American Philological Association

Classical Philology and Humanism Author(s): Werner Jaeger Reviewed work(s): Source: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 67 (1936), pp. 363-374 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/283246 . Accessed: 29/05/2012 13:53
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XXV.-Classical

Philology and Humanism1

WERNER
UNIVERSITY

The disruption of Western civilization which we are witnessing, with the rise of the doctrine that culture and knowledge are nationalistic possessions, dividing group from group, rather than expressions of kinship binding the heirs of a common heritage into closer union, dismays not only disinterested philosophers and educators, but men of foresight and good will in all walks of life. It is of deep concern to classical scholars, for in the past it has been their primary function to transmit from generation to generation one of the great unifying traditions. This is the heritage, received from the ancient world, of classical humanism. What especially troubles those who like myself still seek to perform this function is a division within our own group which has widened within the last halfcentury as a result of the application of scientific methods to the study of classical literature and archaeology. Undoubtedly these methods have in a multitude of ways renewed the vitality of our subject, and have increased both our knowledge and understanding of the ancient world. But the extreme concentration upon them in our day and the narrow specialization which they have produced threaten to obscure and nullify our main service to society, never more needed than today, of keeping alive and developing the universal tradition of humanism. That a reconciliation between the older conception of humanistic studies and the newer type of classical scholarship is possible and is indeed being effected I believe. But a conflict between them in varying degrees of acuteness still exists, which must be resolved if the study of antiquity is to perform its noblest function in the modern world.
1I am greatly indebted to Professor G. L. Hendrickson of Yale University for his extraordinary kindness in revising and condensing my article for It owes much of its present form to his generous assistance. publication.

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I recall very vividly how after nine years spent in a classical school of the old type I entered the university, and learned as one of the achievements of scientific scholarship that "humanism" was a pseudo-Greek word of recent origin, and that both the word and its content of meaning were under strict ban from the vocabulary of classical philology. It was a painful shock to the tradition and creed in which I had been brought up, by teachers who had held before me the august ideal of humanism, receiving authority from such venerable names as Humboldt, Winckelmann, and Goethe. At first I saw no chance of bridging the gap between this older tradition of humanism as a cultural ideal, and the exact scientific scholarship which was offered me by my philological and archaeological teachers. I should indeed have been tempted to abandon altogether my classical studies had I not observed that in the best of my teachers, behind the rigidity and a certain bigotry of scientific method, there glowed an ardor which gave to the interpretation of ancient literature warmth and vitality. In them I discerned a conflict between the rigorous philologist and the humanist, in which however the humanist was only admitted apologetically. I speak of my own experience because it was typical of the situation in Germany, and it may serve as a point of departure for considering what reconciliation is possible between these conflicting conceptions of classical study. It is a problem which our generation has inherited from its immediate predecessors, and I have outlined it in this personal form suspecting that my own case is not isolated, but symptomatic of wider concern. The antagonism between the newer science of antiquity and the older humanism was perhaps most acute in Germany, which formed the center and starting point of that exact critical scholarship which had revolutionized the humanistic studies of earlier centuries. But German example spread quickly to the whole world and it trained competitors in the same avenues of approach to classical study and involved

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them in the same problem. There remained, to be sure, in many countries an unbroken humanistic tradition which could not be entirely overwhelmed by the new scholarship, but broadly speaking its effect was to create an undecided conflict and a feeling of uncertainty about the legitimacy of the one conception of our function or of the other. It would be interesting to attempt a characterization of the classical scholarship of the different countries of Europe as modified by the impact of the new critical study of antiquity, but it would take us too far afield. Let it suffice to say that America, perhaps more than any other country, has inclined to the modern German type of classical study, although individual Americans have criticised it sharply. Thus, speaking generally, in the university world of the nineteenth century the old humanism had given way more and more to scientific research in classical philology and archaeology, though not without some resistance. What was the cause of this change? How did it happen that philological study, the child of humanism, had turned against it? The beginnings of this development go back to times when humanism was still dominant. Humanism, which was in its origins the creation of the great Italian poets of the early Renaissance and of the neo-Latin poets and prose writers, competing with the ancients in their own forms and language, had by the end of the sixteenth century narrowed to a sterile erudition. From this later phase of humanism a new antiquarian and critical study of the ancient world developed, no longer looking to the re-creation of a modern literature on ancient models, but to a comprehensive knowledge of the ancient world. The cardinal point in this development was reached in the second half of the eighteenth century, when for the first time the historical sense awoke in reaction against the rationalism of the age of reason. The German neohumanism of Winckelmann and Humboldt and Goethe was to be sure in no small degree determined by the abstract rationalism of the earlier time. It sought an absolute ideal

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of man, and found in the Greeks the one revelation of the highest harmony and completeness of human life. But the type of classical scholarship which grew up in Germany at the end of the eighteenth and in the early nineteenth century was animated by a new feeling, a newly awakened historical sense. Its goal was the knowledge of ancient life as a whole. The spiritual values of literature still held their place supreme, but a new element entered into this study, an impulse to understand them not in isolation, but against the background of their time. That meant the reconstruction of the history of their time. Not the old history, which was a mere re-telling of the story as recorded by the ancient historians, but a history put together from sources of every kind-inscriptions, archaeological monuments and remains, papyri from the dry sands of Egypt, fragments of lost works of literature salvaged by antiquarian or grammatical lore, nothing in short overlooked which might serve to fill a gap of knowledge and complete the reconstruction of the past. Great provinces which up to that time had owed scant allegiance to general classical scholarship-such as Greek philosophy or Roman law-were reclaimed for the classical scholar and compelled to pay their tribute to the central whole. In.place of a limited number of classical models, to which the old humanism had paid homage, there was now set up as the goal of study a panorama of historical development extending through centuries. A particular curiosity and interest attached to all that was new, to the discovery of facts or materials, literary or archaeological, which were before unknown. The great culminating points of antiquity lost favor in comparison with the early and the late. The example of Mommsen's penetrating studies of Rome kindled the youthful Wilamowitz to a similar breadth of view in his studies of the classical and Hellenistic periods of Greece. He was eager to know all that had existed from the earliest times to late antiquity. When asked what his research had to offer in place of the old classical ideal for the education of youth, his

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answer was: a survey of the whole development of one of the highest civilizations in all the stages of its history. The dominating spirit of this formulation of purpose was historical and scientific, not humanistic. Other scholars went further and declared that the function of classical scholarship was to serve as a tool for the historian, or again, that precise knowledge of ancient idiom in language or in art was only a pathway leading to 'higher' historical conclusions. It was accounted heresy and bumptiousness when as a young man, in my inaugural address as professor at Bale, I protested against such views and their acceptance as axioms, and defended the contemplation and understanding of the immortal masterpieces of ancient art and literature as an aim in itself. I went even further and contended that the role of history and all its apparatus of research was rather to give them background and setting. That which led even so sympathetic a scholar as Wilamowitz to protest repeatedly against the old classicism was the fact that the picture of the ancient world, as conceived of and as represented by the humanists, was grossly idealized and simplified. They did not in truth aim to understand the real life of the classical world at all. Their only care was for types and ideals which they found in certain works of the great authors, and these they took over without further inquiry as pertinent to their own lives and times. In historical evolution they had no interest and indeed no conception of it. Obviously no one with a developed historical feeling could contemplate with complacency the notion that even the greatest works of ancient art and literature represented final and absolute standards of human perfection. History goes on and must go on. Thus the road back to the old humanism could not be retraced. The question of humanism however arose again when the position of the classics in education and in general public esteem began to be menaced. In some instances even before the World War, but especially since then, in almost every Western country manifestations of a revival of this question

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have been seen. In Germany the periodical Die Antike has for the past dozen years presented in non-technical and attractive form the results of philological and archaeological research. In the English speaking countries and in France this revival has been marked by the great series of translations with original texts, such as the Loeb Classical Library, and the Collection des Universites de France. Their extraordinary success is a symptom of an unsuspected interest. At the congress of the Association Bude in Nice in 1935 the whole problem of humanism played a leading part; and impulse was given to make of the next meeting a world congress dealing with this theme, contemplating an international organization of the friends of humanism. As has been said, some of these movements go back to a time shortly before the World War. It was not until then that we had faced the consequences of the great spiritual and social revolution which, almost imperceptibly, had come about during the nineteenth century. One manifestation of this revolution was the decline of classical studies in the schools. The rising masses of the population were without an intellectual tradition, while on the other hand the class which had enjoyed a classical education and maintained its traditions was either in decline or no longer sure of its own ideals. The classical scholarship of the universities, trained in the modern school of philological and archaeological research, had at its disposal undreamed-of treasures of knowledge and illustration, but it looked at esthetic and ethical humanism, which had earlier been the driving force of classical education, as the lost faith of its childhood. Thus that which had constituted the inner force and inspiration of these studies in school and college, was now without support from its recognized leaders. The decline went on. There were experiments without end and a hundred recipes were tried, but there was lack of faith. When the teacher in the school sought aid from the scholarship of the university he was told that faith was a private affair; that it was not the business of scholarship to establish values,

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but to investigate and discover truth. But in fact, as we have seen, scholars were unable to justify humanistic education in terms of the older faith. The defense took on an organized form; societies were formed, groups of alumni, influential personages in social and political life, all were invoked to stem the adverse tide; but no better arguments were advanced than the incomparable formal training afforded by the ancient languages, and the great importance of knowing thoroughly the history of Greece and Rome. But the truth was that the unique position of the so-called 'ancient world' had been shaken by the disclosure of ancient civilizations which had long preceded it. Thousands of years had been added to 'ancient' history, and (as in philosophy) historical relativism seemed to be the inescapable consequence of new perspectives in the long history of mankind. Thus the old hierarchy of values had disappeared; and from the first place in the announcements of university courses classical philology was compelled to assume a modest or even minor place among its alphabetical sisters. The war revolutionized everything here as elsewhere. It threw us back to the very foundations of our existence-to a consciousness and realization that classical antiquity was one of those foundations, in something more than the sense of a mere historical influence. It was a crisis that served to reveal the true position of the ancient world in the scheme of our present time. It is a lasting law of the human spirit that whenever one of its fundamental values seems to have lost meaning and significance, it must be traced back to its origins for re-assessment. This is the law of renaissance, since 'renaissance' is not merely the name of a particular event and time. It is a rhythm in the spiritual movement of history, recurring from time to time, a concomitant of the pressure of the spiritual atmosphere. Confidence and self-assertion are promoted by a return to the culminating points of life, and a revival of inner values modifies our conception of history and sets it in a new light.

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The values of life are historical values, which means that life in the past has shaped their form. The mind is not a white paper, receiving only the immediate impressions of surrounding nature and social environment. It is a living thing, taking shape continually from the record of past experience. History is more than a record of external temporal facts; it is a repository in which abiding values are constantly accumulating. It is more than the memory of the past; it is the spiritual presence of the imperishable. The historian in the usual sense of the word is the recorder of events as events; but behind him stands the sympathetic scholar, versed in the medium of a work of literature or art, guardian of tradition, able to interpret to us the abiding values which have had and continue to have meaning for our life. The newer historical study of the classics of ancient literature and art interprets their values and measures them by standards differing from those which the old humanism invoked. But this newer type of study exists and should continue to exist only on the assumption that these values exist. It cannot in the long run maintain life if it sinks to a mere technique and method, indifferent to its subject matter. The very standards of exactness which it vaunts have developed from the belief that it was dealing with the fragments of a world which was believed to be of unlimited value. The older classicists' conception of the significance of ancient literature and art rested upon a dogmatic assumption that its monuments were to be regarded as setting absolute standards of excellence, timeless and perfect. It was derived immediately from later Greek and Roman writers, who canonized the masterpieces of earlier centuries as a gallery of models to be forever imitated. Each author and each work had its place in a fixed canon which admitted no newcomers, and to each was attached a carefully weighed predication of attributes or qualities. When with awakening historical sense this whole unreal and abstract structure collapsed, the monuments of Greek

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and Roman literature stood forth fresh and new, in the fullness of their living form and content, the expression of individual men and times. They were free to be read and understood as they were, without thought of furnishing models of excellence or of having any relation to educational ends. But though they were released from a r61e which their authors can never have contemplated, there emanates from them nevertheless an emotion and spiritual elevation, educative in the highest sense, which no one can fail to experience who approaches them with earnest purpose to understand. Even the strict mastery which scholars seek is most rewarded where this spiritual influence is most deeply felt. Appreciation will have different degrees of clarity, from the vague stir of enthusiasm, and realization that one's own life is involved in the poet's words, to the sharp and distinct perception of exact meanings. There is no limit to the intensification of our understanding of the spiritual world. An esthetic nature will perhaps respond more immediately to the fascination of form. But the works of the ancients represent to us something still more comprehensive-a world of the highest human values. The best way to explain this is perhaps to go back to the views which the Greeks themselves held of poetry and of spiritual creation. To them the work of art was never a mere object of esthetic pleasure. It was the bearer of an ethos, a feeling or intention of the artist which has sought ideal expression, and found it. It was true to life, not realistic in the narrow sense of mere verisimilitude, but true in the perfection or excellence (arete) of the object represented. The subject of their art is always man in all the essential relations of his existence to life, to nature, and to destiny. Where poetry ceases and the content of thought calls for prose-oratory, history, philosophy-the same rule holds. The literature of the Greeks offers thus a splendid spectacle: the striving of the human spirit for the abiding expression of its ideals, the moulding of human excellence (its arete) from the heroic stage of the epic to the

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later phases of the tragic, the political, the philosophical man. The embodiment of these values in art was to be sure only what the Greek could create out of his Greek environment, and we have learned not to separate works of the spirit from their proper environment, as the older humanists did. We have learned to feel them more vividly and individually by referring them to the time and place and atmosphere of their origins. This does not mean however that we should see these works resolved into the history of their time and become merely sources for our knowledge of a bygone age. On the contrary the effort to grasp them in their first setting causes us to understand better how and why they had the strength to rise above their time into the regions of permanence and timelessness. It is precisely this timelessness which history records. The revelation of heroic humanity in Homer did not seem antiquated to the Greeks of a later and more rational period. It maintained its validity far beyond a thousand years, and remained the foundation of culture through successive centuries of Greek life. In a similar way each new period made its contribution to that which the Greeks at the culminating point of their consciousness, in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ, called their teaching, their lesson (paideia). Since they sought to mould the universal in the individual, in literature as well as in the plastic arts, their creative thought transcended the bounds of their own national existence, and in missionary spirit they early strove to extend their culture to other people. Thus Isocrates attributes to this Greek paideia an educational function for the whole of humanity. The Romans in Cicero's time proved the best interpreters of this continuing function of the Greek spirit, and expressed it by their rendering of the Greek paideia with the Latin humanitas, the ideal manifestation of man. It is from this meaning of the Latin word, as the spiritual development of man through art and thought and literature, that our concept of humanism and its name has come.

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Thus even in antiquity the problem was propounded: to explain the mysterious circumstance that ideals and standards of excellence shaped under particular historical conditions by a particular people could maintain their validity and their inspiration for other times and other peoples, and become in fact human culture in a universal sense. Efforts will be made again and again to explain this quality of Greek culture and its Roman derivative. For us it is enough to know that it is so, and its truth is proven by the experience of the centuries since its origin. I have attempted to show that the nature and the tasks of modern classical study need not stand in any antithesis to the older humanism. They are rather the form of humanism suited to our times and to the modern habit of scientific thought and inquiry. We must not abandon nor fail to use any of the achievements of the exact scholarship of our day. On the other hand I maintain and champion the essential truth of the older humanism: that knowledge and study of the ancient world is a unique civilizing and creative power in the life of nations and of individuals. The forms and moulds which the ancient world created as the expression of their highest culture are not for us ultimate ends to attain and to reproduce, but they remain the foundation stones upon which is built our occidental civilization. This civilization is a product of repeated recurrence to the ancient tradition, from which in turn it has drawn impulse to new creation. One 'renaissance' has succeeded anotherfrom the Carolingian time, through the great Renaissance, down to the neo-Hellenism of the early nineteenth centurymarking periodic returns to the regenerating power of the common source. The reciprocal influences of the classical inheritance and of original creation, each upon the other, constitute the underlying unity of the spiritual life of the Western world. Humanism itself is an expanding term, and what was once applied only to the study of the Greco-Roman world has its

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application to all literatures and languages and art which are capable of making contribution to the human spirit. The study of peoples and tongues which lie outside the circle of Greek and Roman origins furnishes windows, so to speak, through which the Western spirit is able to contemplate other races and alien ideals, to contrast them with itself, and to learn from them. It is the open-minded receptivity of Greek curiosity and inquiry (historia in the proper meaning), still living in modern research, which impels us to enrich ourselves in this way with what the Greeks called "the wisdom of the barbarians." The nations of the modern world, severed by boundaries of space and language and national usage, understand one another only to the degree in which they understand the spiritual language which is the common hereditary idiom of our being. In so far as we live for the task of shaping and developing mankind according to the laws and potentialities of man's nature, we live in a world which I venture to call hellenocentric-a spiritual world revolving about the sun of Hellenic wisdom. The planets of this world will not fade into darkness so long as this central sun does not lose its splendor.