and of good pro- 
 portions, it is stamped with the seal of wisdom, perhaps of gen- 
 ius. 
 
 Eyes blue and bright express boldness and vigilance : those
 
 470 Da7itc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 which seem dull and wavering disclose the habit of strong drink 
 and gross pleasures. Those which are. black, without admixture 
 of anj' other shade, point to a weak and ungenerous nature. . . . 
 Such as are small, red, and protruding, ordinarily accompany' a 
 body without address and an unbridled tongue. But when the 
 glance is piercing, although veiled by a slight humidity, it an- 
 nounces veracity in speech, prudence in counsel, promptitude in 
 action. ... A well-cut mouth, closed by thin lips, the upper 
 slightly projecting beyond the lower, expresses noble and cour- 
 ageous sentiments. A small mouth, with thin edges pressed to- 
 gether to restrain their movement, manifests cunning, the habit- 
 ual resource of weakness. Half-open and hanging lips are a 
 sj'inptom of inertia and incapacity. Tliis observation may be re- 
 peated upon the examination of various animals. 
 
 Short and delicate liands betoken energy and skill. Long, 
 hooked fingers denote intemperance at taljle and in words. . . . 
 Men who walk with long strides are almost always endowed with 
 a lofty character and indefatigable activity. Those whom we 
 see hurrying their stops, bent forward and carrying their heads 
 low, wear the certain appearances of avarice, wiliness, and timid- 
 ity. 
 
 In general, when all the parts of the body keep tlioir natural 
 proportions, and there reigns among tlicni a iiorfect harmony 
 of shape, size, color, position, and movement, it is allowable to
 
 In the Tliirtcoith Cejitiiry. 471 
 
 presume a no less liappj' disposition of the moral faculties; and 
 reciprocally, the disproportion of the members readily permits us 
 to suspect a similar disorder in the intellect and the will. We 
 might even say with Plato, that our features often wear a resem- 
 blance to some animal whose ways are reproduced in our con- 
 duct. . . . But we must above all remember that these external 
 forms do not set the mark of necessity upon the internal characters 
 corresponding to them ; it is not in their power to destroy the 
 liberty of the soul of which they indicate the tendencies. More- 
 over, the value of these indications is only conjectural, and some- 
 times uncertain, so that in this matter there would be temerity 
 in making a precipitate judgment. For the indication may be 
 found to be the result of accident ; and, even if it be the work 
 of nature, the inclination which it represents may yield to the 
 ascendency of a contrary habit, or may correct itself under the 
 moderating restraint of reason. 
 
 V. Society. 
 
 I. Philosophy of the Law.— St. Thomas of Aquin. 
 Summa, i» 2=^, qq. xc.-cxvii. "de Legibus. " ' 
 
 1. Laws Considered in Their Essence. — Qu^st. 90. 
 
 Four questions are proposed: 1. Whether La\y is a depen- 
 
 • Only by mutilating it, have we been enabled here to insert this treat- 
 ise Ac Legilms, which in its entirety forms perhaps the finest system of
 
 472 Dajttc, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 dency of reason ? — 2. What is the end of Law? — 3. What is its 
 origin? — 4. What ought to be its promulgation? 
 
 1. Law is a rule, a measure set to our actions ; it is a motive 
 which induces us to act, or which deters us from acting. In 
 fact, it is called Law {Lex, ligare) because it binds, obliging us 
 to a determination which it renders necessary. Now, the rule 
 and measure of human actions is reason, which is also their 
 first principle, since it belongs to reason to direct the effort 
 toward the end in view ; and the consideration of the end to be 
 attained is precisely, as Aristotle tells us, the first principle of ac- 
 tion. But, in every order of things, that which is principle is 
 also rule and measure : thus unity measures numbers; and thus 
 the motion of the heavens rules the motion of this nether world. 
 We may then conclude that Law is a dependency of reason. 
 
 2. As reason is the principle of human actions, so again in 
 reason itself should there be found an idea which will in its turn 
 be the principle of our other ideas, and on which the Law will, 
 in a more absolute manner, depend. Now, the idea which pre- 
 sides over all our operations, which governs and directs all the 
 decisions of practical life, is the idea of a last end. But the last 
 end of human existence is felicity or happiness. The Law must 
 
 the philosoiihy of Law ever traced by a Christian hand. The omissions 
 will be scrupulously indicated ; they at least invite the reader to recur to 
 the unabridged text.
 
 Ill the TJiirtceiith Century. 473 
 
 then tend to realize the conditions of happiness. Again, if tlie 
 imperfect is to be subordinated to the perfect, and the part to the 
 whole ; if the isolated man is only a part of society, society being 
 the perfect whoie, the proper task of ilio Law will be to realize 
 the conditions of the common felicit}-. And it is precisely in 
 this sense that Aristotle, in the fifth book of his ethics, proclaims 
 just and commendable all institutions which produce or preserve 
 happiness amid political relations. . . . Consequently, the gen- 
 era' good is tiie supreme end to which all laws are necessarily co- 
 ordinated. 
 
 .'5. But, while recognizing that the destination of the Law is to 
 procure the general good, we must also admit that the care of in- 
 suring this destination belongs to the man}', or to liim who holds 
 the place of the many. The laws will thus be the work of the 
 whole people, or of the public person charged with the interests 
 of the people, for always and everywhere the charge of dispos- 
 ing all things with a view to accomplishing the general end, falls 
 upon the one who is therein especially, immediately, and entirely 
 interested. 
 
 4. As has been said, the Law is imposed by wa)' of a rule and 
 a measure : now, rule and measure are laid down bj applying 
 them to the objects which are to be subjected to them. Hence, 
 to obtain the obligatory force which characterizes it, the Law 
 must be applied to those whom it is to govern. But this appli-
 
 4/4 Da7itc, and CatJiolic P/iilosophy 
 
 cation, this first effort of the Law upon minds, is brought about 
 by making, it known to all by means of promulgation. It follows 
 that promulgation is necessary to give force to Law. Thus, from 
 the four preceding considerations, we may deduce a satisfactory 
 definition, and say finally : The Law is a rational ordinance, tend- 
 ing to the common good, emanating from him who is charged 
 with the interests of the communitj-, and promulgated by his 
 care. ' 
 
 2. On the Different Kinds of Laws. — Qu.kst. 92. 
 
 "We shall consider successively: L The Eternal Law: — 2. The 
 Natural Law ; — 3. Human Laws. 
 
 \. Law, as proved above, is the expression of the practical 
 reason in the thought of the sovereign who governs a complete 
 society. Now, supposing that the world is ruled by the counsels 
 of Providence, a proposition whose truth has elsewhere been 
 sufficiently established, it is evident that the Divine Reason 
 governs the great society of the universe. Consequently, the 
 economy of the government of things, such as it exists in God, 
 
 ' "Rationis ordinatio ad bonum commune abeoqui curam communi- 
 tatls babet promulgata." Ratii), Ordinatio, two weigUty words used lu 
 the language of the School to designate the Law, which words admirably 
 set forth its dual character. Intellectual aud moral. We have kept the 
 latter in our modern word ordinance ; the first has been preserved in the 
 Italian ragivne.
 
 In tlie ThirteentJi Century. 475 
 
 the Sovereign of the universe, lias truly the character of a law. 
 And, as the conceptions of tlie Divine Reason arc not subordi- 
 nated to the succession of lime, but enjoy an immutable eternity, 
 as is written in tlie Book oi Proverbs, it follows that this Law is 
 to be called Eternal. 
 
 2. If the Law is rule and measure, it can be viewed from the 
 standpoint of him who imposes it, or from the standpoint of 
 him wlio is subject to it ; for a thing cannot be ruled and measured, 
 without in some way partaking of the measure and rule. If. 
 then, all that is subject to Divine Providence is ruled and measured 
 by the eternal law, it is evident tliul all beings in some manner 
 participate in this su[)reme law ; that is to say, they receive from 
 its application a natural impulsion toward the acts which are 
 proper to tliem, toward the ends assigned them. But, among all 
 creatures, the rational creature is subjected to Providence in so 
 much the more excellent a fashion that it co-operates in the 
 work of Providence by providing for itself and for otliers. It, 
 then, is admitted to a more abundant participation in the eternal 
 reason, which impresses upon it a continual tendency toward its 
 true destiny; this participation of the rational creature in the 
 eternal law is called the Natural Law. 
 
 3. We have often repeated tliat the Law is the expression of 
 the practical reason : now the practical reason and the specula- 
 tive reason follow nearly the same path in tlieir developments.
 
 4/6 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 Both always descend from principles to conclusions. As, then, 
 the speculative reason has some indemonstrable principles natural- 
 ly known, and as it draws from them conclusions in the various 
 sciences of which the knowledge is not given by nature, but is 
 laboriously acquired by study ; so, likewise, the precepts of the 
 natural law are so many general principles, evident of themselves, 
 whence tlie practical reason is to evolve particular ordinances. 
 These ordinances, being the work of the human mind, are to be 
 called Human Laws, provided they unite in themselves the 
 characters of wliich the combination constitutes law. This is 
 why Cicero, in his work on Rhetoric, sets forth that Law had its 
 origin in nature; that later, certain observances determined by 
 reason were introduced into custom ; and that finall\'. the in- 
 stitutions founded on nature and tested by custom, were sanc- 
 tioned by the terror of the laws, and consecrated by religion. 
 3. Of the Eternal L.\w. — Qu^st. 93. 
 
 It is asked: 1st. What is the Eternal Law in itself? — 2d. 
 Whether all temporal laws must be derived from it? 
 
 1. As the artist bears in his intellect the plan of the works 
 which will issue from liis hands, so in the intellect of him who 
 governs, ought to be laid down in advance the order that he 
 will establish in regard to tlie people entrusted to his care. Tlie 
 preconceived plan of works of art is called rule or model the pre- 
 established order of the government of societv takes tlie name of
 
 /// the Tliirtccntli Century. 477 
 
 Law. . . . Now God, the Creator of all things, is to them what 
 the artist is to his works: :iioreover. He governs, and to some 
 extent directs tlieni in all their motions and all their acts. Hence, 
 the design of the Divine Wisdom, in so far as it has presided 
 over the formation of creatures, takes the name of model, of 
 t}-pe, or idea ; in so far as it determines the striving of beings 
 toward the accomplishment of their destiny, it takes the name 
 of law ; whence it follows that the Eternal Law is simpl}' the 
 order according to which the Divine Wisdom causes all the 
 forces of creation to move. 
 
 2. Law is order in movement ; now, in a series of co-ordinated 
 movements, the power of the second motor must be derived from 
 the power of the first, for the second motor enters on its func- 
 tions only inasmuch as it is itself moved. This is why in every 
 hierarchy the economy of the government is transmitted from 
 the sovereign power to tlie secondary powers ; and, as in works 
 of art, the idea to be realized descends from the artist who 
 directs the works to the workmen who execute them, so the or- 
 der to be followed in the relations of civil life descends from the 
 king to the inferior magistrates. If, then, the Eternal Law is 
 the economy of universal government in the thought of God, in 
 whom the supreme power resides, it is the source whence all 
 systems of government directed by subaltern powers, whence, 
 in one word, all human laws, must descend. And this, in fact, 
 is the doctrine of St. Augustine, in Book IL, de Lihcro Arbitn'o.
 
 478 Dante, and Catliolic Philosophy 
 
 4. Of the Natural Law. — Qu.est. 9-4. 
 
 It is asked: 1st. What are the precepts of the Natural Law? 
 — 2d. Whether this Law is one and llie same for all men? 
 
 \. The precepts of the Natural Law have for the practical rea- 
 son the same value that indemonstrable axioms have for the 
 speculative reason : this results from the foregoing observations. 
 ... The first indemonstrable axiom is this: That we cannot at 
 one and the same time afBrm and deny one and the same proposi- 
 tion. This axiom rests upon the notion of Being, the first pre- 
 sented to the mind. . . . But, as the notion of Being is the first 
 whicli presents itself to the speculative reason, so the notion of 
 Good is that which offers itself before all others to the practical 
 reason. . . . The first precept of tlie natural law is then this : That 
 we must procure good, and avoid evil. And there are as many 
 precepts in the law of nature as there are cases in which the 
 practical reason spontaneously recognizes the presence of good 
 and of evil. . . . But if it is the characteristic of good to be the 
 natural end of things, reason will recognize this character in ail 
 tiie objects toward which nature inclines us. ... The order of 
 these innate inclinations will then determine the order which ob- 
 tains among the precepts of the natural law. There is first in 
 man an elementary inclination, proceeding from that lower nature 
 which he has in common witli all creatures. All creatures tend 
 to self-preservation ; and consequently, tlie means necessary to
 
 hi the Thirteenth CeJitury. 479 
 
 preserve life and to keep deatli at a distance, enter williin the 
 domain uf llie natural law. In the second place, man is inclined 
 to more complicated actions, the distinctive attribute of that na- 
 ture which lie shares with the animals; and this is why we 
 comprise under the natural law the union of the sexes and the 
 education of children. . . . Thirdly, man feels himself called to 
 another kind of good, corresponding to the superior, intelligent, 
 rational nature, possessed by him distinctively. He feels the 
 need of knowing God, of living in society; and the natural law 
 provides for the satisfaction of these requirements, by stigmatiz- 
 ing voluntary ignorance, by recommending an innocent life, in 
 fine, by multiplying wise prescriptions which it would take us 
 too long here to enumerate. 
 
 2. The natural law sanctions all the primal inclinations of hu- 
 man nature ; but, among these the one that especially distin- 
 guishes and honors us, is the inclination which leads us to take 
 reason as the giiide of our actions. Now, it is the regular course 
 of reason to go from the general to the particular. However, 
 while the speculative reason, occupying itself with necessary 
 facts, infallibly encounters truth, both in the principles it lays 
 down and in the conclusions deduced, the practical reason is bus- 
 ied with human actions, which belong among contingent things; 
 and, although it still partakes of metaphysical necessity by its 
 general maxims, as soon as it descends to the applications, it there
 
 480 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 finds contingency. Tims, in speculation, the truth is always one 
 for ;i]l. even though it be not always equallj' well known. ... In 
 practice, justice, of which the general maxims are identical, un- 
 changeable, evident for all, may waver and become obscure in it.< 
 application of Iheni. Hence the natural law, if we stop at its 
 principles, is everywhere the same in itself and in the ideas we 
 form of it ; but if we consider the particular rules which it die 
 tates according to the diversity of circumstances, it may vary ; 
 it may vary first in itself, by yielding to new conditions whicli 
 modify its ordinary severity, then also in tlie ideas conceived of 
 it, according as the reason permits itself to be more or less dis- 
 turbed by the passions, by perverted habits, or by an untoward 
 disposition of the organs. It is easy to cite examples: the law 
 which prescribes the restitution of a deposit, undergoes restric- 
 tion in case the depositor should reclaim his treasure to make a 
 criminal use of it. The law forbidding theft knows no exception, 
 but. by certain nations, it has not been recognized: the Germans, 
 according to Ca:;sar, did not regard as culpable the abstraction 
 cf the property of others. 
 
 5. Of Humax Laws. — Ou.est. 95-97. 
 
 We shall discuss successively : 1st. Their Utility; — 2d. Their 
 Authority ;— 3d. Their ^futability. 
 
 1. Man has received from nat\ne a happy aptitude for virtue; 
 bift he is not able to attain to the porfection of virtue otherwise
 
 In the Thirtcciitli C cntury. 48 1 
 
 than by subjecting liiniself lo a discipline. It is \\\\X\ moral 
 needs as it is with physical necessities; he can satisfy these only 
 b}' obli..iing himself to regular labor, of which he possesses the 
 instruments, to wit, intelligence and hands; whereas the animals 
 find without calculation and without trouble, food around them 
 and clothing upon them. Now, we could scarcely expect man to 
 be sufficient to himself in the exercise of this beneficent disci- 
 pline ; for its cliief object is to withdraw him from the illicit en- 
 joyments toward which he feels himself attracted, especially 
 during youth, that is, at the age when correction is the most ef- 
 ficacious and direction the most lasting. He must then receive 
 from others that discipline which alone leads to virtue. For 
 those whom a suitable disposition, a wise habit, or better still, 
 divine grace, readily inclines to good, the paternal discipline, pro- 
 ceeding by way of advice, is sufficient; but for vicious characters, 
 who are not to be persuaded by words, the menaces of force must 
 be opposed to the seductions of evil. Broken against this salu- 
 tary obstacle, evil wills will cease to disturb the common tran- 
 quillity ; they will adopt a better course, they will retain through 
 habit the mode of conduct prescribed bj' fear, they will return to 
 the ways of wisdom. Now. the only discipline w'hich has the 
 power to constrain, because it is accompanied by the fear of pun- 
 ishment, is the discipline of the laws; whence we must conclude 
 that human laws are required for the maintenance of peace and
 
 482 Dante, and CatJiolic Philosophy 
 
 the propagation of virtue among men. In support of this propo- 
 sition, we may invoke tlie testimony of Aristotle, Book First: On 
 Politics. . . . 
 
 2. Laws of human institution may be just or unjust. Just 
 laws oblige in the interior court of conscience ; they obtain this 
 binding power from tlie eternal law, whence they are derived. . . . 
 Now, laws deserve 10 be called just when they fulfil the condi- 
 tions of justice, by the end to which ihcy are directed, by the au- 
 thor from whom they emanate, by the form which they observe ; 
 that is to say, when they tend to the general good, when tliey do 
 not exceed the power of the law-giver, when they distribute 
 among all the members, with proportioned equalness, the bur- 
 dens which, in the interest of all, each one must bear. 
 
 Man. in fact, being a member of society, belongs to it as a part 
 to the whole: and nature sometimes requires that a part suffer 
 that the whole may be saved. In the same way, the laws distrib- 
 ute to each member of society the burdens necessary for the 
 preservation of social order; and, if they do this inequitable pro- 
 portions, they arc just, obligatory for the conscience; we may 
 call them legitimate laws. The laws may be unjust in two ways : 
 by opposing tlie relative good of man, or by opposition to the ab- 
 solute good, which is God. In the first case they may trespass 
 by their end, by their author, or by their form : l)y their cnd^ 
 when the prince has reckoned them in the iiuerest of his pride or
 
 In the Tliirtccnth Century. 483 
 
 of Ills cupidity, witliout regard to the public good ; hy their au- 
 tlior, when lie who dictated tlicni has overstepped the limits of 
 the power of which he is the depositary ; by their form, if the 
 burdens imposed, even for the common utility, arc not equally 
 distributed. Laws thus made are no more than acts of violence ; 
 for, according to St. Augustine, we may not honor with the name 
 of laws those which arc unjust. Consequently, the)' do not bind 
 before the interior tribunal, unless perhaps in consideration of the 
 disturbance and scandal whicli transgression would bring with 
 it, a sufficient motive to determine a man to abandon his right ; 
 this is the counsel of the Gospel : " To him that will take away 
 thy coat, let go thy cloak also to him." In the second case, 
 when laws are in opposition to the absolute good, that is, to God, 
 as were those of the t}- rants, when idolatry was erected into a 
 mandate, it is by no means permitted to obey them. ..." We 
 must obey God rather than men." 
 
 3. Human laws are so many ordinances by which reason en- 
 deavors to direct the actions of men; and hence there are two 
 causes which justify change in the legislations of this nether 
 world. The first of these causes is found in the mobility of rea- 
 son itself; the second, in the mutability of the circumstances amid 
 which live the men whose actions are to be directed. And first, 
 it is in the nature of reason to go by degrees from the imperfect 
 to the perfect : tluis, in the speculative sciences, we see that the
 
 484 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 early philosophers left defecllve duelriiies, which were amended 
 and completed in schools formed subse((ucntly. The same has 
 been the course uf practical knowlcdfrc : the first persons who 
 employed their talents in the service of society, not being capable 
 of embracing at a single glance all the interests to be contented, 
 necessarily left behind them inadequate institutions. There was 
 then need to modify these afterwards, and to replace them by 
 others, which would have fewer omissions, but which yet would 
 not be secure from subsequent reforms. . . In the second place, 
 just innovations may be introduced into the law at the same time 
 that correlative innovations are wrought in the condition of men ; 
 for, the variety of institutions must correspond to the diversity of 
 conditions. St. Augustine gives an excellent example of this. 
 If the people for whom the laws are laid down, are quiet in their 
 behavior, serious in their thoughts, and vigilant in looking after 
 their true interests, they will properlj^ be allowed the right of 
 choosing the magistrates entrusted with the administration of 
 public affairs. But if the same people, gradually corrupted so 
 far that their suffrage becomes venal, end by confiding the cares 
 of government to dishonorable men, the power of conferring offices 
 will very wisely be taken away from them, that it may be placed 
 in its entirety in the hands of the small number of good men still 
 remaining.
 
 /// the Tliirtt'entli Century. 485 
 
 Politics. St. Thomas : '* Summa," Prima Secundae, 
 
 q. 105 ; Prima Secundae, <i. 42. " De Eruditione 
 
 Principum," 1. I., 4 ; VI., 3. 
 
 1. Of the Best Form of Government. 
 
 Two things are necessary to found a dnrable order in cities and 
 in nations. The first is tlie admission of all to a share in tlie 
 general government, so that all may bo interested in the main- 
 tenance of the public peace which lias become their work; the 
 second is the selection of a political form in which the powers 
 may be happily combined. There exists, in fact, as Aristotle 
 teaches, several forms of government. However, one chiefly dis- 
 tinguishes royaltj', which is the sovereignty of a single man, himself 
 subject to the laws of virtue ; and aristocracy, which is the au- 
 thority of the best among the citizens, also exercised within the 
 limits of justice. Thus, the happiest combmation of powers is 
 that which would place at the head of the nation a virtuous 
 prince ; which would array under him a certain number of nota- 
 ble persons empowered to govern according to the rules of equity ; 
 and which in taking these persons from all classes, and in sub- 
 jecting them to the suffrages of the entire people, would thus as- 
 sociate the whole of society in the cares of government. Such 
 a State would combine in its Ijeneficent organization, royalty, 
 represented by a single head ; aristocracy, characterized by plur-
 
 486 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 ality of magistrates chosen from among the best citizens; and 
 democracy, or the power of the people, shown b)' the election of 
 the aforesaid magistrates, wliicli would be carried out within the 
 ranks of tlie people and by their voice. Now, this order is pre- 
 cisely that which the divine law established iu Israel. 
 
 2. Of Sedition. 
 The inevitable effect of sedition is to violate the unity of the 
 people, of the city, or of the empire. If in this we follow St. 
 Augustine, the people, according to the definition given by wise 
 men, is by no means a fortuitous assemblage of any sort of a 
 multitude; it is a society formed by the recognition of one and 
 tlie same law and by community in the same interests. Hence 
 it is the unity of laws and of interests that sedition threatens to 
 dissolve. It follows that sedition, contrary to justice and to the 
 common utility, must be condomnod as a sin mortal in its nature, 
 and so much the more grievous as the general good is to be pre- 
 ferred to the good of the individual. Now, the sin of sedition 
 weighs first on those who have been its instigators, then on the 
 turbulent men who have been its instruments and accomplices. 
 Those, on the contrary, who have offered resistance and have 
 fought for the public good, ought not to bo dishonored b}' being 
 called seditious persons, any more tlian those sliould be called 
 (|uairel.somc persons who repel the aggression of an unjust 
 quarrel.
 
 In the ThirtcciitJi Ce?itury. 487 
 
 But we must observe that a tyrannical government, that is, one 
 which proposes as its end tlic personal gratification of the prince, 
 and not tlie common happiness of tiie subjects, therebj' ceases to 
 be legitimate : Aristotle thus leaches, in tlie third book of the 
 Ethics, and in the third of the Politics. Hence, the overturning 
 of such a power has not the character of sedition, provided it is 
 not attended with sufficient disorder to cause more evils than did 
 the tyranny itself. Strictly speaking, it is the tyrant who de- 
 serves the appellation of a seditious person, by encouraging dis- 
 sensions among the people that he niav the more easily carry on 
 his despotism. For a tyrannical government is one wliich is cal- 
 culated in the exclusive interest of power, to the general injury 
 of the people. 
 
 3. Op the Duties of the Prince.' 
 
 Society cannot attain to the supreme (;nd assigned to it, with- 
 out the concurrence of three sorts of means, namely: virtues, en- 
 lightenment, and external goods. The prince ought, then, to 
 watch with wise solicitude over the cultivation of letters in his 
 State, that they may flourish and that the number of learned and 
 capable men may be multiplied. For, where science flourishes, 
 
 ' This fragment is not by St. Thomas of Aquin ; it is extracted from 
 the book de Regiminc Prlnclpum (lib. III., \>. i, c. viii.), written by the 
 B. Egidius Colonna, Cardinal-archbishop of Bourges, a disciple of the An- 
 gelic Doctor.
 
 4^^8 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 where the fountains of learning flow freely forth, there sooner oi 
 later will instruction be disseminated among the people. Hence, 
 to dissipate the darkness of ignorance which would shamefully 
 envelop the face of the kingdom, it is important that the king 
 should encourage letters by giving them favorable attention. 
 Furthermore, if he were to refuse the necessary encouragement, 
 if he did not wish his subjects to be instructed, he would cease 
 to be a king, he would become a tyrant. A people has also need 
 of pure manners and of virtues. For it is of small avail to know 
 the end of human life by the light of the understanding, if disor- 
 derly appetites be not disciplined by the force of the will and re- 
 directed toward the attainment of the said end. It is, then, tlio 
 prince's duty to maintaui virtuous dispositions among his sub- 
 jects. Finally, external goods may serve as instruments to pro- 
 cure the happmess of civil life. And consequently it is proper 
 that kings and princes should govern their states and their cities 
 in such a way as to procure for them an abundance of that 
 weahh which may contribute to the general good. 
 
 4. Of Nobility. 
 It is a frequent error among men to think themselves noble be- 
 cause they are born of a noble family. Tliis error may be met in 
 several ways. First, if we cotisider the creative cause whose 
 works we are — God; by being Tlimseif the author of our race. 
 He ('orbtless ennobled it all. . If we look at the second and
 
 In the TJiirtccntli Century. 489 
 
 crsated course, the first parents from whom we descend, they 
 are the same for iis all : all have received from Adam and Eve one 
 and the same nobilit}', one and the same nature. We do not read 
 that the Lord in the beginning made two men ; one of silver, to 
 be the ancestor of noblemen ; and the other of clay, to be the 
 father of laborers. But He made a single man formed from the 
 slime of the earth, and through h.im we are brethren. . . . The 
 same ear furnishes the flour and the bran. The bran is a 
 wretched food thrown to swine, and from the fiour is made a 
 choice bread fit to be placed on the table of kings. The rose 
 and the thorn grow upon the same stem. The rose is a noble 
 creature, beneficent to him who approaches her, shedding her 
 perfumes in sweet profusion round about her. The thorn, on the 
 contrary, is a mean excrescence which tears the hands of those 
 iiiipnulent enough to touch it. Thus from the same stock two 
 men may be born, one a villain and tlie other noble. One, as the 
 rose, will do good to all around him, and that one will be noble; 
 the other, like the thorn, will wound those who come near him, un- 
 til, like it, he shall be cast into the fire, but into eternal fire; and 
 the latter will be the villain. ... If all that proceeds from a 
 nobleman should inherit his nobility, animals living in his hair, 
 and other natural superfluities engendered in him, would be en- 
 nobled in their fashion. . . . The philosophers themselves have 
 recognized that nobility is not acquired by descent. What is a
 
 490 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 clievalier, a slave, a f reedman ? Tliese are, answers Seueca, so 
 many titles created by pride or by injustice. Plato said : " There 
 is no king who has not had slaves among his ancestors ; there is 
 no slave who is not the descendant of kings." ... It is a fine 
 thing not to have fallen away from the exaihple of noble ances- 
 tors ; but it is an especially fine thing to have rendered an hum- 
 ble birth illustrious by great actions. ... I repeat, then, with St. 
 Jerome, that nothing appears to me desirable in this presumed 
 hereditary nobility, except that noblemen are constrained to vir- 
 tue by the shame of derogating. True nobility is that of the 
 soul, according to the words of the poet : 
 
 "Nobilitas sola est animuni quse moribus ornat." ' 
 
 ' This chapter and the following are extracted from the treatise deEnt- 
 ditione Principum. St. Thomas, who wrote the above, belonged to the 
 illustrious family of the counts of Aquin, one of the foremost in the Two 
 Sicilies. Space does not permit us here to insert a remarkable chapter 
 from the treatise de Rcyimine Principum (different from the work of the 
 same name previously cited), which is generally attributed to him. lu it 
 he lays down the duties of the people in the presence of tyranny : " The 
 tyrant, if he abides within certain limits, ought to be borne with for fear 
 of greater evils : if he exceeds all measure, he can be deposed, even con- 
 demned, by a regularly constituted power ; but attempts against his per- 
 son, the work either of Individual fanaticism or of private vengeance, 
 would remain inexcusable crimes." To complete the setting forth of the 
 bold opinions of the doctors of those days, we must quote in addition the
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 491 
 
 5. Of Taxes. 
 The impiety of princes and lords wlio lay exorbitant taxes n[i- 
 on their subjects will easily be understood if we consider that 
 they render themselves guilty at tlie same time of unfaithfulness 
 toward men, ingratitude toward God, and contempt toward the 
 angels. The lord owes to his subjects the same fidelity which 
 he is allowed to exact from them : to fail in this is then felony. 
 . . . We often hear noblemen excuse themselves, saying : " If this 
 man did not belong to me, I might think I was sinning by mal- 
 treating him ; but to maltreat tliat wliich belongs to me, I can 
 see no sin in that, at least no grievous sin." We might tell them 
 that tlieir power thus conceived would be like that of the devil. 
 For the devil is a cruel lord, who pays with afflictions the devo- 
 tion of his subjects, and treats them so much the worse as lie is 
 the belter served by them. What man in his senses would ever 
 think it less criminal to make war upon his own than upon 
 strangers? Who does not know that it Is treason to desert the 
 cause of a friend ? Now, according to the words of the Wise Man, 
 
 following passage from a sermon of St. Bonaventura's (Hexcemcrnn V.) : 
 " We see nowadays a great scandal in governments ; for one would not 
 confide a ship to a pilot who was a novice in the handling of the helm, 
 and yet we place at the head of nations those who are ignorant of the 
 art of ruling them. So, woe to empires, when the right of succession 
 places children on the throne ! "
 
 49- Dante, and Catholic Pliilosophy 
 
 tlie prince ought to look upon his subjects as poor friends given 
 him by heaven. Before receiving the homage of the poor man, 
 lie owed him good faith and devotion, as to his brother in relig- 
 ion, and that same poor man, doing homage, did by no means ab- 
 solve the prince from his primal obhgation ; rather has the new 
 act intervened to draw still closer the previous bond. How, then, 
 defend from the accusation of unfaithfulness him who oppresses 
 his subjects? He also gives proof of ingratitude toward God. 
 For God has honored the powerful man, bj' raising him above all ; 
 and he, on the contrary, dishonors God in the poor whom lie hu- 
 miliates. He imitates the soldiers charged with leading the 
 Saviour to death, who took the red from His hands that with 
 it they might strike His head. The rccd is the figure of the 
 temporal power which the great have received from the hand of 
 the Most High, and which thej' use to strike Him iu the person 
 of the poor. Finally, there is the contemning of the angels. In 
 truth, if Providence has confided the weak and tlie little to the 
 care of the strong in this world, it has not willed that the former 
 should be at the mercy of the latter; it has given them celestial 
 guardians. Every man has his angel, to whose care he is con- 
 fided. Upon that angel, then, fall the wrongs heaped upon the 
 wretched here below ; and from the angel they fall back upon God 
 Himself, whose minister the angel is.
 
 hi the Thirteenth Century. 493 
 
 VI. Nature. 
 
 The Presence of God in All the Grades of Creation- 
 Unity and Diversity— Universal Attraction —Albert 
 the Great, " De Causis et Processu Universi," lib. II., 
 tr. IV., cap. i. and ii. 
 
 1. We shall treat of how tlie First Cause rules all created ho- 
 iugs, without being confounded with tliem. For if some of these 
 beings seem to rule others which are subordinated to them, they 
 do it in virtue of a borrowed power. What is it, in fact, to rule 
 beings, if not to conduct them to that plenitude of existence which 
 is their end? Now, for each one of them the plenitude of exis- 
 tence consists in the sum total of the conditions without which it 
 could not reach its relative perfection, accomplish its destiny, ex- 
 ercise the especial function proper to it. But to conduct a being 
 to perfection, to make it pass from potentiality to act, is the work 
 of the generating principle which is in it, and which impresses 
 upon it its specific form. Thus the informing power which comes 
 from ihe father, fashions the embryo in the womb of the mother 
 so far as to give it the living form of humanity ; then it strength- 
 ens and develops the body of the child, that it may be brouglit 
 to the perfect proportions of the age of manhood, when the com. 
 pletion of the organs allows of the complete action of the corres- 
 r)ondmg faculties. . . . Always, in the series of things, that which.
 
 494 Da?jte, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 follows is explained by tliat which precedes: the second is in- 
 formed by the first. All are mutually bound together and neces- 
 sarily remount to the Sovereign Cause, in which existence and 
 essence are one, and wliich, ceaselessly acting around itself, 
 forms, perfects, and rules all parts of tlie universe. ... Now, the 
 First Cause acts because Tt «'s, and not in virtue of any borrowed 
 force. It is not divided into two parts, one active and the other 
 inert; it does not, then, lose in its action that unchangeable unity 
 which is in its nature. It is not thus with the secondary agents 
 composed of existence and essence, of potentiality and act, con- 
 sequently, divisible. ... A composite agent cannot modify tlie 
 objects which are subjected to it, except by giving to them its 
 form, by communicating to them its existence, while retaining in 
 itself its essence entire. In fact, action supposes contact, con- 
 tact necessitates communication ; and there can be no other com- 
 munication than that of existence, for essence is incommunicable. 
 Since then the First Cause acts by its essence, we must conclude 
 tliat it does not communicate itself, that is, that it is not con- 
 founded with the things which it creates, forms, and rules 
 Hence, these things come from it, but are not it. and we are right 
 in blaming those who extend to creatures divine attributes. . . . 
 Thus God, who is the First Cause, remains in TTis immutable 
 unity without confounding Himself with His works. And yet II" 
 does not abandon them: lie in a certain way accompanies them
 
 /// tJic TJiirtce7ith Century. 495 
 
 and encompasses them on every side by tlie immensity of His 
 essence, by the presence of His hght, by the power of His 
 action. 
 
 2. From the considerations just set forth, we must conchide 
 that the First Cause exerts upon all things one and the same in- 
 fluence. Since in it existence and essence are one. it is impossi- 
 ble to conceive it separated from its Infinite perfections. Its per- 
 fections are then identical among themselves, and the effusion of 
 tliem cannot vary. But though this effusion is unvarying as com- 
 ing from on high, yet it is not received below in a like abundance 
 by the divers beings upon which it is povu-ed out. It tills them 
 according to the unequal measure of their capacity, which is pro- 
 portioned to the distance at which they are found ; for some revolve 
 in the vicinity of the First Cause, while others move at a great 
 distance. All, then, participate according to their capacit}' in the 
 effusion of the divine goodness and light ; they are penetrated by 
 the essence, by the presence, and by the power of the Creator. 
 Now, these different distances, these degrees of nearness at which 
 creatures arc placed, constitute a liierarchic order, by means of 
 which number is reduced to unity: so that we must herein rec- 
 ognize the work of the Eternal Wisdom ; for such is the great- 
 ness of the perfections of God, that none among created objects 
 could contain them entire. ... . At least He has willed that they 
 should descend to the very depths of creation, and that there
 
 496 Dante, and Catholic Philosophy 
 
 should remain nothing so obscure or so low as not to enter in 
 some manner into relation with tlie Divine Being.' 
 
 ?>. And if wo ask whence comes the universal tendency of 
 things toward the Divine Being, it is eas}- to answer hj starting 
 from the tr\iths already demonstrated. In fact, we have amply 
 proved that God penetrates all things with His light; and this 
 liglit, in penetrating them, slsotclies in them an imperfect rosom- 
 blance to God Himself. Now, according to tlie words of Boetii- 
 ius, like is attracted by that which it is like ; for from it does it 
 receive the power to subsist, growth, and perfection. Thence 
 comes it tliat all things tend to God as to the Sovereign Good, 
 as to the supreme end toward whicli all actions are co-ordinated. 
 And there is nothing capable of exerting any attraction around 
 itself, if it does not contain a divine property. When, then, any one 
 complains that he lias not met with the Sovereign Good, he errs : 
 
 ' The same thouRht is developed with perhaps greater clearness in the 
 fourteenth chapter of the same Iwok. " God knows Himself, and sheds 
 abroad His light, which enlightens all things, and which, being reflected 
 in them, leaves in them as it were an image of the Divinity. He wills 
 Himself as universal prin iple, and in so doing He excites In all things a 
 sort of love which inclines them toward the Divinity. He acts, and by 
 His power He gives to all things the force to move toward the Divinity. 
 This image, this love, this (interTiiining force, are, then, in all things, 
 although in different conditions, according as we treat of brute matter, 
 of plants, of animals, of man, or of pure intelligences."
 
 In the Thirteenth Century. 497 
 
 he errs by reason of liavii)g altaeliod liimsolf, by imprudent ap- 
 petites, to the signs and appearances of the Sovereign Good 
 Itself. And yet these appearances and these signs reflect sonic 
 image of the supreme reality, and it is through this alone that 
 they attract and captivate the affection of men.- 
 
 II. Power of Nature ; Powerlessness of Magic. — Pos- 
 sible Progress of Skill ; Discoveries of Modern Times. — 
 Roger Bacon, " de SecretisOperibus Artis et Naturae et 
 Nullitate Magiae," cap. i.-vii. 
 
 1. Although nature is admirable in its operations, art, which 
 modifies it and uses it as an instrument, shows itself more pow- 
 erful than nature. Outside the works of nature and of art, noth- 
 ing remains except prodigies above our reach, or spells beneath 
 our dignity. . . . Such are jugglers who cheat our eyes by leger- 
 demain, pythonesses, who, fetching their docile voices from 
 stomach, throat, or palate, can at will make to be heard distant 
 words, strange sounds, as though some invisible spirit were ex- 
 pressing itself by the medium of their organ. But, siill more 
 wicked than such impostors, are they who, contemning all phil- 
 
 - The idea of attraction is perfectly expressed in this comparison em- 
 ployed by St. Dionysiiis the Areopagite : " God is called Love, in so much 
 as He moves beings and draws them upward, as the stationary magnet 
 attracts Iron."
 
 498 Dante, and Catliolic Philosophy 
 
 osophj' and in despite of reason, cull upon the evil spirit in order 
 to obtain the accomplishment of their impotent will, who think 
 to fetch him or to send him awaj- by natural means, wlio offer 
 him prayers and sacrifices. It would be incomparably more easy 
 und more sure to ask from God and the angels the satisfaction of 
 oui-just desires; for, if sometimes the evil spirits show themselves 
 favorable to our apparent interests, it is for tlie punishment of 
 oiir sins; but this happens still by the permission of God, who 
 alone and with unshared power rules over the course of human 
 destinies. 
 
 2. I will now recount some of the wonders contained in nature 
 or iiroduced by art, in which magic has no share, in order to prove 
 how mneli beyond all' comparison, tliey surpass magical inven- 
 tions. For use in navigation, machines may be constructed such 
 that the largest vessels, directed by a single man, sliall traverse 
 rivers and seas more rapidly than if they were filled with oars- 
 men ; also, carriages may be made, which without horses, shall 
 move with inconceivaliU; swiftness. 
 
 It is possible to make an apparatus such that a man seated 
 within it and moving artificial wings by mcai's of a lever, may 
 travel like a bird tlirough the air. An instrument, throe fingers 
 long and as nmch in width, would be capable; of lifting enormous 
 weights; it might even serve to release cajitives fmni their pris- 
 ons by enabling thorn to sni-inouiil at will ilio greatest heights.
 
 In tlic Thirteenth Century. 499 
 
 There is another instniincnt by means of wliich a single hand 
 can draw to itself bodies of considerable mass, in spite of the re- 
 sistance of a thousand arms. Further, machines can be con- 
 ceived by which a diver could without peril be taken down to 
 the bottom of tiie waters. . . . These things have been seen, 
 either among the ancients, or in our own day, with the exception 
 of the flying machine, the design of which has been thought out 
 by a learned man well known to me. A multitude of other en- 
 gines and useful appliances could be invented: — such as bridges 
 which would span the broadest rivers without piers or any in- 
 termediate support. 
 
 3. But, among all the objects which claim our admiration, we 
 ought especially to remark the plav of light. We can combine 
 transparent glasses and mirrors in such a wa}' that unity seems 
 to be multiplied, that a single man appears to be an army, and 
 that we may make as many suns and moons to be seen as we de- 
 sire. For the vapors diffused through the air are sometimes dis- 
 posed in such a way that, by a curious reflection, they duplicate 
 and even triplicate the disc of the moon or the sun. . . . And it 
 would be easy thus by sudden apparitions, to spread dismay in a 
 city or in the army of an enemy. This contrivance will appear 
 still easier if one considers that a system of transparent glasses 
 may be constructed which can carry the eye near to distant ob- 
 jects, or make near ones seem to be far away; or which, indeed.
 
 500 Dante, mid Catholic PJiilosopJiy 
 
 l>y displacing their images, can present them on any side that one 
 desires. Thns from an incredible distance we may read the fin- 
 est characters, or connt the most indistinguishable objects. It is 
 said that C?esar by the aid of immense mirrors, saw from the 
 height of the coasts of Gaul, several cities in Great Britain. By 
 analogous processes, we might enlarge, lessen, or reverse the 
 forms of bodies ; we might deceive the sight by endless illu- 
 sions. . . . The solarrays, skilfully conducted and gathered togeth- 
 er in bundles by the power of refraction, are capable of kindling 
 at the desired distance, objects exposed to their activity. 
 
 4. Other results, not less curious, may be obtained at less ex- 
 pense. Such are artificial fires for casting to a distance; these 
 are composed of naphtha, rock-salt, and petroleum. . . . Such is 
 also the Greek fire, in imitation of which a large number of com- 
 bustibles are fabricated. . . . Means are not wanting to make lamps 
 of which the wicks shall not consmne away : for we know of 
 bodies which burn without being consumed: talc, for instance, 
 and the skin of the salamander. Art has its thunders, more for- 
 midable than thunder from the skies. A small quantity of 
 matter, as big as one's thumb, occasions a terrible explosion ac- 
 companied by a vivid light, and this fact can be so repeated as to de- 
 stroy a city or entire battalions. . . . The attraction which the mag- 
 net exerts upon iron, is in itself forlil(>iii marvels unknown to the 
 coiiuiiDiialtv. known onlv to those wlinm science has initialed into
 
 hi the TJnrtcciitli Century. 50 1 
 
 its ineffable shows. Now llie inoperly of tlic magiicl is foiiiii' 
 elsewlicrc ; it takes on ;ui ever-iucreasiug importance: gold, sil- 
 ver, ami tlic other nieluls allow of being attracted by the stone 
 which tests them. There is a spontaneous drawing together 
 among mineral masses, among plants, among the dissected organs 
 of animals. Having witnessed tliese wonders of nature, nothing 
 henceforth astounds my faith cither in the works of man or in 
 the miracles of God. 
 
 5. The final degree of perfection to which human skill, aided 
 by all the forces of creation, may attain, is the faculty of prolong- 
 ing life. The possibility of a considerable prolongation is estab- 
 lished by experience. An infallible means would consist in the 
 continued and scrupulous observance of a regimen regulating 
 food and drink, sleeping and waking, activity and rest, all the 
 functions of the body, even the passions of the soul, down to tlie 
 conditions of the surrounding atmosphere. This regimen is strict- 
 ly determined by the precepts of medicine ; ... for the learned 
 have ardently endeavored to extend by a hundred years or more 
 the ordinary limits of human life, by delaying, or at least by di- 
 minishing, the ills of old age. However, they by no means ignore 
 the existence of a set term, irrevocably lixed since the day of the 
 first Fall: they simply seek to regain that term, by removing 
 the accidental obstacles which stop the course of life. ... If some 
 one should object that neither Plato nor Aristotle, nor the great
 
 502 Dante, a)}id Catholic Philosophy. 
 
 Hippocrates nor Galen, was able to attain to thi.s wonderful pro- 
 longation of life, T would answer, that those great men failed to 
 attain several pieces of knowledge of a secondary interest, which 
 have been found out V)}- other thinkers coming after them. Aris- 
 totle may not have penetrated into the innermost secrets of na- 
 ture; even as the learned men of the present day are themselves 
 ignorant of many truths which will be familiar to the veriest 
 novices among the scholars of future times.
 
 APPENDIX No. I. 
 
 " — NDiviDUATio naturaj conuiuinis in rebus materialibus et 
 
 corporalibus est ex materia corporali sub deterrainatis dim- 
 
 Extract from St. Thomas : " Opuscul. de Sensu Re 
 
 spectu Particularium et Intellectu Respectu 
 
 Universalium." 
 
 1 
 
 ensionibus coutenta. Universale autem est per abstractionem ab 
 ejus modi materia, et materialibus conditionibus individuantibus. 
 Patet ergo quod siniilitudo rei qua3 recipitur in sensu reprsesentat 
 rem secundum quod est singularis, scd rccepta in intellectu re- 
 priesentat rem secundum rationem natune universalis. . . . Ipsa 
 a\item natura cui accidit iutentio universitatis habet duplex esse: 
 unum quidem materiale, secundum quod est in natura materiali, 
 aliud autem immateriale, secundum quod est in intellectu. Pri- 
 mo quidem modo non potest advenire intentio universitatis, quia 
 per materiam individuatur. Advenit ergo universalis intentio 
 secundum quod abstraliitur a materia individuali : non potest au- 
 tem abstrahi a materia individuali realiter sicut platonici posu- 
 
 erunt." 
 
 503
 
 APPENDIX No. 2. 
 
 Second Sentence of Exile Issued Against Dante. 
 
 nX Tos Cante dc Cabriellibus de Eugubio, Potestas civitatis 
 
 L\ iH Florenlie, infra scriptam condemnationis summam dani- 
 us ac proferimus in hunc modura. D. Andream de Gherardinis, 
 D. Lapum Saltarelli Jndicem, D. Pahnerium de Altovitis, D. Dona- 
 turn Albertum de sextu Porta; Domus, Lapum Dominici de sextu 
 Ultrarui, Lapum Bloudum de sextu Sancti Petri Majoris; Gherardi- 
 num Deodati poijuli Sancti Martini Episcopi, Cursum Domini AI- 
 berti Ristori, Junctum de Biffolis, Lippum Becchi, Dantem Alli- 
 GiiERii. Orlanduccium Orlandi, Ser Simonem Guidalotti de sextu 
 Ultrarui, Ser Ghuccium Medicuni <le sextu Portte Domus, Guido- 
 men Brunum de Falconierii, de sextu Sancti Petri. Contra quos 
 processimus ct per inquisitioncm ex nostro officio et curie nostre 
 factum super eo et ox eo quod ad aures nostras ct ipsius curie 
 uostrc pervenerit, fama publica precedente, quod cum ipsi vel 
 oorum quilibot noniino et occasionc Baractoriarum, iuiquarum ex-
 
 Appendix No 2. 505 
 
 torHiouuin ft illicitonim liierortini fucrinl coiideinnati, quod in ip- 
 sis condenmationibus docetur apertius, condemnationes easdem 
 ipsi vel eorum aliqiiis termino assigiiato iion solverint. Qui om- 
 nes et singuli per iiuiitiiim communis Florentie citati et reqizisiti 
 fuerunt legitime, ut certo termino jam elapso, mandatis nostris 
 parituri venire deberent et se a premissa inquisitions protinus ex- 
 cnsarent. Qui non venientes per clarum clarissimi publicum 
 bapnitorem posuisse in bapnum communis Florentie subscripser- 
 unt (sic\ in quod incurrentee eosdem absentis contumacia inno- 
 davit; ut haec omnia nostre ciu'ie latius acta tenent. Ipsos et 
 ipsorum quemlibet ideo habitos ex ipsorum contumacia pro con- 
 fessis, secundum jura statutorum et ordinamentorum communis 
 et populi civitatis Florentie, et ex vigore nostri arbitrii, et onini 
 mode et jure quibus melius possumus, ut si quis predictorum ullo 
 tempore in fortiam dicti communis pervenerit, talis perveniens 
 igne COMBURATUB sic quod moriatur. in his scriptis sententialiter 
 condemnamus. Lata, pronuntiata et promulgata fuit dicta con- 
 demnationis summa per dictum Cantem polestatem predictum pro 
 tribunal! sedentem m consilio generali civitatis Florentie, et lecla 
 per me Bonorum notariimi supra dict\mi. sub anno Domini, 
 MCCCIL, Tndictionc XY.. tempore Domini Bonifacii Papa; VIII., 
 die X. mensis Martii, presentibus tcstibus Sor Masio de Eugubio 
 Scr Bernardo de Camerino, Xotariis dicti domini potestatis, et 
 ])luri'>us aliis in eodem consilio cxistentibus.
 
 APPENDIX No. 3. 
 
 Extract from the " Proemio di Marsilio Ficino Fiorentino 
 
 Sopra la Monarchia di Dante, Fradotta da lui di 
 
 Latino in Lingua Toscana." 
 
 A Bernardo del Nero ed Antonio di Tuccio Manetti. 
 Cittadini Fiorentini. 
 
 '^jTTrv ANTE Alighieri per palria celeste, per abitazione fiorentino, 
 
 Jl y di stirpo angelico. in profcssione filosofo-poelico, beuche 
 
 lion parlasse in lingua grcca con (pR'Ho ,<acro padre de' filosofi, iu- 
 
 terprclc dclla vcrita, Platone, nioiit,edinieiio in spirito jiarlo in mode 
 
 con lui, clie di niolle sentenzic platoniche adorno i libri suoi ; e per 
 
 tale ornamento rnassinic illustro tanto la citta fiorentina, clie cos! 
 
 Vjene Firenze di Dauto, eonie lUmtc di Fircnzc si piio dire. Tre 
 
 regni troviamo scrilti nel nostro rettis.siino ducc Platone: uno de'- 
 
 buati, I'allro de' niiseri, e il tcrzo de' peregrini. Beati chiama 
 
 quelli, che sono nella citta di vita rostituti ; miscri, (luclli che 
 
 per seiopre ne sono privati ; peregrini. <pi(lli clic ftiori di detta 
 
 50'j
 
 Appendix No. j. 507 
 
 citta sono, ni;i non giiidicati in senipilcrno esilio. In questo ter- 
 zo ordine pone tutti i viventi, e de' iiiorti (luclla parte, clie a tcni- 
 porale purgazione e deputata. Questo ordine platonico prima 
 segui Virgilio ; questo segui Dante dipoi. col vaso di Virgiliu 
 beendo alle platoniche fonti. K pcro del legno dei beali, dc" 
 miseri, e de' peregrini, di questa vita passati, nella sua Commedia 
 3legantemente tratto " 
 
 THE END.
 
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