In the middle ages 145

on the shoulders of giants, they enjoyed a promi-

nence which they did not deserve,

IV

One last corollary — and not the least important

— is born of this impersonal character of learning

and its progressive constitution. Philosophy is not

something essentially mobile, some dazzling chi-

mera, which disappears or changes with the succeed-

ing epochs, but it possesses a sort of perenniality.

It forms a monument, to which are always added

new stones. The truth of the time of the Greeks is

still the truth of the time of Thomas Aquinas and

of Duns Scotus. Truth is something enduring. Of

course, there is left a place for progress and ex-

tension in hmnan knowledge, there are adaptations

of certain doctrines to social conditions; this ap-

pears, for example, in the scholastic doctrine of the

mutability of ethical laws. But the principles which

rule the logical, ethical and social activities remain

unchanged; they are like human nature of which

they are expressions, and which does not change,^^

or like the order of essences which is ultimately

based on divine immutability. Nothing is more

contrary to the spirit of scholastic philosophy than

the modern temper of displacing preceding contri-

butions with one's own, doing away with tradition,

and beginning de novo the upbuilding of thought.

From this standpoint we may say that the philoso-

11 See below ch. XII, i.

146 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

phers of the thirteenth century are conscious of the

responsibihty of building for eternity.

Nor is it different in the other branches of knowl-

edge, — in civil and canon law, and in the social and

political realm. Thus Dante, who on so many

questions reveals the spirit of his time, begins his

De Monarchia with a significant statement in this

connection. I give the opening sentences of that

unique treatise. "All men," he says, "whose su-

perior nature inculcates the love of ti*uth, have, as

their chief care, it seems, to work for posterity.

Just as they themselves were enriched by the work

of the ancients, so must they leave to posterity a

profitable good. Now, of what use would that man

be who demonstrated some theorem of Euclid

anew ; or he who tried to show again, after Aristotle

had done so, wherein happiness hes; or again, he

who attempted after Cicero the defense of the

aged? . . . This wearying superfluity of work

would be of no avail." And then he continues:

"Now as the knowledge of the temporal monarchy

is to be considered as the most useful of the truths

which still remain hidden, and as it is extremely ob-

scure, my object is to bring it out into the open

with the twofold end of giving humanity a useful

witness of my solicitude and of gaining for myself

(keeping in view my own glory) the reward which

such a work deserves." Like all the rest, though

with a modest store of ambition besides, Dante

dreams of writing for eternitji.