Chapter XVI: History and Philosophy

Frivolity of Renaissance Literature--The Contrast presented by Machiavelli--His Sober Style--Positive Spirit--The Connection of his Works--Two Men in Machiavelli--His Political Philosophy--The _Patria_--Place of Religion and Ethics in his System--Practical Object of his Writings--Machiavellism--His Conception of Nationality--His Relation to the Renaissance--Contrast between Machiavelli and Guicciardini--Guicciardini's Doctrine of Self-interest--The Code of Italian Corruption--The Connection between these Historians and the Philosophers--General Character of Italian Philosophy--The Middle Ages in Dissolution--Transition to Modern Thought and Science--Humanism counterposed to Scholasticism--Petrarch--Pico--Dialogues on Ethics--Importance of Greek and Latin Studies--Classical substituted for Ecclesiastical Authority--Platonism at Florence--Ficino--Translations--New Interest in the Problem of Life--Valla's Hedonism--The Dialogue _De Voluptate_--Aristotle at Padua and Bologna--Arabian and Greek Commentators--Life of Pietro Pomponazzi--His Book on Immortality--His Controversies--Pomponazzi's Standpoint--Unlimited Belief in Aristotle--Retrospect over the Aristotelian Doctrine of God, the World, the Human Soul--Three Problems in the Aristotelian System--Universals--The First Period of Scholastic Speculation--Individuality--The Second Period of Scholasticism--Thomas Aquinas--The Nature of the Soul--New Impulse given to Speculation by the Renaissance--Averroism--The Lateran Council--Is the Soul Immortal?--Pomponazzi reconstructs Aristotle's Doctrine by help of Alexander of Aphrodisias--The Soul is Material and Mortal--Man's Place in Nature--Virtue is the End of Man--Pomponazzi on Miracles and Spirits--His Distinction between the Philosopher and the Christian--The Book on Fate--Pomponazzi the Precursor--Coarse Materialism--The School of Cosenza--Aristotle's Authority Rejected--Telesio--Campanella--Bruno--The Church stifles Philosophy in Italy--Italian Positivism 429

CHAPTER XVII.