The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and written by Alfred Biese

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING FOR NATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES
AND MODERN TIMES

by

ALFRED BIESE

Director of the K. K. Gymnasium at Neuwied

Authorized translation from the German

1905

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The encouraging reception of my "Development of the Feeling for
Nature among the Greeks and Romans" gradually decided me, after some
years, to carry the subject on to modern tunes. Enticing as it was, I
did not shut my eyes to the great difficulties of a task whose
dimensions have daunted many a savant since the days of Humboldt's
clever, terse sketches of the feeling for Nature in different times
and peoples. But the subject, once approached, would not let me go.
Its solution seemed only possible from the side of historical
development, not from that of _a priori_ synthesis. The almost
inexhaustible amount of material, especially towards modern times,
has often obliged me to limit myself to typical forerunners of the
various epochs, although, at the same time, I have tried not to lose
the thread of general development. By the addition of the chief
phases of landscape, painting, and garden craft, I have aimed at
giving completeness to the historical picture; but I hold that
literature, especially poetry, as the most intimate medium of a
nation's feelings, is the chief source of information in an enquiry
which may form a contribution, not only to the history of taste, but
also to the comparative history of literature. At a time too when the
natural sciences are so highly developed, and the cult of Nature is
so widespread, a book of this kind may perhaps claim the interest of
that wide circle of educated readers to whom the modern delight in
Nature on its many sides makes appeal. And this the more, since books
are rare which seek to embrace the whole mental development of the
Middle Ages and modern times, and are, at the same time, intended for
and intelligible to all people of cultivation.

The book has been a work of love, and I hope it will be read with
pleasure, not only by those whose special domain it touches, but by
all who care for the eternal beauties of Nature. To those who know my
earlier papers in the _Preussische Jahrbuecher_, the _Zeitschrift fuer
Vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte_, and the _Litteraturbeilage des
Hamburgischen Correspondents_, I trust this fuller and more connected
treatment of the theme will prove welcome.

ALFRED BIESE.

Published Translations of the following Authors have been used:

SANSCRIT.--Jones, Wilson, Arnold, anonymous translator in a
publication of the Society for Resuscitation of Ancient Literature.

LATIN AND GREEK.--Lightfoot, Jowett, Farrar, Lodge, Dalrymple, Bigg,
Pilkington, Hodgkin, De Montalembert, Gary, Lok, Murray, Gibb, a
translator in Bonn's Classics.

ITALIAN.--Gary, Longfellow, Cayley, Robinson, Kelly, Bent, Hoole,
Roscoe, Leigh Hunt, Lofft, Astley, Oliphant.

GERMAN.--Horton and Bell, Middlemore, Lytton, Swanwick, Dwight,
Boylau, Bowling, Bell, Aytoun, Martin, Oxenford, Morrison, M'Cullum,
Winkworth, Howorth, Taylor, Nind, Brooks, Lloyd, Frothingham, Ewing,
Noel, Austin, Carlyle, Storr, Weston, Phillips.

SPANISH.--Markham, Major, Bowring, Hasell, M'Carthy, French.

FRENCH.--Anonymous translator of Rousseau.

PORTUGUESE.--Aubertin.

The Translator's thanks are also due to the author for a few
alterations in and additions to the text, and to Miss Edgehill, Miss
Tomlinson, and Dr B. Scheifers for translations from Greek and Latin,
Italian, and Middle German respectively.

INTRODUCTION

Nature in her ever-constant, ever-changing phases is indispensable to
man, his whole existence depends upon her, and she influences him in
manifold ways, in mind as well as body.

The physical character of a country is reflected in its inhabitants;
the one factor of climate alone gives a very different outlook to
northerner and southerner. But whereas primitive man, to whom the
darkness of night meant anxiety, either feared Nature or worshipped
her with awe, civilised man tries to lift her veil, and through
science and art to understand her inner and outer beauty--the
scientist in her laws, the man of religion in her relation to his
Creator, the artist in reproducing the impressions she makes upon
him.

Probably it has always been common to healthy minds to take some
pleasure in her; but it needs no slight culture of heart and mind to
grasp her meaning and make it clear to others. Her book lies open
before us, but the interpretations have been many and dissimilar. A
fine statue or a richly-coloured picture appeals to all, but only
knowledge can appreciate it at its true value and discover the full
meaning of the artist. And as with Art, so with Nature.

For Nature is the greatest artist, though dumb until man, with his
inexplicable power of putting himself in her place, transferring to
her his bodily and mental self, gives her speech.

Goethe said 'man never understands how anthropomorphic he is.' No
study, however comprehensive, enables him to overstep human limits,
or conceive a concrete being, even the highest, from a wholly
impersonal point of view. His own self always remains an encumbering
factor. In a real sense he only understands himself, and his measure
for all things is man. To understand the world outside him, he must
needs ascribe his own attributes to it, must lend his own being to
find it again.

This unexplained faculty, or rather inherent necessity, which implies
at once a power and a limit, extends to persons as well as things.
The significant word sympathy expresses it. To feel a friend's grief
is to put oneself in his place, think from his standpoint and in his
mood--that is, suffer with him. The fear and sympathy which condition
the action of tragedy depend upon the same mental process; one's own
point of view is shifted to that of another, and when the two are in
harmony, and only then, the claim of beauty is satisfied, and
aesthetic pleasure results.

By the well-known expression of Greek philosophy, 'like is only
understood by like,' the Pythagoreans meant that the mathematically
trained mind is the organ by which the mathematically constructed
cosmos is understood. The expression may also serve as an aesthetic
aphorism. The charm of the simplest lyrical song depends upon the
hearer's power to put himself in the mood or situation described by
the poet, on an interplay between subject and object.

Everything in mental life depends upon this faculty. We observe,
ponder, feel, because a kindred vibration in the object sets our own
fibres in motion.

'You resemble the mind which you understand.'

It is a magic bridge from our own mind, making access possible to a
work of art, an electric current conveying the artist's ideas into
our souls.

We know how a drama or a song can thrill us when our feeling vibrates
with it; and that thrill, Faust tells us, is the best part of man.

If inventive work in whatever art or science gives the purest kind of
pleasure, Nature herself seeming to work through the artist, rousing
those impulses which come to him as revelations, there is pleasure
also in the passive reception of beauty, especially when we are not
content to remain passive, but trace out and rethink the artist's
thoughts, remaking his work.

'To invent for oneself is beautiful; but to recognise gladly and
treasure up the happy inventions of others is that less thine?' said
Goethe in his _Jahreszeiten_; and in the _Aphorisms_, confirming what
has just been said: 'We know of no world except in relation to man,
we desire no art but that which is the expression of this relation.'
And, further, 'Look into yourselves and you will find everything, and
rejoice if outside yourselves, as you may say, lies a Nature which
says yea and amen to all that you have found there.'

Certainly Nature only bestows on man in proportion to his own inner
wealth. As Rueckert says, 'the charm of a landscape lies in this, that
it seems to reflect back that part of one's inner life, of mind,
mood, and feeling, which we have given it.' And Ebers, 'Lay down your
best of heart and mind before eternal Nature; she will repay you a
thousandfold, with full hands.'

And Vischer remarks, 'Nature at her greatest is not so great that she
can work without man's mind.' Every landscape can be beautiful and
stimulating if human feeling colours it, and it will be most so to
him who brings the richest endowment of heart and mind to bear:
Nature only discloses her whole self to a whole man.

But it is under the poet's wand above all, that, like the marble at
Pygmalion's breast, she grows warm and breathes and answers to his
charm; as in that symbolic saga, the listening woods and waters and
the creatures followed Orpheus with his lute. Scientific knowledge,
optical, acoustical, meteorological, geological, only widens and
deepens love for her and increases and refines the sense of her
beauty. In short, deep feeling for Nature always proves considerable
culture of heart and mind.

There is a constant analogy between the growth of this feeling and
that of general culture.

As each nation and time has its own mode of thought, which is
constantly changing, so each period has its 'landscape eye.' The same
rule applies to individuals. Nature, as Jean Paul said, is made
intelligible to man in being for ever made flesh. We cannot look at
her impersonally, we must needs give her form and soul, in order to
grasp and describe her.

Vischer says[1] 'it is simply by an act of comparison that we think
we see our own life in inanimate objects.' We say that Nature's
clearness is like clearness of mind, that her darkness and gloom are
like a dark and gloomy mood; then, omitting 'like,' we go on to
ascribe our qualities directly to her, and say, this neighbourhood,
this air, this general tone of colour, is cheerful, melancholy, and
so forth. Here we are prompted by an undeveloped dormant
consciousness which really only compares, while it seems to take one
thing for another. In this way we come to say that a rock projects
boldly, that fire rages furiously over a building, that a summer
evening with flocks going home at sunset is peaceful and idyllic;
that autumn, dripping with rain, its willows sighing in the wind, is
elegiac and melancholy and so forth.

Perhaps Nature would not prove to be this ready symbol of man's inner
life were there no secret rapport between the two. It is as if, in
some mysterious way, we meet in her another mind, which speaks a
language we know, wakening a foretaste of kinship; and whether the
soul she expresses is one we have lent her, or her own which we have
divined, the relationship is still one of give and take.

Let us take a rapid survey of the course of this feeling in
antiquity. Pantheism has always been the home of a special tenderness
for Nature, and the poetry of India is full of intimate dealings
between man and plants and animals.

They are found in the loftiest flights of religious enthusiasm in the
Vedas, where, be it only in reference to the splendour of dawn or the
'golden-handed sun,' Nature is always assumed to be closely connected
with man's inner and outer life. Later on, as Brahminism appeared,
deepening the contemplative side of Hindoo character, and the drama
and historical plays came in, generalities gave way to definite
localizing, and in the Epics ornate descriptions of actual landscape
took independent place. Nature's sympathy with human joys and griefs
was taken for granted, and she played a part of her own in drama.

In the _Mahabharata_, when Damajanti is wandering in search of her
lost Nala and sees the great mountain top, she asks it for her
prince.

Oh mountain lord!
Far seen and celebrated hill, that cleav'st
The blue o' the sky, refuge of living things,
Most noble eminence, I worship thee!...
O Mount, whose double ridge stamps on the sky
Yon line, by five-score splendid pinnacles
Indented; tell me, in this gloomy wood
Hast thou seen Nala? Nala, wise and bold!
Ah mountain! why consolest thou me not,
Answering one word to sorrowful, distressed,
Lonely, lost Damajanti?

And when she comes to the tree Asoka, she implores:

Ah, lovely tree! that wavest here
Thy crown of countless shining clustering blooms
As thou wert woodland king! Asoka tree!
Tree called the sorrow-ender, heart's-ease tree!
Be what thy name saith; end my sorrow now,
Saying, ah, bright Asoka, thou hast seen
My Prince, my dauntless Nala--seen that lord
Whom Damajanti loves and his foes fear.

In Maghas' epic, _The Death of Sisupala_, plants and animals lead the
same voluptuous life as the 'deep-bosomed, wide-hipped' girls with
the ardent men.

'The mountain Raivataka touches the ether with a thousand heads,
earth with a thousand feet, the sun and moon are his eyes. When the
birds are tired and tremble with delight from the caresses of their
mates, he grants them shade from lotos leaves. Who in the world is
not astonished when he has climbed, to see the prince of mountains
who overshadows the ether and far-reaching regions of earth, standing
there with his great projecting crags, while the moon's sickle
trembles on his summit?'

In Kalidasa's _Urwasi_, the deserted King who is searching for his
wife asks the peacock:

Oh tell,
If, free on the wing as you soar,
You have seen the loved nymph I deplore--
You will know her, the fairest of damsels fair,
By her large soft eye and her graceful air;
Bird of the dark blue throat and eye of jet,
Oh tell me, have you seen the lovely face
Of my fair bride--lost in this dreary wilderness?

and the mountain:

Say mountain, whose expansive slope confines
The forest verge, oh, tell me hast thou seen
A nymph as beauteous as the bride of love
Mounting with slender frame thy steep ascent,
Or wearied, resting in thy crowning woods?

As he sits by the side of the stream, he asks whence comes its charm:

Whilst gazing on the stream, whose new swollen waters
Yet turbid flow, what strange imaginings
Possess my soul and fill it with delight.
The rippling wave is like her aching brow;
The fluttering line of storks, her timid tongue;
The foaming spray, her white loose floating vest;
And this meandering course the current tracks
Her undulating gait.

Then he sees a creeper without flowers, and a strange attraction
impels him to embrace it, for its likeness to his lost love:

Vine of the wilderness, behold
A lone heartbroken wretch in me,
Who dreams in his embrace to fold
His love, as wild he clings to thee.

Thereupon the creeper transforms itself into Urwasi.

In Kalidasa's _Sakuntala_, too, when the pretty girls are watering
the flowers in the garden, Sakuntala says: 'It is not only in
obedience to our father that I thus employ myself. I really feel the
affection of a sister for these young plants.' Taking it for granted
that the mango tree has the same feeling for herself, she cries: 'Yon
Amra tree, my friends, points with the fingers of its leaves, which
the gale gently agitates, and seems inclined to whisper some secret';
and with maiden shyness, attributing her own thoughts about love to
the plants, one of her comrades says: 'See, my Sakuntala, how yon
fresh Mallica which you have surnamed Vanadosini or Delight of the
Grove, has chosen the sweet Amra for her bridegroom....'

'How charming is the season, when the nuptials even of plants are
thus publicly celebrated!'--and elsewhere:

'Here is a plant, Sakuntala, which you have forgotten.' Sakuntala:
'Then I shall forget myself.'

Birds,[2] clouds, and waves are messengers of love; all Nature
grieves at the separation of lovers. When Sakuntala is leaving her
forest, one of her friends says: 'Mark the affliction of the forest
itself when the time of your departure approaches!

'The female antelope browses no more on the collected Cusa grass, and
the pea-hen ceases to dance on the lawn; the very plants of the
grove, whose pale leaves fall on the ground, lose their strength and
their beauty.'

The poems of India, especially those devoted to descriptions of
Nature, abound in such bold, picturesque personifications, which are
touching, despite their extravagance, through their intense sympathy
with Nature. They shew the Hindoo attitude toward Nature in general,
as well as his boundless fancy. I select one example from 'The
Gathering of the Seasons' in Kalidasa's _Ritusanhare_: a description
of the Rains.

'Pouring rain in torrents at the request of the thirst-stricken
Chatakas, and emitting slow mutterings pleasing to the ears, clouds,
bent down by the weight of their watery contents, are slowly moving
on....

'The rivers being filled up with the muddy water of the rivers, their
force is increased. Therefore, felling down the trees on both the
banks, they, like unchaste women, are going quickly towards the
ocean....

'The heat of the forest has been removed by the sprinkling of new
water, and the Ketaka flowers have blossomed. On the branches of
trees being shaken by the wind, it appears that the entire forest is
dancing in delight. On the blossoming of Ketaka flowers it appears
that the forest is smiling. Thinking, "he is our refuge when we are
bent down by the weight of water, the clouds are enlivening with
torrents the mount Vindhya assailed with fierce heat (of the
summer)."'

Charming pictures and comparisons are numerous, though they have the
exaggeration common to oriental imagination, 'Love was the cause of
my distemper, and love has healed it; as a summer's day, grown black
with clouds, relieves all animals from the heat which itself had
caused.'

'Should you be removed to the ends of the world, you will be fixed in
this heart, as the shade of a lofty tree remains with it even when
the day is departed.'

'The tree of my hope which had risen so luxuriantly is broken down.'

'Removed from the bosom of my father, like a young sandal tree rent
from the hill of Malaja, how shall I exist in a strange soil?'

This familiar intercourse with Nature stood far as the poles asunder
from the monotheistic attitude of the Hebrew. The individual, it is
true, was nothing in comparison with Brahma, the All-One; but the
divine pervaded and sanctified all things, and so gave them a certain
value; whilst before Jehovah, throned above the world, the whole
universe was but dust and ashes. The Hindoo, wrapt in the
contemplation of Nature, described her at great length and for her
own sake, the Hebrew only for the sake of his Creator. She had no
independent significance for him; he looked at her only 'sub specie
eterni Dei,' in the mirror of the eternal God. Hence he took interest
in her phases only as revelations of his God, noting one after
another only to group them synthetically under the idea of Godhead.
Hence too, despite his profound inwardness--'The heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?'
(_Jeremiah_)--human individuality was only expressed in its relation
to Jehovah.

'The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his
handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth
knowledge.'--_Psalm_ 19.

'Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar,
and the fulness thereof.

'Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein; then shall all the
trees of the wood rejoice.'--_Psalm_ 96.

'Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful
together.'--_Psalm_ 98.

'The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their
voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier
than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the
sea.'--_Psalm_ 93.

'The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back. The mountains
skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.'--_Psalm_ 114.

'The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid:
the depths also were troubled.'--_Psalm_ 77.

All these lofty personifications of inanimate Nature only
characterise her in her relation to another, and that not man but
God. Nothing had significance by itself, Nature was but a book in
which to read of Jehovah; and for this reason the Hebrew could not be
wrapt in her, could not seek her for her own sake, she was only a
revelation of the Deity.

'Lord, how great are thy works, in wisdom hast thou made them all:
the earth is full of thy goodness.'

Yet there is a fiery glow of enthusiasm in the songs in praise of
Jehovah's wonders in creation.

'0 Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and
majesty.

'Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who stretchest
out the heavens like a curtain.

'Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the
clouds his chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind.

'Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire; who
laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for
ever.

'Thou coveredst the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above
the mountains.

'At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted
away.

'They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the
place which thou hast founded for them.

'Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn
not again to cover the earth.

'He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.

'They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench
their thirst.

'By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which
sing among the branches ...

'He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the
service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth.

'And wine that maketh glad the heart of man ...

'The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which
he hath planted.

'Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees
are her house.

'The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for
the conies.

'He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.

'Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the
forest do creep forth.

'The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.

'The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down
in their dens.

'Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening....

'This great and wide sea, wherein are creeping things innumerable,
both small and great beasts....

'He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills,
and they smoke.

'I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to
my God as long as I have my being.'--_Psalm_ 104.

And what a lofty point of view is shewn by the overpowering words
which Job puts into the mouth of Jehovah; 'Where wast thou when I
laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast
understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof if thou knowest, or
who hath stretched the line upon it?

'Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the
corner stone thereof?

'When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy?...

'Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the
dayspring to know his place?

'That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked
might be shaken out of it?...

'Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea, or hast thou walked
in the search of the deep?...

'Declare, if thou knowest it all!...

'Where is the way where light dwelleth, and as for darkness, where is
the place thereof?' etc.

Compare with this _Isaiah_ xl. verse 12, etc.

Metaphors too, though poetic and fine, are not individualized.

'Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts: all thy
waves and thy billows are gone over me.'--_Psalm_ 42.

'Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in
deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters,
where the floods overflow me.'--_Psalm_ 69.

There are many pictures from the animal world; and these are more
elaborate in Job than elsewhere (see _Job_ xl. and xli.).
Personifications, as we have seen, are many, but Nature is only
called upon to sympathise with man in isolated cases, as, for
instance, in 2 _Samuel_ i.:

'Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be
rain upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the
mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as if he had not been
anointed with oil.'

The Cosmos unfolded itself to the Hebrew[3] as one great whole, and
the glance fixed upon a distant horizon missed the nearer lying
detail of phenomena. His imagination ranged the universe with the
wings of the wind, and took vivid note of air, sky, sea, and land,
but only, so to speak, in passing; it never rested there, but hurried
past the boundaries of earth to Jehovah's throne, and from that
height looked down upon creation.

The attitude of the Greek was very different. Standing firmly rooted
in the world of sense, his open mind and his marvellous eye for
beauty appreciated the glorious external world around him down to its
finest detail. His was the race of the beautiful, the first in
history to train all its powers into harmony to produce a culture of
beauty equal in form and contents, and his unique achievement in art
and science enriched all after times with lasting standards of the
great and beautiful.

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