The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 3

While joy in existence characterized the h.e.l.lenic world until its downfall, and the Greek took life serenely, delighting in its smooth flow; with Christianity, as Jean Paul put it, 'all the present of earth vanished into the future of Heaven, and the Kingdom of the Infinite arose upon the ruins of the finite.'

The beauty of earth was looked upon as an enchantment of the devil; and sin, the worm in the fruit, lurked in its alluring forms.

Cla.s.sic mythology created a world of its own, dimly veiled by the visible one; every phase of Nature shewed the presence or action of deities with whom man had intimate relations; every form of life, animated by them, held something familiar to him, even sacred--his landscape was absorbed by the G.o.ds.

To Judaism and Christianity, Nature was a fallen angel, separated as far as possible from her G.o.d. They only recognized one world--that of spirit; and one sphere of the spiritual, religion--the relation between G.o.d and man. Material things were a delusion of Satan's; the heaven on which their eyes were fixed was a very distant one.

The h.e.l.lenic belief in deities was pandemonistic and cosmic; Christianity, in its original tendency, anti-cosmic and hostile to Nature. And Nature, like the world at large, only existed for it in relation to its Creator, and was no longer 'the great mother of all things,' but merely an instrument in the hands of Providence.

The Greek looked at phenomena in detail, in their inexhaustible variety, rarely at things as a whole; the Christian considered Nature as a work of G.o.d, full of wonderful order, in which detail had only the importance of a link in a chain.

As Lotze says, 'The creative artistic impulse could be of no use to a conception of life in which nothing retained independent significance, but everything referred to or symbolized something else.' But yet, the idea of individuality, of the importance of the ego, gained ground as never before through this introspection and merging of material in spiritual, this giving spirit the exclusive sway; and Christianity, while it broke down the barriers of nation, race, and position, and widened the cleft between Nature and spirit, discovered at the same time the worth of the individual.

And this individuality was one of the chief steps towards an artistic, that is, individual point of view about Nature, for it was not possible to consider her freely and for her own sake alone, until the unlimited independence of mind had been recognized.

But the full development of Christianity was only reached when it blended with the Germanic spirit, with the German Gemuth (for which no other language has a word), and intensified, by so doing, the innately subjective temperament of the race.

The northern climate gives pause for the development of the inner life; its long bleak winter, with the heavy atmosphere and slow coming of spring, wake a craving for light and warmth, and throw man back on himself. This inward inclination, which made itself felt very early in the German race, by bringing out the contemplative and independent sides of his character, and so disinclining him for combined action with his fellows, forwarded the growth of the over-ripe seeds of cla.s.sic culture and vital Christianity.

The Romanic nations, with their brilliant, sharply-defined landscape and serene skies, always retained something of the objective delight in life which belonged to antiquity; they never felt that mysterious impulse towards dreams and enthusiastic longing which the Northerner draws from his lowering skies and dark woods, his mists on level and height, the grey in grey of his atmosphere, and his ever varying landscape. A raw climate drives man indoors in mind as well as body, and prompts that craving for spring and delight in its coming which have been the chief notes in northern feeling for Nature from earliest times.

Vischer has shewn in his _Aesthetik_, that German feeling was early influenced by the different forms of plant life around it. Rigid pine, delicate birch, stalwart oak, each had its effect; and the wildness and roughness of land, sea, and animal life in the North combined with the cold of the climate to create the taste for domestic comfort, for fireside dreams, and thought-weaving by the hearth.

Nature schooled the race to hard work and scanty pleasure, and yet its relationship to her was deep and heartfelt from the first.

Devoutly religious, it gazed at her with mingled love and fear; and the deposit of its ideas about her was its mythology.

Its G.o.ds dwelt in mountain tops, holes in the rocks, and rivers, and especially in dark forests and in the leafy boughs of sacred trees; and the howling of wind, the rustle of leaves, the soughing in the tree tops, were sounds of their presence. The worship of woods lasted far into Christian times, especially among the Saxons and Frisians.[1]

Wodan was the all-powerful father of G.o.ds and men--the highest G.o.d, who, as among all the Aryan nations, represented Heaven. Light was his shining helmet, clouds were the dark cap he put on when he spread rain over the earth, or crashed through the air as a wild hunter with his raging pack. His son Donar shewed himself in thunder and lightning, as he rode with swinging axe on his goat-spanned car.

Mountains were sacred to both, as plants to Ziu. Freyr and Freya were G.o.ddesses of fertility, love, and spring; a ram was sacred to them, whose golden fleece illuminated night as well as day, and who drew their car with a horse's speed.[2] As with Freya, an image of the G.o.ddess Nerthus was drawn through the land in spring, to announce peace and fertility to mortals.

The suggestive myth of Baldur, G.o.d of light and spring, killed by blind Hodur, was the expression of general grief at the pa.s.sing of beauty.

The _Edda_ has a touching picture of the sorrow of Nature, of her trees and plants, when the one beloved of all living things fell, pierced by an arrow. Holda was first the mild and gracious G.o.ddess, then a divine being, encompa.s.sing the earth. She might be seen in morning hours by her favourite haunts of lake and spring, a beautiful white woman, who bathed and vanished. When snow fell, she was making her bed, and the feathers flew. Agriculture and domestic order were under her care.

Ostara was G.o.ddess of bright dawn, of rising light, and awakening spring, as Hel of subterranean night, the darkness of the underworld.

Frigg, wife of the highest G.o.d, knew the story of existence, and protected marriage. She was the Northern Juno or Hera.

Ravines and hollows in the mountains were the dwelling-places of the dwarfs (Erdmannlein), sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly to man; now peaceful and helpful, now impish spirits of mischief in cloud caps and grey coats, thievish and jolly.

They were visible by moonlight, dancing in the fields; and when their track was found in the dew,[3] a good harvest was expected. Popular belief took the floating autumn cobwebs for the work of elves and fairies. The spirits of mountain and wood were related to the water-spirits, nixies who sat combing their long hair in the sun, or stretched up lovely arms out of the water. The elves belonged to the more spiritual side of Nature, the giants to the grosser. Rocks and stones were the weapons of the giants; they removed mountains and hills, and boulders were pebbles shaken out of their shoes.

Among animals the horse was sacred to many deities, and G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses readily transformed themselves into birds. Two ravens, Hugin and Munin, whose names signify thought and memory, were Odin's constant companions. The gift of prophecy was ascribed to the cuckoo, as its monotonous voice heralded the spring:

Kukuk vam haven, wo lange sail ik leven?

There were many legends of men and snakes who exchanged shapes, and whom it was unlucky to kill.[4]

The sun and moon, too, were familiar figures in legends.

Their movement across the sky was a flight from two pursuing wolves, of which one, the Fenris wolf, was fated one day to catch and devour the moon. The German, like the Greek, dreaded nothing more than the eclipse of sun or moon, and connected it with the destruction of all things and the end of the world. In the moon spots he saw a human form carrying a hare or a stick or an axe on his shoulder.

The Solstices impressed him most of all, with their almost constant day in summer, almost constant night in winter. Sun, moon, and stars were the eyes of heaven; there was a pious custom to greet the stars before going to bed. Still earlier, they were sparks of fire from Muspilli, to light the G.o.ds home. Night, day, and the sun had their cars--night and day with one horse, the sun with two: sunrise brought sounds sweeter than the song of birds or strings; the rising sun, it was said, rings for joy, murmuring daybreak laughs.[5]

Day brought joy, night sorrow; the first was good and friendly, the second bad and hostile. The birds greeted daytime and summer with songs of delight, but grieved in silence through night and winter: the first swallow and stork were hailed as spring's messengers. May with greening woods led in beloved summer, frost and snow the winter.

So myth, fable, and legend were interlaced in confusion; who can separate the threads?

At any rate, the point of view which they indicate remained the common one even far into the Middle Ages, and shewed simple familiar intercourse with Nature. Even legal formulae were full of pictures from Nature. In the customary oath to render a contract binding, the promise is to hold, so it runs, 'so long as the sun shines and rivers flow, so long as the wind blows and birds sing, so far off as earth is green and fir trees grow, so far as the vault of heaven reaches.'

As Schnaase says,[6] though with some exaggeration, such formulae, in their summary survey of earth and sky, often give a complete landscape poem in a few words. He points out that in northern, as opposed to cla.s.sic mythology, Nature was considered, not in the cursory Hebrew way, that hurried over or missed detail, but as a whole, and in her relation to man's inner life.

'The collective picture of heaven and earth, of cloud movement, of the mute life of plants--that side of Nature which had almost escaped the eye of antiquity--occupied the Northerner most of all.

'The _Edda_ even represents all Nature together in one colossal form--the form of the giant Ymir, whom the sons of Boer slew, in order to make the mountains from his bones, the earth from his flesh, the skies from his skull.'

A still grander mythical synthesis was the representation of the whole world under the form of the sacred ash tree Yggdrasil. This was the world tree which united heaven, earth, and h.e.l.l. Its branches stretched across the world and reached up to the skies, and its roots spread in different directions--one toward the race of Asa in heaven, another toward the Hrimthursen, the third toward the underworld; and on both roots and branches creatures lived and played--eagle, squirrel, stag, and snake; while by the murmuring Urdhar stream, which rippled over one root, the Nones sat in judgment with the race of Asa.

Not less significant was the conception of the end of the world, the twilight of the G.o.ds (Gotterdammerung), according to which all the wicked powers broke loose and fought against the G.o.ds; the sun and moon were devoured by wolves, the stars fell and earth quaked, the monster world-serpent Joermungande, in giant rage, reared himself out of the water and came to land: Loki led the Hrimthursen and the retinue of h.e.l.l, and Surt, with his shining hair, rode away from the flaming earth across Bifrost, the rainbow, which broke beneath him.

After the world conflagration a new and better earth arose, with rejuvenated G.o.ds.[7]

German mediaeval poetry, as a whole, epic and lyric, was interwoven with a hazy network of suggestive myth and legend; and moral elements, which in mythology were hidden by the prominence of Nature, stood out clear to view in the fate and character of the heroes. The germ of many of our fairy tales is a bit of purest poetry of Nature--a genuine Nature myth transferred to human affairs, which lay nearer to the child-like popular mind, and were therefore more readily understood by it.

So, for instance, from the Maiden of the Shield, Sigrdrifa, who was pierced by Odin's sleep thorn, and who originally represented the earth, frozen in winter, kissed awake by the sun-G.o.d, came Brunhild, whose mail Siegfried's sword penetrated as the sun rays penetrate the frost, and lastly the King's daughter, who p.r.i.c.ked herself with the fateful spindle, and sank into deep sleep. And as Sigrdrifa was surrounded by walls of flame, so now we have a th.o.r.n.y hedge of wild briar round the beautiful maiden (hence named Dornroschen) when the lucky prince comes to waken her with a kiss.[8]

Not all fairy tales have preserved the myth into Christian times in so poetic and transparent a form as this. Its poetic germ arose from hidden depths of myth and legend, and, like heathen superst.i.tions in the first centuries of Christianity, found its most fruitful soil among the people. It has often been disguised beyond recognition by legends, and by the worship of the Madonna and saints, but it has never been destroyed, and it keeps its magic to the present day.

We see then that the inborn German feeling for Nature, conditioned by climate and landscape, and p.r.o.nounced in his mythology, found both an obstacle and a support in Christianity--an obstacle in its transcendentalism, and a support in its inwardness.

CHAPTER II

THE THEOLOGICAL CHRISTIAN AND THE SYMPATHETIC HEATHEN FEELING OF THE FIRST TEN CENTURIES A.D.

The Middle Ages employed its best intellectual power in solving the problems of man's relation to G.o.d and the Redeemer, his moral vocation, and his claim to the Kingdom of the blessed. Mind and heart were almost entirely engrossed by the dogmas of the new faith, such as the incarnation, original sin, and free-will, and by doubts which the Old Testament had raised and not solved. Life was looked upon as a test-place, a thoroughfare to the heavenly Kingdom; earth, with its beauty and its appeal to the senses, as a temptress.

To flee the world and to lack artistic feeling were therefore marks of the period. We have no trace of scientific knowledge applied to Nature, and she was treated with increasing contempt, as the influence of antiquity died out. In spite of this, the att.i.tude of the Apostolic Fathers was very far from hostile. Their fundamental idea was the Psalmist's 'Lord, how great are Thy works; in wisdom hast Thou made them all!' and yet they turned to Nature--at any rate, the n.o.blest Grecians among them--not only for proof of divine wisdom and goodness, but with a degree of personal inclination, an enthusiasm, to which antiquity was a stranger.

Clement of Rome wrote to the Corinthians:

'Let us note how free from anger He is towards all His creatures. The heavens are moved by His direction and obey Him in peace. Day and night accomplish the course a.s.signed to them by Him, without hindrance one to another. The sun and the moon and the dancing stars, according to His appointment, circle in harmony within the bounds a.s.signed to them, without any swerving aside. The earth, bearing fruit in fulfilment of His will at her proper seasons, putteth forth the food that supplieth abundantly both men and beasts and all living things which are thereupon, making no dissension, neither altering anything which He hath decreed. Moreover, the inscrutable depths of the abysses and unutterable statutes of the nether regions are constrained by the same ordinances. The basin of the boundless sea, gathered together by His workmanship into its reservoirs, pa.s.seth not the barriers wherewith it is surrounded; but even as He ordered it, so it doeth. For He said, "so far shalt thou come, and thy waves shall be broken within thee." The ocean which is impa.s.sable for men, and the worlds beyond it, are directed by the same ordinances of the Master. The seasons of spring and summer and autumn and winter give way in succession one to another in peace. The winds in their several quarters at their proper seasons fulfil their ministry without disturbance, and the overflowing fountains, created for enjoyment and health, without fail give their b.r.e.a.s.t.s which sustain the life for men. Yea, the smallest of living things come together in concord and peace.'[1]

The three great Cappadocians, the most representative of the Greek Fathers and leaders of the fourth century, wrote about the scenery round them in a tone of sentimentality not less astonishing, in view of the prejudice which denies all feeling for Nature to the Middle Ages, than their broad humanity and free handling of dogma.

It was no ascetic renouncing the world and solitude[2]; but rather a sensitive man, thoughtful and dreamy at once, who wrote as follows (Basil the Great to Gregory n.a.z.ianzen):