Speculum mentis, or, The map of knowledge / by R.G. Collingwood.

  • R. G. Collingwood
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Speculum mentis, or, The map of knowledge / by R.G. Collingwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    service by the best men of their age, and the men got the benefit of working for an institution which encouraged them to do their best work and guaranteed a market for it. This was in its way a happy state of things, especially by contrast with our modern world. But it was only possible by reason of what we have called the childishness of medi¬ eval man. Art, religion, and philosophy are not really the same thing : there are differences between them which need not appear as long as they are at a comparatively low level of development, but appear all too sharply when they reach maturity. At first it may seem possible to be at the same time perfectly artistic and perfectly religious ; but if you develop these two tendencies as fully as you can, if you aim at ever deepening and intensifying both your religious life and your artistic life, you will sooner or later come to the parting of the ways and find that you can be one but not both. The monastery is an excellent place for primitive art ; but the art of the monastery can never be more than primitive. And when the artistic mind of a race has per¬ fected its primitive art, a crisis will come when either the progress of art or its connexion with the monastery must cease. Either the art must remain within the monastery, cramped into a permanent primitiveness, or it must follow its own bent, break away from its old surroundings, and mark its maturity by asserting its independence. In the same way, a primitive philosophy may develop as it were in the womb of religion ; but when it is full grown the very power of thought will bring it to the birth and philosophy will part from religion as the child parts from its mother. Only if the power of thought fails, if the unborn child dies in the womb of its dead mother, will the birth never take place. It is the very success of the first phase in producing a healthy and progressive life in art, religion, and philosophy,
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