Book V, Chapter I, 12

Originally, the rudiments of both Greek and Latin were taught in universities, and in some they still are. In others, students are expected to have learned at least the rudiments of one or both languages beforehand; their study everywhere remains a substantial part of university education.

Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three great branches: physics, or natural philosophy; ethics, or moral philosophy; and logic. This general division seems entirely consistent with the nature of things.

The great phenomena of nature—the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, eclipses, comets, thunder and lightning, and other extraordinary events in the sky; the generation, life, growth, and decay of plants and animals—necessarily stir wonder and naturally awaken human curiosity about their causes. Superstition first tried to satisfy this curiosity by attributing all these wonders to the direct action of the gods. Philosophy later sought to explain them by causes more familiar to humanity, or at least better understood than divine action. Because these great phenomena first attract human curiosity, the science that claims to explain them must naturally have been the first branch of philosophy pursued. Accordingly, the earliest philosophers of whom history has preserved an account appear to have been natural philosophers.

In every age and country, people must have observed one another's characters, designs, and actions; many sound rules and maxims for living must have been established by common consent. Once writing became common, wise people—or those who thought themselves wise—would naturally try to add to these established and respected maxims and express their own views of proper and improper conduct, sometimes in the elaborate form of apologues, like Aesop's fables, and sometimes in the simpler form of aphorisms or wise sayings, like Solomon's proverbs, the verses of Theognis and Phocyllides, and parts of Hesiod's works. For a long time they might simply have multiplied these maxims of prudence and morality without attempting to arrange them in any distinct or systematic order, still less to join them through one or more general principles from which all could be derived, as effects are derived from their natural causes. The beauty of systematically arranging different observations and connecting them by a few common principles was first glimpsed in the crude early attempts at a system of natural philosophy. Something similar was later attempted in morals. Maxims of everyday life were systematically arranged and joined by a few common principles, as thinkers had attempted to arrange and connect natural phenomena. The science that seeks to discover and explain those connecting principles is properly called moral philosophy.

Different authors developed different systems of both natural and moral philosophy. But the arguments supporting these systems, far from always being demonstrations, were often at best weak probabilities and sometimes mere sophisms resting solely on the imprecision and ambiguity of ordinary language. In every age, speculative systems have been adopted for reasons too frivolous to sway a sensible person's judgment over even the smallest financial interest. Gross sophistry has scarcely ever affected human opinion except in philosophy and speculation, where its influence has frequently been immense. The advocates of each system of natural or moral philosophy naturally tried to expose the weakness of arguments offered for rival systems. Examining those arguments necessarily led them to consider the distinction between a probable and a demonstrative argument, and between a fallacious and a conclusive one. Logic, the science of the general principles of sound and unsound reasoning, necessarily arose from the observations prompted by such scrutiny. Though it originated after physics and ethics, it was commonly taught before either science in most, though not all, ancient schools of philosophy. It seems to have been thought that students should clearly understand the difference between good and bad reasoning before being led to reason about subjects of such importance.

In most European universities, this ancient threefold division of philosophy was replaced with a fivefold division.

In ancient philosophy, teachings about the nature of either the human mind or the Deity formed part of physics. Whatever their presumed essence, both were parts of the great system of the universe, and parts that produced the most important effects. Whatever human reason could conclude or conjecture about them formed, as it were, two chapters—admittedly very important ones—of the science that claimed to explain the origin and revolutions of the universe. But in European universities, where philosophy was taught only in service of theology, it was natural to dwell longer on those two chapters than on any others. They were gradually expanded and subdivided into many lesser chapters, until the doctrine of spirits, about which so little can be known, came to occupy as much room in philosophy as the doctrine of bodies, about which so much can be known. These two subjects came to be treated as distinct sciences. What were called metaphysics, or pneumatics, were set against physics and cultivated not merely as the more exalted science but as the more useful one for the purposes of a particular profession. The proper subject of experiment and observation, where careful attention can yield so many useful discoveries, was almost entirely neglected. The subject where, after a few simple and nearly obvious truths, the closest attention can uncover nothing but obscurity and uncertainty, and therefore produce nothing but subtleties and sophisms, was intensely cultivated.

Once those two sciences were set against each other, comparing them naturally produced a third: ontology, the science of the qualities and attributes common to the subjects of both. But if subtleties and sophisms made up most of the schools' metaphysics or pneumatics, they made up the whole of this cobweb science of ontology, which was also sometimes called metaphysics.

Ancient moral philosophy sought to investigate what constituted human happiness and perfection, considering a person not only as an individual but as a member of a family, a state, and the great society of humankind. It treated the duties of human life as serving happiness and perfection in this life. But when moral philosophy, like natural philosophy, came to be taught solely in the service of theology, it treated the duties of this life as chiefly serving happiness in the next. Ancient philosophy represented perfect virtue as necessarily producing the greatest happiness in this life for its possessor. Modern philosophy often portrayed virtue as generally, indeed almost always, incompatible with any happiness in this life; heaven was to be earned through penance and mortification, the austerities and self-abasement of a monk, rather than the liberal, generous, spirited conduct of a human being. Casuistry and ascetic morality consequently formed most of the schools' moral philosophy. Thus the most important branch of philosophy by far became by far the most corrupted.

This, then, was the usual course of philosophical education at most European universities. Logic came first; ontology second; pneumatology, treating the nature of the human soul and the Deity, third. Fourth came a debased moral philosophy, regarded as directly connected with pneumatology's teachings on the soul's immortality and the rewards and punishments to be expected in the next life from divine justice. A brief and superficial course of physics usually came last.

The changes that European universities made to the ancient course of philosophy were all intended to educate ecclesiastics and prepare them more suitably for theology. But the extra subtlety and sophistry, the casuistry and ascetic morality they introduced certainly did not make the course better suited to educating gentlemen or people engaged in the world, or more likely to improve the understanding or the heart.

This course of philosophy is still taught in most European universities, with varying degrees of diligence according to how much the constitution of each university obliges its teachers to be diligent. In some of the richest and best-endowed universities, tutors are content to teach a few disconnected scraps of this corrupted course, and commonly teach even these carelessly and superficially.

Most of the modern advances in the various branches of philosophy have not been made in universities, though some certainly have. Most universities have not even been eager to adopt those advances afterward. Several learned societies have chosen to remain, for a long time, sanctuaries for discredited systems and obsolete prejudices driven from every other corner of the world. In general, the richest and best-endowed universities have been the slowest to adopt improvements and the most resistant to any significant change in their established course of education. Improvements entered more easily at some poorer universities, where teachers dependent on their reputation for most of their livelihood had to pay closer attention to prevailing opinion.

Yet although Europe's public schools and universities were founded to educate people for only one profession, the clergy, and were not always very diligent even in teaching the subjects thought necessary for that profession, they gradually took over the education of almost everyone else, especially nearly all gentlemen and people of fortune. Apparently no better way could be found to spend usefully the long interval between childhood and the age when people seriously embark on the real business of the world, the business that will occupy them for the rest of their lives. Yet most of what schools and universities teach does not seem the best preparation for that business.

In England, it is becoming more common every day to send young people abroad to travel as soon as they leave school, without sending them to university. Our young people, it is said, generally return much improved by their travels. A young man who goes abroad at seventeen or eighteen and returns at one-and-twenty is three or four years older on his return; at that age, it is very difficult not to improve considerably over three or four years. On his travels he generally gains some knowledge of one or two foreign languages, though seldom enough to speak or write them properly. In other respects he commonly returns more conceited, less principled, more dissipated, and less capable of applying himself seriously to study or business than he could easily have become in so short a time at home. By traveling so young and spending the most precious years of his life in the most frivolous dissipation, far from his parents' and relatives' oversight and control, he almost inevitably weakens or loses altogether every useful habit his earlier education might have begun to form, rather than strengthening and confirming those habits. Nothing but the disrepute into which universities have allowed themselves to fall could have made such an absurd practice as travel at this early age respectable. By sending his son abroad, a father spares himself, at least for a time, the disagreeable sight of a son idle, neglected, and going to ruin before his eyes.

Such have been the effects of some modern educational institutions.

Different plans and institutions of education appear to have existed in other ages and nations.

In the republics of ancient Greece, every free citizen received instruction, under the direction of public magistrates, in gymnastics and music. Gymnastics was intended to toughen the body, sharpen courage, and prepare citizens for the fatigue and dangers of war; since the Greek militia was, by all accounts, among the best the world has known, this part of their public education must have fully served its purpose. Music, according at least to the philosophers and historians who describe these institutions, was intended to humanize the mind, soften the temper, and dispose people to fulfill all the social and moral duties of public and private life.

In ancient Rome, exercises on the Campus Martius served the same purpose as exercises in the Greek Gymnasium and appear to have served it equally well. The Romans, however, had nothing corresponding to the Greeks' musical education. Nevertheless, Roman morals in both private and public life seem not only to have equaled but, on the whole, considerably surpassed those of the Greeks. On their superiority in private life we have the explicit testimony of Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, two authors who knew both peoples well; the entire course of Greek and Roman history attests to the Romans' superior public morals. Good temper and moderation between rival factions seem the most essential features of a free people's public morals. Greek factions, however, were almost always violent and bloody, whereas no blood was ever shed in a Roman faction before the time of the Gracchi; from their time onward, the Roman republic may be regarded as effectively dissolved. Despite the considerable authority of Plato, Aristotle, and Polybius, and despite the ingenious reasons Mr Montesquieu gives in support of their view, it therefore seems likely that Greek musical education did little to improve their morals, since Roman morals were, on the whole, superior without it. Respect for their ancestors' institutions probably led those ancient sages to find profound political wisdom in what may have been simply an ancient custom, preserved without interruption from their societies' earliest days into an age of considerable refinement. Music and dancing are the principal amusements of almost all peoples called barbarous, and the chief accomplishments thought to qualify a person to entertain company. So it is today among the negroes on the coast of Africa. So it was among the ancient Celtes and Scandinavians and, as Homer tells us, among the ancient Greeks before the Trojan war. When the Greek tribes formed small republics, it was natural for the study of these accomplishments to remain for a long time part of the people's common public education.

Universities originally taught beginners the basics of both Greek and Latin, and some still do. Others expect students to have learned at least the basics of one or both languages before arriving. Study of these languages still takes up a considerable part of university education everywhere.

Ancient Greek philosophy had three main branches: physics, or the study of nature; ethics, or moral philosophy; and logic. This general division seems to fit the subjects perfectly well.

Major natural events include the movements of heavenly bodies, eclipses, comets, thunder, lightning, and other unusual events in the sky. They also include the birth, life, growth, and death of plants and animals. Such events inevitably fill people with wonder and make them curious about their causes. Superstition first tried to satisfy that curiosity by saying the gods directly caused them all. Philosophy later tried to explain them through causes more familiar to people than the action of gods. These events were the first objects of human curiosity, so the study that claimed to explain them was naturally the first branch of philosophy people pursued. Accordingly, the earliest philosophers recorded in history seem to have studied nature.

People in every age and country must have noticed one another's character, intentions, and actions. They must have agreed on many respected rules for living. Once writing became common, wise people, or those who thought themselves wise, naturally tried to add to these established sayings. They expressed their own views of proper and improper behavior, sometimes through invented stories like Aesop's fables, and sometimes through simpler wise sayings like Solomon's proverbs, the verses of Theognis and Phocyllides, and parts of Hesiod's works. For a long time they may simply have added rules about prudence and morality. They did not necessarily try to put them in a clear, orderly arrangement, much less connect them through general principles from which all the rules followed like effects from causes. Ancient thinkers first glimpsed the beauty of arranging observations systematically under a few shared principles in their rough early attempts to explain nature. They later tried the same thing with morals. They arranged everyday rules in an orderly way and linked them through a few shared principles, just as they had tried to arrange and link natural events. The study that investigates and explains these underlying principles is properly called moral philosophy.

Different writers proposed different systems of natural and moral philosophy. Their supporting arguments were far from always being proofs. Often they were weak possibilities at best, and sometimes merely clever but false arguments resting on imprecise or ambiguous everyday language. Throughout history people have accepted speculative systems for reasons too flimsy to convince a sensible person about even a tiny sum of money. Blatantly misleading arguments have hardly ever influenced people's opinions except in philosophy and speculation, where their influence has often been enormous. Defenders of each philosophical system naturally tried to expose weak arguments for rival systems. Examining the arguments led them to ask how a likely argument differs from a proof, and how a misleading argument differs from a sound one. These inquiries gave rise to logic, the study of general principles of good and bad reasoning. Logic arose after the study of nature and ethics, but it was taught before both subjects in most, though not all, ancient philosophical schools. The idea seems to have been that students should learn to distinguish good reasoning from bad before reasoning about such important topics.

Most European universities replaced this ancient three-part division of philosophy with a five-part one.

Ancient philosophy included teaching about the human mind and God within physics. Whatever these beings were thought to be made of, they were parts of the universe and produced some of its most important effects. What human reason could conclude or guess about them formed two chapters, important ones, within the study that claimed to explain the universe's origins and changes. But European universities taught philosophy only to serve theology. It was therefore natural to spend more time on these two chapters than on the rest. The chapters grew longer and were divided into many smaller ones. Eventually teaching about spirits, of which we can know so little, occupied as much space in philosophy as teaching about physical things, of which we can know so much. The two topics came to count as separate fields. Metaphysics, or pneumatics, was set against physics and treated as the more elevated field and also the more useful one for a particular profession. The study of things we can test and observe, where careful attention can lead to many useful discoveries, was almost entirely ignored. Great effort instead went into a topic where, beyond a few simple and nearly obvious truths, even the closest attention finds only uncertainty and obscurity. It can produce nothing but fine distinctions and misleading arguments.

Once these two fields were opposed to each other, comparing them naturally gave rise to a third: ontology, the study of qualities and attributes common to both their subjects. If fine distinctions and misleading arguments made up most of university metaphysics or pneumatics, they made up all of the flimsy web called ontology, which was sometimes also called metaphysics.

Ancient moral philosophy asked what makes a person happy and fully developed, both as an individual and as a member of a family, a state, and human society at large. It treated life's duties as ways to achieve human happiness and fulfillment. But when moral philosophy, like natural philosophy, was taught only to serve theology, it treated human duties mainly as ways to reach happiness in the next life. Ancient philosophy portrayed complete virtue as necessarily bringing its possessor the greatest possible happiness in this life. Modern philosophy often portrayed virtue as generally, or nearly always, incompatible with happiness in this life. It taught that heaven was earned through penance and self-denial, through a monk's austerity and self-abasement, not through a person's open, generous, spirited conduct. Case-by-case religious rules and a morality of self-denial made up most of the moral philosophy taught in schools. Thus the most important branch of philosophy became its most corrupted one.

This, then, was the usual philosophy curriculum at most European universities. Logic came first and ontology second. Third came pneumatology, teaching about the nature of the human soul and God. Fourth came a debased form of moral philosophy. It was considered closely linked to pneumatology's teachings about the soul's immortality and the rewards and punishments to be expected in the next life from God's justice. The course usually ended with a brief, superficial treatment of physics.

European universities made all these changes to the ancient philosophy curriculum to educate clergy and better prepare them for theology. But the extra hairsplitting, misleading arguments, case-by-case religious rules, and morality of self-denial certainly did not make the curriculum better suited to educating gentlemen or people active in the world. Nor did they make it more likely to sharpen the mind or improve the heart.

Most European universities still teach this philosophy curriculum. How carefully they teach it depends on how strongly each university's structure makes teachers work. At some of the richest and best-funded universities, tutors teach only a few disconnected scraps of this corrupted curriculum. Even those scraps are usually taught carelessly and superficially.

Most modern advances in the different branches of philosophy have not come from universities, though some certainly have. Most universities have not even been quick to adopt advances made elsewhere. Several of these learned institutions have long sheltered discarded systems and outdated prejudices after the rest of the world had rejected them. Generally, the richest and best-funded universities have been slowest to adopt improvements and most opposed to major changes in the established curriculum. Improvements came more easily to some poorer universities, where teachers depended on their reputations for most of their living and had to pay closer attention to prevailing opinions.

Europe's public schools and universities were originally meant only to educate clergy. They were not always diligent even about subjects considered necessary for that profession. Yet they gradually took on the education of almost everyone else, especially gentlemen and wealthy people. Apparently no better way was found to spend usefully the long period between infancy and the time when people seriously begin their life's work. But most of what schools and universities teach does not seem to prepare them very well for that work.

In England it is increasingly common to send young people abroad to travel as soon as they leave school, without attending university. People say they usually return much improved. But a young man who goes abroad at seventeen or eighteen and returns at one-and-twenty is three or four years older. At that age, it is hard not to improve substantially over three or four years. During his travels he generally picks up one or two foreign languages, but rarely well enough to speak or write them properly. In other ways he commonly comes home more conceited, less principled, more given to wasteful pleasures, and less able to apply himself seriously to study or work than he could have become in the same short time at home. Traveling so young, he spends his most valuable years on empty pleasures, away from his parents' and relatives' supervision. As a result, the useful habits his earlier education might have begun to form are almost certain to weaken or disappear instead of growing firm. Only the universities' declining reputation could have made such an absurd practice as traveling at this age popular. By sending a son abroad, a father escapes, for a while at least, the unpleasant sight of an idle, neglected son ruining his life before his eyes.

These are some effects of modern educational institutions.

Other times and countries seem to have had different educational plans and institutions.

In the ancient Greek republics, public officials directed every free citizen's instruction in physical exercises and music. The exercises aimed to strengthen his body, sharpen his courage, and prepare him for the hardships and dangers of war. By all accounts, the Greek citizen army was one of the world's best, so this part of public education must have fully achieved its purpose. According to the philosophers and historians who describe these institutions, music was intended to make the mind more humane, soften people's tempers, and prepare them for their social and moral duties in public and private life.

In ancient Rome, exercises on the Campus Martius served the same purpose as exercises at the ancient Greek Gymnasium, and apparently worked just as well. But Rome had nothing corresponding to Greek musical education. Even so, Roman morals in private and public life seem to have been at least equal, and overall considerably superior, to Greek morals. Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who knew both peoples well, explicitly attest to the Romans' superiority in private life. The whole course of Greek and Roman history shows that Roman public morals were superior too. For a free people, the most important public virtues seem to be restraint and a willingness to deal calmly with rival factions. Greek factions were almost always violent and bloody. By contrast, no Roman faction shed blood until the time of the Gracchi, after which the Roman republic may be considered effectively finished. Plato, Aristotle, and Polybius deserve great respect, and Mr Montesquieu offers ingenious reasons for agreeing with them. Still, it seems likely that Greek music education did little to improve morals, since the Romans had better morals overall without it. Reverence for ancestral institutions probably led those ancient sages to see political wisdom in what may simply have been an old custom. It had continued without interruption from their societies' earliest days into their more refined times. Music and dancing are the main amusements of almost all societies called barbarous and are considered the chief skills for entertaining company. This remains true among the negroes on the coast of Africa. It was true among the ancient Celtes and ancient Scandinavians. As Homer shows, it was also true among the ancient Greeks before the Trojan war. Once the Greek tribes formed small republics, it was natural for instruction in those skills to remain part of ordinary public education for a long time.