Page 26 - Annales EH 1998-2018

the Second

Humanist Revolution

Eco-Humanism

•

by Henry Beissel

umanism is a the human mind as to render them eruption. Their call was to the liberation
philosophical incapable of arriving at reliable, true of human beings and of the human spirit.
and literary insights into the nature of things They went back to the philosophers of
movement that without divine guidance. All knowledge antiquity and recovered from the classical
Hchanged the face of and truth had their source in God and Greek and Roman texts the ideas of
the world. Born in late 14th and early were therefore revelatory, not the fruit human freedom, of the worth of the
15th century Italy as a protest against of human reason and observation. individual, of democratic government,
the dogmatic absolutism of mediaeval But the human spirit will not, and of scientific and intellectual inquiry
Catholicism, it quickly spread across in the long run, be suppressed, and after truth and the nature of things.
Europe and created the intellectual everything is in constant flux and The consequences of this revolution
conditions for the Renaissance, must change. Every system of thought in our ideas about ourselves and the
thus launching the modern age. and action contains the seeds of world are difficult to exaggerate. It was
The Middle Ages saw the social order its own transcendence. Behind the as though a new and brilliant light
on earth as an imperfect replica of the apparently rigid, dogmatic exterior had burst upon a gloomy darkness.
order of Heaven – a hierarchy centred on of medieval Catholicism, forces were Renaissance painting conveys a visceral
God who had assigned, just as in heaven at work to undermine it. Theological sense of this startling illumination of
his angels and seraphim, everyone on disputes grappling with doctrinal the world. It resounds with the cry for
earth his or her place on the ladder of contradictions eventually reasserted the freedom – freedom from repression
social rank – from the king at the top ability of the human mind to discover by dogma, by self-appointed authority,
to the poor, unlettered and bondaged truth by observation and thought, by the warlords of Church and State.
peasants and labourers at the bottom. though only under the guidance and Humanism set in motion the slow,
It was a static worldview, convenient ultimate authority of the Church. tumultuous march towards democracy; it
and flattering to those enjoying power If the humanist revolution was thus opened doors and windows to scientific
and privilege, but a life sentence of prepared by the soul-searching debates inquiry and promoted the technological
slavery for the majority of people. within the fortress of medieval Faith, application of its insights; it liberated
This social structure was built the humanist thinkers of the 14th education from stifling traditions and
on an equally confining doctrinaire and 15th centuries, who rose in revolt established the study of the liberal arts
intellectual base. The Fall of Adam against the repressive dominance of as the true path to self-realization.
and Eve, the Catholic Church taught, the Church, nevertheless broke upon The arts took a dramatic turn away
had so corrupted human senses and the scene with the force of a volcanic from the artificialities of myth, legend