The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Dilthey - Auffassung und Analyse des Menschen im 15. u. 16. Jahrhundert - Part 1
The metaphysics of the middle ages had, in virtue of its connection with theology, maintained its influence over the European spirit until the fourteenth century. In this metaphysics, three elements were blended. First, the religious motive, of which the essential element is included in the relation which exists between the human and the Divine; whether there be a belief in a plurality of gods or in one. But this strictly theological conception, largely through the influence of priests and teachers, became connected with morality. There arose the thoughts of a divine law-giver and judge, and of means to escape punishment. The religious disposition is also connected, though less intimately, with the intellect, and gives rise to the metaphysical conception of the dependence of the world and the soul upon God. Second, the æsthetico-scientific element, the chief thoughts of which are contained in the idea of the intelligible and harmonious order of all reality; that of a highest intellect or world reason as ground of the world, and as the bond between the existent and human knowledge. The third element has found its expression in the mode of thought and natural metaphysics of the Romans. The attitude of the will, as indicated by the conceptions of sovereignty, freedom, law, and justice, forms the point of departure for understanding the world, and for forming metaphysical notions. Thus, from the conception of law, arises the thought of a natural reason. The Romans were the first to recognize that institutions created by the will, such as family, property, etc., are based upon a naturalis ratio, an inviolable reasonableness and purposiveness. The law itself is a "raison ècrite," and gives articulate expression to the purposiveness in the established relations of life. From these three sources arose the metaphysics of the middle ages which swayed Europe for so many centuries, and is still to-day the foundation of our popular religious metaphysics. The spirit of the Reformation went back to the religious consciousness in its natural free activity. Machiavelli renewed the Roman conception of political supremacy; Grotius, Descartes, and Spinoza, that of the autonomy of the moral and scientific reason. The great transformation in the relations of life, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gave rise to an extensive literature, in which the internal life of man was described and subjected to reflection. This new literature may be said to have been created by Petrarch. He pointed out that the ancient philosophers had regarded the human soul as the one object best worth knowing and admiring. He conceived the ideal of becoming a man well rounded and complete; of living a life full and entire. Machiavelli, by his revival of the study of Roman politics, created a new conception of humanity, and exerted an important influence upon Marlowe and Shakespeare, as well as upon Hobbes and Spinoza. He was the first to bring the Roman conception of imperialism into relation with the new conditions of the modern peoples. He prepared the way for Montaigne, whose importance in the transformation of thought from the mediæval to the modern point of view is most important. His Essais are permeated with the thought of the moral independence of the individual. In his spiritual disposition, and in his attitude towards life, he is the prototype of Descartes, whom he influenced in many particulars.