Opening the text

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1Hallam, Henry

History

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1

Name: Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1
Author: Hallam, Henry

Hallam, Henry

Literature, Modern -- History and criticism

The introduction of this excess of logical subtlety, carried to the
     most trifling sophistry, is ascribed by Meiners to Petrus Hispanus
     afterwards Pope John XXI., who died in 1271. ii. 705. Several
     curious specimens of scholastic folly are given by him in this
     place. They brought a discredit upon the name, which has adhered to
     it, and involved men of fine genius, such as Aquinas himself, in
     the common reproach.

     The barbarism of style, which amounted almost to a new language,
     became more intolerable in Scotus and his followers than it had
     been in the older schoolmen. Meiners, 722. It may be alleged, in
     excuse of this, that words are meant to express precise ideas; and
     that it was as impossible to write metaphysics in good Latin, as
     the modern naturalists have found it to describe plants and
     animals.

|Character of this philosophy.|

|It prevails least in Italy.|

23. Tenneman has fairly stated the good and bad of the scholastic
philosophy. It gave rise to a great display of address, subtlety, and
sagacity in the explanation and distinction of abstract ideas, but at
the same time to many trifling and minute speculations, to a contempt of
positive and particular knowledge, and to much unnecessary
refinement.[39] Fleury well observes, that the dry technical style of
the schoolmen, affecting a geometrical method and closeness, is in fact
more prolix and tedious, than one more natural, from its formality in
multiplying objections and answers.[40] And as their reasonings commonly
rest on disputable postulates, the accuracy they affect is of no sort of
value. But their chief offences were the interposing obstacles to the
revival of polite literature, and to the free expansion of the mind.
Italy was the land where the schoolmen had least influence; many of the
Italians who had a turn for those discussions repaired to Paris,[41] and
it was accordingly from Italy that the light of philological learning
spread over Europe. Public schools of theology were not opened in Italy
till after 1360.[42] Yet we find the disciples of Averroes numerous in
the university of Padua about that time.

  [39] Manuel de la Philosophie, i. 337. Eichhorn, ii. 396.

  [40] See 5me discours, xvii. 30-50.

  [41] Tiraboschi, v. 115.

  [42] Id. 137, 160. De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, iii. 757.

|Literature in modern languages.|

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1Hallam, Henry

History

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1

Hallam, Henry

Literature, Modern -- History and criticism

The introduction of this excess of logical subtlety, carried to the
     most trifling sophistry, is ascribed by Meiners to Petrus Hispanus
     afterwards Pope John XXI., who died in 1271. ii. 705. Several
     curious specimens of scholastic folly are given by him in this
     place. They brought a discredit upon the name, which has adhered to
     it, and involved men of fine genius, such as Aquinas himself, in
     the common reproach.

     The barbarism of style, which amounted almost to a new language,
     became more intolerable in Scotus and his followers than it had
     been in the older schoolmen. Meiners, 722. It may be alleged, in
     excuse of this, that words are meant to express precise ideas; and
     that it was as impossible to write metaphysics in good Latin, as
     the modern naturalists have found it to describe plants and
     animals.

|Character of this philosophy.|

|It prevails least in Italy.|

23. Tenneman has fairly stated the good and bad of the scholastic
philosophy. It gave rise to a great display of address, subtlety, and
sagacity in the explanation and distinction of abstract ideas, but at
the same time to many trifling and minute speculations, to a contempt of
positive and particular knowledge, and to much unnecessary
refinement.[39] Fleury well observes, that the dry technical style of
the schoolmen, affecting a geometrical method and closeness, is in fact
more prolix and tedious, than one more natural, from its formality in
multiplying objections and answers.[40] And as their reasonings commonly
rest on disputable postulates, the accuracy they affect is of no sort of
value. But their chief offences were the interposing obstacles to the
revival of polite literature, and to the free expansion of the mind.
Italy was the land where the schoolmen had least influence; many of the
Italians who had a turn for those discussions repaired to Paris,[41] and
it was accordingly from Italy that the light of philological learning
spread over Europe. Public schools of theology were not opened in Italy
till after 1360.[42] Yet we find the disciples of Averroes numerous in
the university of Padua about that time.

  [39] Manuel de la Philosophie, i. 337. Eichhorn, ii. 396.

  [40] See 5me discours, xvii. 30-50.

  [41] Tiraboschi, v. 115.

  [42] Id. 137, 160. De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, iii. 757.

|Literature in modern languages.|

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1

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