" Corresponding
with the new ardor for the arts, and in sympathy with it, was a newly
awakened and generally diffused ardor for learning, especially for the
various branches of philosophy. Science was leaving the cloister, in
which she had sat in dumb solitude, and coming out into the world. But
the limits and divisions of knowledge were not firmly marked. The
relations of learning to life were not clearly understood. The science
of mathematics was not yet so advanced as to bind philosophy to
exactness. The intellects of men were quickened by a new sense of
freedom, and stimulated by ardor of imagination. New worlds of
undiscovered knowledge loomed vaguely along the horizon. Philosophy
invaded the sphere of poetry, while, on the other hand, poetry gave its
form to much of the prevailing philosophy. To be a proper poet was not
only to be a writer of verses, but to be a master of learning.
Boccaccio describes Guido Cavalcanti as "one of the best logicians in
the world, and as a most excellent natural philosopher,"[10] but says
nothing of his poetry. Dante, more than any other man of his time,
resumed in himself the general zeal for knowledge. His genius had two
distinct, and yet often intermingling parts,--the poetic and the
scientific.
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