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III, No. 1
VOLUME
MILIEU AND AMBIANCE:
AN ESSAY IN HISTORICAL
SEMANTICS'
Everything is the center of a paradise" (Novalis)
all the material necessary to establish at least the later history of ambiance.
And the history of this word cannot be separated from that of medium =
milieu (we have seen that milieu ambiant translates Newton's ambient
medium): at every step Michaelsson is forced to translate ambiance by
"milieu," and yet he makes no reference to the development of this term.
Milieu is now associated in every one's mind with the deterministic
theories of Taine, theories which, spreading throughout Europe, led both
to the adoption of the French word itself in various languages, and to the
establishment of indigenous terms which should serve to represent the
same concept (German Umwelt; Spanish medio; Italian ambiente; English
environment): the concept of an "aggregate of influences or conditions
which shape or determine the being, development, life, or behavior of a
person or a thing." Ever since the publication of his Histoire de la litterature anglaise of Taine, in which the 'milieu'-theory was first advanced,
Taine's debt to the ideas of Montesquieu and of the ancients has been
recognized (e.g. by Sainte-Beuve). But no one, so far as I know, has
recognized the affiliation existing between Taine's word and the word of
the ancients. What was this word?
We find in Greek o rlcpteX'wi ab)p or To 7rEpLExoi', an expression meaning
literally "that which surrounds, encompasses" (from the verb l7rEpt-4XEw),
and used to refer to the all-embracing air, space, sky, atmosphere, climate:
the cosmic "milieu" of man; according to Anaximenes, T&o KOcT/uOV r-ev/a
Kat Arip IrepLEXeL, "the universe is surrounded by spirit and atmosphere."
The idea that atmosphere or climate was active upon the human constitution was well-known to Hippocrates, who thought in terms of the air which
man breathes; in a commentary to Hippocrates' treatise entitled 7r-Epl
spvaews APp67,rov we find the statement: o 8b 'IlrlrOKpAT'77s
/ovXscraU cvl8aTLOETcLLTa Tv t~wu' Ouaa
T To
which
was preceded by
(Cf. also Strabo IT, 3, 6: "Indos Aethiopibus praestare ... quia robustiores
sint minusque aeris siccitate adusti.") In Aristotle too (TIcpl P4,Coe7EPEverCOS,
p. 782, B31) we are told that o6arp o ircptrxcov is the causativefactor of the
"dampness" of the Scythians and Thracians, and the "dryness" of the
Ethiopians: the Greeks, living between the colder regions of the Europeans
and the warmer clime of the Asiatics, possess a ,p6oovof disposition-falling
neither into the extreme of courage and too little thought (a European
trait) nor into that of thoughtfulness mixed with cowardice (characteristic
of the Asiatics). Here we have a clear anticipation of Montesquieu's
RESEEARCH
PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGICAL
theory of the influence of climate (or nature) on both the body and mind
of man.2
Thus "climate," in the opinion of the ancients, has the same general
efficacy in regard to living beings, as we are wont to ascribe to the "milieu":
it transforms the conditions of life and life itself. Indeed Diller speaks of
the "(klimatisches) Milieu" of the ancient philosophers, Pollenz, in his
"Hippocrates," of "die Schrift fiber die Umwelt." But I should say that
the Greek term (a'.'p) 6 IrepLtxcwv is still too closely identified with material
"air" to be identified with the Tainian concept of milieu that "ensemble
of conditions...
."
(Montesquieu,
cessor, was really much more in the tradition of Hippocrates; those parts
of his Esprit des Lois inspired by the Greek philosopher, deal specifically
and exclusively with "air," "climate" as determining factors on the
character and constitution of different peoples.2) At the same time this
A7sp irepLtXwv"air" was endowed with qualitiesbordering on the spiritual:
since the air was active in the act of perception, it came to represent a sort
of "Weltseele." Sextus represents it as gifted with reason and perception
(ro 1repeiXov 7quYs XOyLKOVTE 6v KaL ppevwpEs): while we sleep itis not reason
and perception that we lose but our "symphysis" with the surrounding
element(XWpIETaat T7s 7rpos To' 7rEpLExov
avlu.mLas6 ev 71ytvvovs) or, in the words
of Reinhardt's translation "Verwachsenheit mit dem umgebenden Element." And Cicero has expressed the theory that air is not only that by
means of which we see and hear, but that which sees and hears with us:
ipseque aer nobiscum videt, nobiscum audit (De nat. Deorum II, 83)-a
"sympathetic" notion of perception which Reinhardt (p. 192), who traces
this back to earlier Greek ideas, explains by reference to the reciprocal
activity between macrocosm and microcosm: just as our auditive capacity
is "airlike," and our visual, "light-like" (cf. Goethe: "wdir'nicht das Auge
2 Similarly
. . . les divers caracteres de tous les peuples ... sont modifies par les diff6rences des expositions [= 'exposure'], des climats, des vapeurs, autant et
plus encore que par celles des lois et des habitudes. En effet, ces dernieres
oppositions ont en elles-memes, dans le principe, de semblables causes physiques.
For further Greek theories concerning the relationship of climatology and characterology, cf. H. Diller, "Wanderarzt und Aitiologe" (Leipzig 1932), pp. 115 if. For
the revival of these ancient theories in France, cf. M. Brunschvig, L'abbt DuBos
renovateur de la critique au XVIIIe sieicle, and a Finnish thesis by Laurila; for their
revival in England, cf. the article of Z. J. Fink, "Milton and the theory of climatic
influences" (Modern Language Quarterly II, 67). Sainte-Beuve, in his essay on
Taine's Histoire de la litterature anglaise pointed out the basic identity between the
ideas of Hippocrates, Montesquieu and Taine, without, however, noting the con
tinuity of word-material stemming from Greek: lrepLkxov-ambiens-milieu.
MILIEU
AND
AMBIANCE
..
8OTWV
,&pxX~ .v
qOUOlVTlVa ro6 4rElpoU, it -as ylveOaL rois
Koo0.tOUS,TavTr)v 6' a16Lou eLuaL Kal a4Y?'7pW,'v Kal rarvras repLexetv
oupavous
Kal
rous iv
aurols
"the worlds are born of the infinite space that contains them all." (Aristotle will repeat, ibid. p. 7, air7 a'px71, the ultimate genesis of the infinite,
etvat [apX?71V]
Kal rEpEPXetvraivra Kat iravra KVU/Epvav.) And then,
r?v &XX(Aiv
in accordance with his theory of the birth of the worlds by "detachment"
from the infinite (fragment 10, Diels, ibid.) Anaximander continues:
EIC toi
ro
Kai
rtVa
iK
yOVl'OEp/.toi
ylol0U
robroU pXyoys oSoalpav
TE
Kal iIUXpOiKaT&
roi6e TOt K60/.4O) &rOKptOVal
T7yV)4vEoLv
repUpvl vat r($ repL T2V ynV aiep&w's r 6kV6p(A,)OOt.3
3 Cf. the explanation of Zeller in Grundriss der Geschichteder griechischen Philosophie (13th ed.), p. 33:
Als der Urstoff ist das Unbegrenzte ungeworden und unverganglich,
und ebenso ewig ist seine Bewegung. Eine Folge dieser Bewegung ist die
"Ausscheidung"
(&KKpIve-Oat)
bestimmter
Stoffe.
Zunachst trennten
sich
das Warme und das Kalte, aus beiden entstand das Feuchte; aus ihm sonderten sich die Erde, die Luft und der Feuerkreis ab, der diese als kugelformige
Schale umgab. Indem der letztere zersprang, bildeten sich radf6rmige, mit
Feuer gefuillte, mit Offnungen versehene HUlsen, die, durch Luftstromungen
bewegt, sich um die Erde in geneigt horizontaler Richtung drehen; das
Feuer ... gibt die Erscheinung der durch den Himmelsraum ziehenden
Gestirne . . . eine Vorstellung, die sich uns zwar fremdartig genug ausnimmt,
die aber in Wahrheit der erste uns bekannte Versuch ist, die regelmassige
Bewegung der Gestirne in der Weise der sphiterenSpharentheoriemechanisch
zu erklaren (p. 33).
This cosmo-organic image of the bark of the tree, compared to the sphere
of fire surrounding the air, which, in turn, surrounds the earth, and developing from a germ (oy6vwos) detached from the infinite-this will be
repeated throughout the Middle Ages; already we glimpse Dante's concentric heavens surrounding the universe, and witness the encrustation
and tautening of the formless. According to an Orphic fragment preserved
by Aristophanes (Birds, 690, in 0. Kern, "Orphicorum fragments," p.
80) there was at first only Chaos, Night, Erebus and Tartarus: in the
depths of Erebus, Night engendered an egg from which was hatched Eros:
he united with Chaos near Tartarus, and became the ancestor of the human
race aspiring to the light if the universe is an egg4 its shell would then
be the heavenly limit of the universe, and the earth as the centre of the
universe would be the yolk of the egg.5
It was an ancient theory that space was filled by a fluid: for Heraclitus,
space (or, that which filled space)6 was similar to fire, a kind of ether.
IrEPLfxov filled
(lrvEi6ta)
and objects to the liquids contained therein (the Greek language associated ireptexetvwith ireptoxJ "the skin of fruit").9 Space contains both
the boundaries of the outermost containing body and those of the body
contained; the limit of universal space is the ultimate heavenly sphere,
the final envelope, so to speak, beyond which the ne plus ultra of the
Aristotelian cosmology erects before us a verboten!10 (cf. Aristotle, Physics,
IV, 5-7, cited by E. Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie
der Renaissance, 1927, P. 191). In this connection 0. Hamelin, Le system
d'Aristote, 1931, p. 290, writes:
L'espace, avons-nous dit, est "comme un vase." C'est 1Aune metaphor sans
doute, mais si juste qu'elle exprime adequatement la nature de l'espace, a l'exception
d'un seul trait. Un vase se transporte, lespace non: un vase c'est un lieu transportable; lespace est un vase qu'on ne peut mouvoir. I1 n'y a qu'a traduire cette
image en termes abstraits pour obtenir la definition cherchee: "L'espace est la limite
immobile et immediate du contenant." La proposition que cette limite est immediate veut dire qu'elle enveloppe sans aucun interm~diaire le contenu. Il faut bien
comprendre d'ailleurs que la limite, ainsi caractfriske, du contenant est contigu6
(avx'EX6ME'ov)et non pas continue
II ne peut y avoir
ici continuity: il faut que le contenant et le contenu soient spares Fun de l'autre,
autrement il n'y aurait pas rapport de contenu a contenant, mais de partie A tout.
Mais, si la continuity est, comme nous le savons, une identity de limite, la contiguity
est simplement une coincidence de limited, et la coincidence n'empeche pas la duality.
Elsewhere Aristotle says that every object has its particular and natural
ir-ros: the fall to earth of a heavy object, like the rising movement of a
light one, is the natural movement to its natural place. Here we have the
idea of "the (natural) place of something"-the ancestor of le (mi)lieu
de quelqu'un-which merged with the idea of o 7rcepEXov."1
space" (space as a system): a homogeneous space systematically subject to mathematical construction. It was precisely Galileo who so vigorously combatted the
Aristotelian physics with his new dynamism. (Thus, in one sense, his aria ambiente
and l'ambientecorrespond rather to Greek terminology than to Greek conceptions.)
9 A similar word is also used in Plato of the Ocean: o 7rkptdr reos. Thus the Ocean
was considered as enfolding the earth
(d)Kecapvo
'kovra
7rkptL
ri'
ether.
10Thus, since the reptkXov itself is surrounded by final limits, it may be thought of
as "intermediary" as well as "enclosing." This, of course, explains the fact that
later times can refer to this space as medium.
11With the physical notion of space transposed to the realm of the soul, the dolcestilnovistaGuido Guinizelli writes, in his canzone Al cor gentil ripara sempre amore:
Amor in gentil cor prende rivera ('gets a foothold,' 'takes up its quarters') per so consimil loco ('as its genuine, natural, congenial place') com'
adamus del ferro in la minera ('like the magnet in the iron-ore mine').
In these famous lines we have the consimilis which Lucretius used so frequently and
which suggests the "sympathy" between the object and "it's" place-implying love
as well, since in Augustine's words similitude est causa amoris; cf. the pregnant line
How richly revelatory of Greek thought is the term ro 7rept~xov:it illustrates the ability of the Greeks to conceive, not a "cold" abstraction
of Auzias March, Poesies LXXXVI, 229: amant a mi per consemblant manera. For
the use of the porsemic pronoun one may compare the phrases sua mortemori, suo
fato mori (and in popular French mourir de sa belle (!) mort; cf. W. Schulze, Kleine
Schriften, p. 131: 'Der Tod des Kambyses")-or again, "to pay a debt suo die.'
If we compare suo consimil loco to ambiens locus, it becomes evident that the first
refers to the place from the point of view of the "contained" which "fits in"-the
second, from the point of view of the "container" which "protects" the contained:
there is an admirable harmony and "sympathy" between the two. If we turn to
the medieval heavens, the dynamism of the celestial bodies is nothing other than
their effort to reach their own "natural place"-attracted by divine love (t'Amore
che move it sol e t'altrestelle). Or, coming back to earth: the static social theory of
gradations that obtained in the Middle Ages (according to which everyone must
remain on that rung of the hierarchic ladder to which God has assigned him) is to be
explained (cf. G. Muller, Deutsche VierteljahrsschriftII,689) by this same theory of
the natural, the authentic place. It is this, too, perhaps, that underlies what has
been called the Standortgebundenheitof the souls in Dante's Beyond: the locus penalis
assigned to them in accordance with the theology of Thomas Aquinas. In the light
of this idea of the "natural place" we can understand what it must have meant to a
medieval mind when St. Peter, in Dante's Paradise, chides a group of persons for
having ursurped his place:
Quegli ch' usurpa in terra it loco mio
It loco mio, it loco mio, che vaca
Nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio (Par. XXVII, 22).
The commentaries suggest a reminiscence of Jeremiah VII,12: ite ad locum meum in
Silo, where God speaks of his Temple, the "Domus Dei," as locus meus; they note the
terrible 'ripetizione' of loco mio-all the more terrible because a saint in Heaven has
been deprived of the "natural locus" of his influence on earthly things.
The idea of the "natural place" has outlived the Middle Ages; Ronsard, in his
Hymne des daimons (ed. A.-M. Schmidt) represents God as populating the universe
with beings, each of whom is put in his proper place (v. 59 ff.):
A celle fin qu'il n'y eft point de lieux
Vagues dans l'Univers (= horror vacui!), selon teurs natures
Qu'ils fussent tous remplys de propres creatures.
(Schmidt comments: "il s'agit . . ., par suite d'un raisonnement analogique courant,
du peuplement spacial des divers 6l6ments du cosmos"). The demons have light
bodies (v. 77 ff.), but
pesant quelque peu, a fin que leur corps n'erre
Trop haut jusques au ciel, habandonnant te lieu
Qui leur est destine par le vouloir de Dieu . . .
(variant: "II logea les Daimons au milieu des nuages, leur place destinee)
(v. 83) Ne plus qu'on voit l'exercite des nUes
En un temps orageux egalementpendiles
I)'un juste poix en t'air n'y s'eslevant trop haut .
According to E. Zilsel, Journal of the History of Ideas I,115, Copernicus himself
continued the medieval teleological conception of nature: the idea that objects of the
same nature exert on each other "sympathetic" influences (the air rotates along with
10
but a "warm" one: an abstraction which is visualized and which has not
severed its ties with life, but remains organic and close to the bodily.
the earth because it partakes of the nature of earth-eandam
sequatur natural;
because, we might say, it is consimilis with earth). He likewise continues the
Aristotelian explanation of motion by reference to the effort of objects to reach their
locus naturalis (according to which the "natural" movement of things must be
And even
rectilinear: extra locum esse produces "artificial," circular movement).
the comparison of the feeling of love with the striving of physical bodies towards
their proper place survives: P. 0. Kristeller, International Science I,12 says: "When
Ficino conceives the desire for God as a natural appetite of the soul and compares
it to the natural movement of the elements towards their proper place, he obviously
bases himself on a remarkable passage of (Augustine's) confessions in which our
love for God is defined as a kind of weight (pondus meum amor meus)."
In seventeenth century texts suis locus is still occasionally to be found:
Boileau, Art poetique:
Il faut que chaque chose y (dans un poeme) soit mise en son lieu
Pascal: L'homme ne sait a quel rang se mettre; il est visiblement tombe de son vrai
lieu, sans pouvoir se retrouver.
Even such trite phrases as each thing in its proper place; he should be put in his place
may have a (narrowly circumscribed) "historic origin."
From this notion of a "place fitting for someone" is derived the technical expression of the mathematicians: the geometrical locus of, le lieu geometrique de, der geometrische Ort von. It may be noted that English (just as was true in the case of
medium) chose the Latin word in order to distinguish the scientific term; in some of
the uses of this locus (cf. NED) it is still possible to see the Aristotelian nuance of
the "all-embracing" 1reptLXov+P1rvEP6a:
Cheyne (1775):
Yet space is not actually to be divided; or one part of it separated from
another. Since it is the universal Locus of, and penetrates all Bodies.
Of course the geometrical locus developed a technical meaning quite disparate
from that of the locus naturalis: this is what an object may (or may not) occupy,
whereas the locus geometricus is what an object must occupy.
As for the very modern expression, I'homme et son milieu, while this may immediately recall the medieval suo consimil loco, still it is less suggestive of that attitude
of poised contentment which we found expressed in the Middle Ages toward the
social system; rather, perhaps, there is a suppressed sign of regret at being so deeply
environment that today is felt to be more or
rooted in one's own environment-an
Such a thinker as Rilke, however, who urges that everyone die
less accidental.
"his" death (his idea is, to be sure, more individualistic than that revealed in sua
he only succeeds, after taking
morte morn) opposes this modern feeling-though
account of modern deterministic thought, in replacing suo consimil loco by "the
relatively most fitting place." In "Briefe an einen jungen Dichter" (1929) he writes:
"Wir sind ins Leben gesetzt, als in das Element dem wir am meisten entsprechen,
und wir sind uberdies durch Jahrtausende Anpassung diesem Leben so ahnlich geworden dass wir, wenn wir stille halten, durch ein gluckliches Mimikry von allem, was
uns umgibt, kaumn zu unterscheiden sind. Wir haben keinen Grund, gegen unsere
Welt Misstrauen zu haben, denn sic ist nicht gegen uns" (it is as if he were reacting
against the idea of contrke = contra: "what lies before and against us").
Another similar term is "element" [= "quo vita continetur, deliciae"]; in Italian it
MIIIEU
AND AMI3IANCE
it
And the warm nuance of ro' reptexov is protective: absent is the modern
brand of fatalistic determinism envisaged as a menacing force. Moreover, as is again characteristic of the Greeks, the visualizedabstract term
covers a wide range of life: rro6reptexov embraces climate, the air that feeds
(spiritually as well as physically: lrvEi4a), the environment that conditions, ether, space, place-and the ocean embracing the earth; it appears
even in logical grammatical phraseology to refer to a general term (in
relation to a particular) as a protectingly embracing or encompassing
thing. For a harmonious and poised man is apt, by nature, to see everywhere himself, and the things connected with himself, as being "embraced"
and caressed: to feel that he is the center of a whole the embryo in the
egg, the tree within its bark, the earth wrapped round by ether. This
is an inner form, a living pattern of thought, which must reproduce itself
unceasingly: it harmonizes with what Mommsen (RImische GeschichteI,
26) has said of Greek religious thought and its preference for "das Bildhafte" and "gestaltende Anschauung"-in contrast to the abstract and
conceptual nature of Roman thought. For the Greeks, as for the Grecian
Goethe, Denken and Anschauen were one.
The word.ro 7repeLXov,obviously, did not go over into Latin. One may
perhaps risk the assumption that this was because of that linguistic
purism which prevented the Romnansfrom "speaking Greek in Latin"a procedure to which Cicero in particular objected: cf. his cautious use of
may be found in Sacchetti's Novella 11: [a man] era un elemento a chi in Ferrara
capitava ["a friendly element for everyone who came to Ferrara"], in French from
the time of Montaigne (estre hors de leur element); in German from the sixteenth
century on (Gunther); and in English "to be in one's element" is attested as early
as 1598. This expression is particularly reminiscent of similar uses of "air" (sein
We
Lufft, Paracelsus; v. note 17) which suggest so strongly the idea of sympathy.
may compare the significant identification of element and welkin in the Clown's
speech in Twelfth Night: "who you are and what you would are not of my welkin:
I might say, element; but the word is over-worn."
It is interesting to note in this connection Pascal's severe criticism directed against
the use of anthropomorphic expressions in scientific language-though
such strictures as those expressed below can have no weight as against the developments in
the spoken language:
[les philosopher] parlent des choses corporelles spirituellement
et des
Car ils disent hardiment que les corps tendent
spirituelles corporellement.
en bas, qu'ils aspirent a leur centre, qu'ils fuient la destruction, qu'ils craignent le vide, qu'ils ont des inclinations, des sympathies, des antipathies, qui
sont toutes choses qui n'appartiennent qu'a l'esprit.
[Pensees II, 72]
Cf. Descartes (Tannery II, 223): "la plupart la [la pesanteur] prennent pour une
vertu ou quality interneden chacun des corps que l'on nomme pesants qui le fait tendre
vers le centre de la terre." Finally, one may remember the remark of Leibniz on the
conservatism of language (Discours de ietaphysique):
"nous voyons que ceux qui
suivent Copernic ne laissent pas de dire que le soleil se leve et so couche."
12
PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOOMENOLOGICAL
RESEARCH
term
avrtLreplacraaOs
[=
13
Quite different are such cases as circumamplecti, circumambire-verbs of compound prefix, in which circum has been added on to the earlier amb- whose force had
14
RESEARCH
PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGlCAL
cal Latin: a use which was to make possible the eventual creation of an
aer ambiens. For example in the following passages ambire (alternating
with amplecti, coercere,circumfundere) is used to refer to the embrace of
the Ocean:
Catullus LXIV, 31-Oceanusque mariatotum amplectiturorbem.
Ovid, Fast., 81-82-Oceanus . .. qui terram liquidis, qua patet, ambit aquis (variant:
amplectitur).
Ovid, Metam. I, 30-circumfluus umnor(the Ocean) . . . solidumque coercuitorbem.
Ovid, Metam. I, 37-iussit (freta) et ambitae circumdare litora terrae.
Cicero, Somn. Scip. 13-omnis enim terra ... parva quaedam insula est circumfusa
illo mariaquod Atlanticum magnum, quem Oceanum appellatis in terris.
And it is in such examples of ambire that we have the real germ of (aer)
ambiens, and not in those copied from the ThLL by Michaelsson most of
which contain the idea "to revolve," "to run through a course" (cf. Macrobius, I.c. I, xxxi: "quod eadem signa Saturnus annis triginta, luna diebus
viginti octo ambit et permeat"; a similar concept also underlies the
derivative
ambitus).
I have not found the verb ambire used to refer precisely to the air, the
is
space, surrounding the earth. But the "skyey" quality of WrEpLxov
suggested in the following passage from the commentary of Macrobius on
the Somnium Scipionis (a work which was to serve as an authority for the
Middle Ages: Dante, Chrestien de Troyes, etc.); here, in a description of
the celestial orbs, ambire appears as a more poetic variant of continere:
Verum solis circo superiorum stellarum circos certum est esse maiores, si eo quod
continetur id quod continent maius est, cum hic sit caelestium sphaerarum ordo, ut
a superior unaquaeque inferior ambiatur.
(We have here already the Galileo-like turn of sentence noted abovecf. also "circulos per quem sol discurrit a Mercurii circulo, ut inferior
ambitur," I, xix).
In the absence of more specific examples of ambire in reference to space,
several expressions may be found, among which the concept "embrace"
become weakened. In general, it could perhaps be said that this was done with no
perceptible change of meaning; however, in the following example of circumambire
from St. Jerome (ThLL), the idea of "around" ("round and round") is surely
strongly emphasized to an extent of which amb- alone would have been incapable
(note the vertigine!): sphaera hanc ipsam terram circumambit vertigine et dicitur
coelum.
In Toletus we shall find circumambiens used to represent the "externus locus";
this is undoubtedly the origin of the English circumambient as applied to air in 1635
by Adam. The term appears not to exist in Romance, though one may note the semantic derivative French, circonvoisin.
15
WrEptfxeo-GaL=cinguloconstringi.
(We shall later see this rendered in medieval translations simply by contineri.)
OaXaSoos
On p. 44,
7reptppeoA4fvr
l u/i-rao-a
4'a vn-os...
vro'i
Kaxov/,Jv7fs
16
Atlantici maris ambitu coerceri insulamque hanc esse cum omnibus insulis
suis; nam similes hic alias et alias minores circumfundit Oceanus"; here
lrEptppErcT~ca =
ainbitu coerceri (cf. also the circumfundit with Cicero's
"quaedam insula est circumfusa illo maria). Muller labels this manner
of translating "Erweiterung aus der Vorlage heraus": an amplification
which makes explicit the implicit:
'hanc terrenam immensitatem' wird frei hinzugefiigt . . . ambitu coerceristeht als
vollerer Ausdruck fur das einfache 7reptppEdGat; beide Erweiterungen haben offenbar
den Sinn, diese ungewohnlicheTatsache, dass der ganze Erdkreis eine Insel ist, durch
eine Antithese "immensitas-ambitu coerceri" noch mehr hervorzuheben.... Seine
Kr6nung erfahrt der Satz aber mit dem letzten Kolon "insulamque ... cum insulis
suis omnibus.'
The Roman has an eye for the narrowest strip of the boundless expanse:
his gaze follows the Mediterranean to the Pillars of Heracles which are,
for him, the point where the river begins to broaden; but to the Greek,
this is the point where the Ocean narrows.
As for
the stylistic device of variation and amplification--and this was the case
even when they were faced with a definitely finite phenomenon: cf. Cicero's
procedure when describing the limited boundaries of a harbor: "non ...
Iortu illud oppidum clauditur, sed urbe portus ipse cingitur et continetur
(Verr. 5, 96). Thus the question arises (which I do not feel competent
to decide): did the Romans resort to periphrases because of the lack of the
technical term WrEPXEICV
(and xrEptppEZv), or did the lack of this technical
term coincide with an engrained habit of variation? My own feeling,
based on such a passage as the one just cited from Cicero, would prompt
the latter conclusion; but it also seems to me evident that the Romans were
unable to decant into their own idiom the richness and fullness of the
Greek term, and thus were forced to have recourse to the procedure of
diversification, of breaking up one concept into convenient parts-in
short, of using many terms for what, in Greek, was concentrated into one:
multa, non multum might be the Roman device in this connection. It
seems to me reasonable to assume that the Romans felt less well-protected
in the universe, less at home with the infinite, than did the Greeks; for
their part they rather tended to cling more to the soil: that graspable
entity, that mother earth so dear to the Romans-among whom flourished
the cult of so many chthonian divinities. The gesture of Brutus who,
MILIEU
17
AND AMBIANCE
on his return home, kissed the soil, is symbolic of not only the patriotic
but also the earthy feelings of the Roman people. And as regards this
soil, they were apt to qualify sober epithets: the Roman word for "continent" is "that which holds together" (terra continens); the Greek word is
,qruEposwhich (though its etymology is as yet unconfirmed) perhaps is
related to a&ELpOs "infinite." The Romans were unable to sense the
grandeur of all-embracingness, and in their language the substantive
ambiens is lacking while various verbs, of which ambire is only one out
of many, vie for the honor of rendering the Greek verb 7rrptExauv.
*
18
1PlIuLOSOrIY
MILIEU
AND AMBIANCE
19
(here we find the Aristotelian idea of the lack of continuity between the
not o-v?ExEs).This
"containing"and the "contained"-of the 0o-vz'E6i0'Oz,6
idea of the completely closed spheres around the world is responsible for
the idea of Dante that the greater is a celestial body the more forces it
"contains" (Paradiso XXVIII, 64):
Li cerchi corporai16a sono ampi ed arti,
Secondo il piu1 e il meno della virtute,
16a (A repercussion of the idea of the r#LcL
"The larger body contains
7reptLxov).
continuing the reference of the Latin
the greater possibility of doing good"-cape
In the passage "losto che luogo (space) 11 la (the
capere ("to have capacity").
soul) circonscrive (Purgatorio XXV, 88) we can sense that even the shadow (the
soul) of a dead person in the other world is limited by space; and we are told (v. 94)
that Vaere vicin (Vossler, Die g6ttliche Komodie II, 125, translates "die Luftumgebung") is shaped ("informed") by the residual intellectual capacities of the soul.
20
the space is permeated by the potenze, the forces of the soul-later on the
physicists will have space pierced by interstellar forces.
We have noted many points in common between the medieval cosmology
and that of the Greeks. But one important element present in Greek
thought seems to be lacking with the writers of this age: the warmth
and vitality, the activity of the 7EpLEpxoV;we hear no more of that 'fiery
ether' with which space was once identified. The transforming activity
of which the Greeks spoke, and which the physicists of the Renaissance
were to rediscover, is, in the Middle Ages, perhaps replaced by astral
influences: the active influences of the stars on the virtutes of men and
objects on earth. In the first passage cited from Dante and in the lines
which follow this, he insists on the variety of these influences: diverse
essenze-varie differenze la distinzione che dentro da se hanno-differenti
membra (of the) organi del mondo-(the heavens) conformate a diverse
potenze-virtua diverse fa diverse lega-la virtue'mista etc."7
17 These diversifying
forces are known as virtutes or dignitates: in the Middle Ages
every entity (and paricularly such realia as abstractions) had its intrinsic virtus,
proprietas or dignitas; G. Crocioni (Lingua nostra IX, 29) has recognized in a dignitate of the Vita Nuova a dignity planetaria-one
of the five qualities ascribed to the
ascent of a planet. From this dignitas rerum "particular quality" (which goes back
to antiquity: in Plautus and Pliny it means "inner value"; cf. Gr. A4LCOLS) is derived
This
the meaning "choice quality" (Eng. dainty, 0. Fr. daintie[r]) or "friandise."
last meaning may originate directly from the "Jdgersprache," as von Wartburg
(FEW s.v. dignitas) contends; but ultimately dignitas goes back to the language of
the ancient philosophers who were wont to speak of the "dignity of things"-an
In this connection I may mention
important fact which von Wartburg overlooked.
the commentary to Lucan's Pharsalia of Arnulfus (who lived at Orleans in the twelfth
century):
Nam anime dicuntur esse create ad numerum stellarum et quecumque
anima dicitur nutriri cum sua stella
Thus, after the death of the body the souls which are possessed of purgatoriae virtutes
revert ad comparem stellar (text quoted by Berthe M. Marti in Modern Language
Quarterly II, 10); cf. Ant. Viscardi, La letteratura religious del medio evo romanzo
(1932).
The influence of the stars on earthly bodies is of course also a remnant of ancient
cf. H.
astrology, according to which the astra represented "elements" (aToLXeza),
Diels, Elementum, p. 57; this notion is still to be found in Paracelsus:
Denn was ein element ist, dasselbig ist auch cin astrum. Denn ohn ein
astrum mogen sic nicht leben . . . Nun von dem astro (dcr Erde zu reden,
auch liegen(l: (lalin (las
wissen1d (lass in ihm alle himmlische operation
astrum ist verborgen, die corpora sind offeulbar.
In Spain Graciin echoes still in the seventeenth century the medieval conception
(Critic6n I, 2):
21
We now come to the translations of Aristotle dating from the Renaissance. The following passages were copied for me by Professor Friedlander from the edition of Aristotle published by the Prussian Academy of
Berlin (Vol. III); here we may see how 7repL0xov is translated:
De gener. et corr.: quod est universal et cuncta ambit continetque (Vatablus)
Meteor.: ob id quod ambitcontinetque(Vatablus)
De gener. anim.: continent a&r(Theodorus Lazas)
De mundo: in aere (Budaeus)18
Porque has de saber que no ay astro alguno en el cielo que no tenga su
diferente propiedad, assi como las yervas y las plantas de la tierra: unas de
las estrellas causan el calor, otras el frio, unas secan, otras humedecen, y
desta suerte alternan otras muchas influencias, y con essa essencial correspondencia unos a otros se corrigen y se templan
The passage illustrates the combination of astral influence with the well-tempered
climate.
is continued in the
18 This use of the word aer alone as an equivalent of lrepLkxo'
Renaissance writings of Romance; I have come across several passages in which the
word "air" has the full connotations of "climat" (just as in Greek, &jp=Kpi=afs)
Boccaccio,
". . .
la quale il
nostro aere patisca"; this is translated by the editors: 'il nostro clima.'
"la ville, la quelle je trouvay belle, bien forte et en bel air"-Rabelais,
Pantagruel, chap. XXXII. [Incidentally, this use of air furnishes a clue
to the formation of numerous place-names to be found in Romance (and
also Anglo-Saxon) countries: Belair, Bellaria, etc.]
And in another part of the same work of Rabelais (Tiers Livre) an aer is found which
is even more keenly reminiscent of Kpacia:
"par l'aer et tout ce ciel est son bruyt et nom (i.e. that of Diogenes) jusques
a present, restedmemorable et celebre assez"
Here, air and sky between them serve to protect and preserve this renown-which is
presented as something material, as a sound, "bruyt."
Again we may note the use of this word by the physician Pare (the same who used
the term air ambiant "c'est a dire qui est a l'entour"-cf. Michaelsson), when, reflecting the ancient belief that the air is inhabited by demons, he speaks of seeking
the aetiology of disease in the "air" (one may note such expressions, still surviving,
as coup d'air, malaria; il a e frappe d'un mauvais vent, Portuguese, deu the o ar):
Je ne sgache homme si peu verse en la philosophic naturelle, ny en astrologie, qui ne recherche en lair la cause efficiente de tant de maux . . . car
d'oA procederoient tant de pestes contagieuses ... sinon de l'air qui n'a
este chiche de son poison mais nous en a infectedA son plaisir? D'oui seroit
venu tant de coqueluches, de pleuresies, d'aposthemes, caterrhes, fluxions,
grenouilles, crapaux, sauterelles, chenilles, araignees, mousches, hannetons,
lima~ons, serpens, viperes, couleuvres, lezards, scorpions, et aspics . . ."
It is interesting that both "fluxions" and "grenouilles" belong to the list of things
nourished by this "air"; to Par6 this element represented not only a "cause
efficiente" but also a breeding place: the home of tiny animals. Yet when Brissaud
("Histoire des expressions . .. relatives a la m6decine," 1892) cites, and comments
upon, this passage, he relegates to the notes that part of the sentence from "grenouilles" on-thereby splitting into two, as it were, what was a single concept for the
22
"Water" is represented as "des Vischs Lufft"; of the salamander it is said: "da ist
das Feuer ihr Luift, wie unser Lufft, unser Lufft ist." Because the word Chaos
was also used by Paracelsus (in the formation Chaoskdlte-cf. also his Lufftkalte)
to designate the vapor produced by cold water, van Helmont was later to derive the
word gas from chaos: in this way "gas" is represented as a product of "ambient air,"
of "suus aer (suus locus)."
The use of the word air in the meaning "manner, appearance" has been explained
by all etymologists from Diez to Dauzat (most of them imbued with the spirit of
Worterund Sachen, so destructive of the things of the spirit), by reference to Old
Fr. aire (= "aerie") which is supposed to have telescoped with air (Littre, von
Wartburg). I personally am opposed to this interpretation, believing that air =
"maniere" is none other than air = "atmosphere". The expression air de cour is
found as early as the sixteenth century (cf. also German Hofluft, Klosterluft): here
the word is used figuratively to suggest the spiritual atmosphere, the moral climate,
emanating from a certain place. Because this "atmosphere" indicated something
characteristic which distinguishes one place from another, it became possible to use
the word air, in a general reference, with the meaning "caractere dominant"; Huguet
lists under this definition such examples as un abregede l'air general des Arrests de la
Cour; l'air general de la cause; le principal air de l'Oratoire-all of them expressions
which would no longer be possible today. I may add to these 16th c. examples another from the Apologie de Raym. Sebond,where Montaigne, alluding metaphorically
to the nurturing ether of the Ancients, calls Tasso le plus formera l'air de cette bien
antique, naifve et pure poesie; cf. also the somewhat more rationalistic passage from
Chapelain (17th c., quoted by Ch. A. Beall, La fortune du Tasse en France): I'amenite
des inventions extravagantes[of Tasso] . . . qui avaient accoutumele monde a leur air.
What has remained of this meaning is preserved, perhaps, in the phrase l'air du
temps (Ital. l'aria del tempo)-on which was doubtless fashioned the modern sophisticated l'air du mois. This expression, which served as the heading of a section of
the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, was introduced in 1933, at a time, this is, when European affairs were entering upon a dangerously confused and uncertain stage-of
which it was becoming increasingly difficult to discern the "caractere dominant."
Thus the phrase lair du mois would seem to represent an ironic creation of subtle
critics who sought at least to seize the rapidly evaporating essence of one month's
history.
But air de cour, in referring to a spiritual atmosphere, was not only indicative of a
"caractere dominant": it was also descriptive, descriptive of appearance. Thus
MILIEU
AND
AMBIANCE
23
24
RESEARCH
PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGICAL
From these excerpts we may notice how the synonymatic richness of the
medieval philosophers has given way to stereotyped terms; in the place
of the variety achieved by the Schoolmen who, as they rethought the
of a woman, conceiving it to be a manifestation of a "moral health," of a well-tempered climate, so to speak.
Interestingly enough this word was also applied to thorough-bred horses-refering, specifically, to their gait:
Certa cadenza e liberty di moto, che si accomoda alla disposizione naturale
(Tomdi un cavallo, e lo fa operare con obbedienza, misura e proporzione
maseo-Bellini)
une grand' quantity de tres-bons et beaux
sgavoient alter de tous airs (Brantome, 16th c.)
grands
chevaux
... qui
le moreau superbe, qui alloit a deux pas et un saut, et d'un tres-haut et bet
air (ibid.)
(note also such an expression as se donner des airs which probably was originally
The sophistication of the court connoisseurs of horsean equestrian metaphor).
lore went to the extreme of postulating various "moral climates" in thevarious
sophistication consisting of the toto coelo distinction between one gait
gaits-the
and another. And perhaps they also had in mind, half-ironically, the magical
Later, par
"air" of a beautiful woman, in ascribing air, aria to a thoroughbred.
ricochet, the equestrian term may have been again diverted toward womanhood:
particularly in the circle of the precieux who delighted in employing the terminology
of sports and war when speaking of love, and all things spiritual; it is possible that
un bet air has made its way back from the stables to the dwellings of human beings
in which it originated.
Indeed it is at least possible that the modern French avoir t'air de, used of a person,
is partly based upon the "air" attributed to horses; in Spanish we find the expression
attested by Covarrubias (1611) tener Pedro el ayre de Juan = "es parecersele en el
movimiento(!), o en el cuerpo, o rostro"; in French, too, avoir t'air de may at first
have been used of a person in movement-comparing his own to the movement of a
horse; le bet air may be the ideal gait! (The following example of modern Spanish,
from the pen of A. Castro, seems to preserve both the meaning "climate" and that
of the 'airs' attributed to persons by way of horses: "Savonarola se mueve en medio
de aires proftticos y maravillosos.")
In one of the varieties of modern Spanish argot (the xiriga of the Asturian bricklayers) we find a curious periphrase of the personal pronoun: miaire, tuaire, suaire,
nuestrosaires etc. (cf. Aurelio de Llano Roza de Ampudia, Dialectos jergales asturianos
[Oviedo, 1921]). I venture to see in this bizarre suffix our aire, aria, air ironically
applied to a person who se donne des airs, se da aires de gran senior. According to
Dauzat (Romania XLVIII, 412) this same periphrase is to be met with in the "Bellaud" ("argot des peigneurs de chanvre du Jura"): voutres er = vous ['your airs'].
One may also compare a similar formation in the "argot des malfaiteurs": monan =
rnoi ['my year']; votre an = vous ['your year']: this represents a parody of a periCorneille: "un plus puissant d6mon veille sur vos
phrase once very lofty-cf.
annees."
Thus tu (mn')as (lout) lair d'un idiot (later tu as l'air idiot, completely grammaticized [= semnbler,cf. tu as l'air idiote, said of a woman] may be due to a convergence
of the atmospherer" and the "air > gait" ideas. Perhaps this use is a parody of
M\/ILIEU AND
AMBIANCE
25
state):
una graziosa aria di fanciulla, and similarly, Fr. tu as l'air d'un idiot may be the
parody of vous avez l'air d'un homme de quality.
Finally, we may note another meaning of air, aria which seems likewise to go
back to the gait of horses: this is the meaning "song, ' "air," which appears first
in Italian and is then borrowed by French, Spanish and English; note, in the following passage cited by Tommaseo-Bellini from Varchi (16th c.), the parallelism of
aria and andare:
N6n si ricordava delle proprie parole di quei versi, ma aveva nel capo il
suono di essi, cioe 'aria, o quella che diciamo l'andare.
Thus the movement, the lilt, of the melody is presented as in contrast to the words
which are rationalized. Moreover, at the same time in French, we find air used in
such a connection as to suggest the translation "accent" (this word itself repreents an original musical term applied to pronunciation): "Elle parloit bien, aveq
un fort bel ayr, tant FranQoisque Hespaignol" (Brantbme); c'est la princesse . . .
qui a le plus bel air de parler" (Marguerite de Navarre). One may note a similar
aura del parlare in which Tasso senses the influence of Amor (Le rime II):
E laura del parlar cortese e saggio [of Amor]
Fra le rose [the incarnate of the Lady Love] spirar s'udia sovente.
L'aura del parlar = the accent of love (and of Love).
19 The lexicological continuity between scholastic translations of Aristotle and
those of the Byzantine humanist Argyropoulos, who helped usher in the Renaissance
by his teaching in Florence, has recently been established by E. Lerch in his article
"Aristoteles, die Lokomotive und das Automobil" (Studia neophilologica XII, 3
[1940]): ro KLtvTLKYV KaT'a rO6Tov for the locomotive faculty of animals and human
beings has been rendered in Thomas Aquinas by motivumsecundumlocum, in Argyropoulos by loco motivum(and this expression is the ancestor of the locomotive(engine)).
The continuity of our cultural heritage from ancient Greece is made manifest by the
fact that our most modern technical inventions derive their names from ancient
philosophic thought.
It is worthy of note that the same Argyropoulos who repeated the scholastic
neuter motivumdid not dare coin a neuter ambiens: we must only infer that he did
not find this word in the Schoolmen, who, for themselves, would probably have not
hesitated before a formation of such ambiguous gender as is ambiens: it is they
ingrediens,
26
Thus there is a filiation leading from Aristotle's 1reptxov through the medieval and Renaissance translations to Italian ambiente.21
neuter present participle is part of a larger Latin phenomenon: the absence of the
abstract neuter in general. According to Deutschbein ("Der Sinn des germanischen
Neutrums" [Euphorion XXXVIII, 1937, p. 401]) and to Stegmann von Pritzwald
(Wbrter und Sachen, 1938-39, p. 234) the abstract adjectival neuter, as we find it for
example in das Gbttliche or rO ocioV, is known only to Greek and to the Germanic
languages (one might mention, however, such occasional uses in Latin as honestum,
bonum, doubtless representing imitations of the Greek). For, in the neuter use of
the Latin past participle, no abstraction is involved: per neglecta = "at unguarded
spots"; in occultis templi = "in the secret parts of the temple," etc. Such a usage
represents rather a "Verdinglichung" (a "Verdinglichung," moreover, that traverses
the language: note that it is "res divinae" which is the equivalent of "das GdttBut I cannot follow the authors in their belief that the neuter in Greek
liche").
(and German) illustrates, as they say, "die transzendentale Realitat, das ilberindividuelle Urbild, den Archetyp der Dinge und Erscheinungen, " as this is embodied
in Platonic and Germanic philosophy.
-As though language could create a philosophy (and it were not rather the reverse)! Indeed, Spinoza, writing in the Latin language that lacked the flexible
neuter infinitive of the Greek, simply resorted to the device of "borrowing" the
"philosophical" article ro, inserting this into his Latin (tiny islets of Greek in the
Latin text): the deficiencies of Latin did not prevent him from philosophizing!
And can it be said that England has failed to produce any philosophers?-though
this language is utterly lacking in a special form for the neuter (the volume of R.
Otto, "Das Heilige," had to be translated into English by "The Idea of the Holy"a translation eminently appropriate, it seems to me). Or, conversely, since Spanish,
alone among the Romance languages, does possess a particular form for adjectival
abstractions (lo hermoso, corresponding to ro KaXo6v, das Sch6ne) it would have to
follow, by the same logic, that Spain has had the greatest philosophers of all the
Romance countries.
of Newton's Principia mathematics by Mme du Chatelet,
20 Cf. the translation
cited by Brunot, Histoire de la langue frangaise VI, 1-2, p. 558: "Les corps ambiants
sont a ceux qu'ils contiennent, comme toutes les parties ext6rieures d'un corps sont
a toutes les parties int6rieures, ou comme l'6corce est au noyau": Mme du Chatelet
did not have at her command the opposition possible to Galileo, ambiente-ambito.
Latin of an (as yet) attested aer ambiens is less serious
21 The lack in Classical
than it might seem, in view of the general experience that, in the Middle Ages and
early Renaissance, conceptions elaborated in learned circles found their expression
27
The medieval and Christian cast given to the concept of zrepexovambiens, already visible in Arnobius, is the insistence on the love of a
personal God for his creation and on the finite nature of this his universe:
attractive physical forces (which are at the same time moral ones) traverse
the cosmos: I'Amor che muove it sole e l'altre stelle. And God, the magnet
of love, is and works therein; with Dante he appears enthroned in the
outermost heavenly sphere of fire: about him his creation (dispersed
though it may appear to mortals) lies, a book bound with love (legato
per amore in un volume). This book of the world is a finite, compact thing.
in the different national languages later than in Neo-Latin. This linguistic fact
corresponds to a cultural fact: the familiarity of all scholars of this time with Latin,
which still formed their common language. For example the words Middle Ages,
moyen dge, Mittelalter appear about 150 or 200 years later than does the Neo-Latin
media aetas (according to N. Edelman, Romanic Review XXIX, 1), and nostalgia,
the creation of a Swiss physician of the sixteenth century, precedes the German
(originally Swiss) word Heimweh (cf. Kluge, Wortforschungund Wortgeschichte,
p. 46). Again, Schadenfreude,which is considered as so typically German, is probawellbly a loan-translation of the sixteenth century from the Greek 7rtXaLPEOIKaKla,
known to humanistic circles (it was said of the devil, the Foe, the malignus; compare
in this connection the French joie maligne, originally the Schadenfreudeof the devil
who has succeeded in capturing a soul).
It was Italian, as we have said, which first among the national languages adopted
ambiens. Michae1sson notes this fact and, since to him Italian ambiente connotes
vagueness, cites von Wartburg to the effect that the Italian language is of a nature
"less Cartesian" than the other tongues. But the "vagueness" of ambiente, even
today, is questionable-and in the beginning it was a purely scientific term, in whatever language it appeared. As I have pointed out, it was probably a Neo-Latin
word of most precise connotations, and thus "Cartesian" enough-even for those
who would limit this epithet to the realm of "reason" and "clarity" alone.
And as concerns the judgment on the Italian language to which he appealed:
there is a great danger in such apparently "idealistic" generalizations, particularly
when they come from the pen of a positivist such as is von Wartburg (who would
doubtless show that even positivists may display flexibility of mind). In this way
the cause of idealism itself is most seriously harmed: the opponents of idealism, disarmed, accept such generalizations as "scientific," unaware that what has passed
as an aperqu(that may be instructive by its very boldness) is in fact no more than a
milk-and-water dilution of a truth. The historian of ideas can not insist too strongly
against this new superstition, this "linguistic folklore."
Moreover, Michaelsson, in appealing to this generalization in support of his
"vague" interpretation of ambiente, would seem to suggest the absurd conclusion
that any language which contains vague expressions must itself be vague: unscientific, unclassical. But have not all peoples, in all ages, had alike their vague and
precise expressions?-Indeed, the language of Descartes, and in his own lifetime,
enjoyed the expression (than which none could be less precise): "je ne sais quoi."
In Moliere it is found coupled with the equally vague air = "maniere":
Vos paroles, le ton de votre voix, vos regards, vos pas, votre action et votre
ajustement ont je ne sais quel air de quality qui enchante les gens. (Livet,
Lexique de Moliere) Cf. note 18.
28
PHILOSOPHY
AND
But I should think that it is not so much the Gothic spire, stabbing and
piercing the sky (this later manifestation of a Germanic Unendlichkeitsdrang), as it is the earlier Romanic church with its massive enclosure of
the Holy of Holies or the Byzantine cupola, finite image of the infinite
world,22which represent the typically medieval and Mediterraneo-Oriental
parallels to the Greek-inspired cosmology. In the light of these reflections, the anomaly of which Professor Lovejoy speaks seems to me to
disappear; the Middle Ages are more Grecian in their philosophical outlook, as in their art, than is generally admitted. Their thinking went
toward the visual and the finite, as is shown also by their capacity of seeing,
as did the Greeks, abstractions as well-defined personalities or allegories.
Thus such phrases as aer ambiens, locus ambiens, which we find in the
Renaissance, brought with them a connotation of beneficence, happy selflimitation, finitism. But, of course, to those of the Renaissance thinkers
who longed for freedom, freedom of body, mind and soul, who sought to
merge with the infinite, they could only imply coercion and imprisonmentjust as is apt to be true in the case of a modern thinker faced with such
concepts as these represented: it is interesting to see in Lovejoy's work
how the modern historian, emancipated from the closed-vase-theory
22 According to Philipp Schweinfurth (Deutsche Literaturzeitung 1940, col. 531),
the "Pendentivkuppel" of the Hagia Sophia is "Hellenistic-Roman" and corre-
sponds with the tendency to riroirrpla of the Greek mystery cults: "Der Himmel
selbst sollte hier vergegenwartigt werden, indes sich der Allerh6chste regt, der
hier taglich im Messopfer
zugegen ist....:
Epyov
&IAjd1r77ov
Kal
avTLKPVS
irl
'y^qS
(Nicet. Aconin.)."
Cf. also my remarks in Revista de filologia hispdnica (1940), p. 157, in reference to
the article of L. Blaga.
otbpaYvov osatpcoca
MILIEU
AND AMBIANCE
29
of the medieval world, will employ, in his appraisal of this epoch, metaphors
smacking of oppression and aimlessnesss"; he sees fetters where antiquity
and the Middle Ages had seen only protection and caressing goodness:
The medieval world was . . . definitely limited and fenced about23 . . . the men of
the fifteenth century still lived in a walleduniverse as well as in walled towns (p. 101).
. . . (a universe) limited and boxedin . . . (p. 104)
23 The "boxed-in" feeling of the Middle Ages is apparent in the motifs and allegories of this time: cf. the hortus conclusus in which the Virgin (Maria im Rosenhag
or Rosengqrtlein), or the Church, is ensconsed; or again, such lines as the following,
from the poetry of the Provengal troubadour Marcabru, descriptive of "True Love":
Nasquet en un gentil aire
e.l luoc on ilh es creguda
es claus de rama brancuda.
The extent to which this feeling invaded medieval thought is also to be seen in
the choice of words made by Alanus ab Insulis in his Anticlaudiamus, when he describes the creation by Nature of the various forms of things:
Omnia sub numero claudens, sub pondere sistens,
Singula sub stabili mensura cuncta coercens.
Huyzinga ("tUberdie Verkniipfungdes Poetischen mit dem Theologischen bei Alanus
de Insulis") points out that the source of this passage is Lib. sap. XI, 21: sed omnia
in mensura et numero et pondere disposuisti, and notes that Alanus substituted, in
the place of disponere, "die praignanterenVorstellungen des Schliessens, des Festset-t
zens und des Einhegens"; he fails, however, to go further into the matter of the concept of "shaping" seen as an act of enclosing. From the same author he quotes the
lines dealing with logic:
Quomodo res pingens descriptio claudit easdem
Nec sinit in varios descriptum currere vultus
and comments: "Der Akt des Einschliessens in den Begriff ist dem Fixieren eines
Bildes gleichgestellt." By now we have seen that the claudere (amplecti, coercere)
of logical terminology is identical with the claudere(amplecti, coercere)used in reference to space and the heavens. It is only to be expected, then, that in Alanus, the
creation of forms and the formation of sentences (clauses!) must alike suggest a
walling-in, a framing, an embrace within a circle.
In the hymn of Thomas Aquinas, Pange, lingua, gloriosi mysterium(where we may
note the expression, borrowed from Venantius Fortunatus, pangere mysterium),
the poet says of Christ: miro ordine clausit (his life). This means, not only that
Christ ended his life "in a wonderful way" (as Beeson in his Primer of Medieval Latin
translates), but that he "ensconced his life in a wondrous order" ("subjected it to
the concept of order"). One cannot afford to disregard the logical flavour of the
word. Any concept "includes," encompasses, its own meaning and its power ("vertue"), cf. the two Dante passages below: in the first (Inf. IX, 106) the poet, seeking
information about one of the circles of Hell, inquires into la condition che tal fortezza
serra-the conditions which define this circle are conceived as imprisoned in a fastness; in Par. XVII, 36, Cacciaguida is described as Chiuso e parvente del suo riso,
which line is explained by Torraca: "avvolto nello splendor, che dal suo riso scaturiva, e per esso splendor visibile." The poet appears at the same time as
"wrapped" in the (potential) heavenly smile that defines him and as (actually)
30
PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGICAL
RESEARCH
MIILIEU
AND AmBI-`NCE
31
world, though not geocentric, was still centered, still spherical in shape,
still securely walled in by the outermost sphere, se ipsam et omnia continens"25(p. 104). Here we recognize the arnbiens and ambitum of the
der Renaissance," 1917, pp. 197-98; it is this passage which suggested to me the equation lreptkxov= ambiente:
Das Unendliche als ein Instrument der exakten wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis ist ihm noch fremd: ja er hat es in seiner Lehre vom Minimum in
dieser seinerFunktion ausdriucklich bekampft und abgewoehrt. Aber sowenig
er die logische Struktur des neuen mathematiseh-Unenidlichen
durchschaut,
so sehr umfasst or den unendlichen Kosmos rnit der ganzen Glut eines leidenschaftlichen Affekts. Dieser heroische Affe kt ist es, dce sich jetzt gegen
das "no plus ultra" der mittelalterlichen doginatischen Glauboeislehre wie der
aristotelisch-scholastischen
Kosmologie zur Wehr setzt. Der freie Flug
der Phantasie und der freic Flug des Denkens (larf nirgends durch feste
raumlich-dingliche Schranken gehemmt werden. So wendet sich Bruno
vor allem und immer von neuem gegeon die Konzoption des Raumes als
des o-cvuya -rEpExov
der peripatetischen
des "Umschliossenden",
Physik.
Der Raum, in dem sich die Welt befindet, ist ihm nicht die ausserste Umgrenzung, in der sie gewissermassen eingehuillt uind eingebettet ruht: or ist
vielmehr das freie Medium der Bewegung, die sich ungehindert fiber jede
Diese Bewegung
endliche Grenze und nach allen Richtungen hin erstreckt.
kann und darf kein Hemmnis in der "Natur" irgendeines Einzeldinges
oder in der allgemeinen Beschaffenheit des Kosmos finden: denn sie selbst,
in ihrer Universalitat und ihrer Schrankenlosigkeit, ist es vielmehr, die die
Der unendliche Raum wird erfordert als das
Natur als solche konstituierte.
Vehikel der unendlichen Kraft; und diese ist wiederum nichts anderes als ein
Diese drei Momente
Ausdruck des unendlichen Lebens des Universums.
sind ffur Brunos Denken nirgends scharf geschieden; wie in der stoischen
und neuplatonischen Physik, auf die or sich stuitzt, so fliesst auch bei ihm
der Begriff des Raumes mit demn des Athers und dieser wider mit dem
Begriff der Weltseele zusarnmen. Auch hier ist somit ein dynamisches
Kosmos durchMotiv, das die Starrheit des aristotelisch-scholastischen
Aber es ist nicht, wie bei Kelpler und Galilei, die
bricht und tiberwindet.
Form der neuen Wissenschaft der Dynarnik, sondern ein neues dynamisches
Weltgefufhl, das hier den Ausschlag gibt.
Later on, he quotes Bruno (De Immenso et Innurnerabilibus, I, i)
. . .Intrepidus spatium immensum sic findere )etlmlis
Exorior, neque fama facit me impingere in orbes,
Quos falso statuit verus de principio error,
Ut sub conficto reprimamur carcere vere,
Tanquam adamanteis cludatur moenibus totum.
Nam mihi mens melior . . .
25 Similarly Ariosto still reflects the ancient and medieval
cosmography, ini the
passage from Orlando Furioso (XXXIV, 70) which describes Astolfo's visit to the
moon [he notes the smaller size of this body in comparison]:
Di cio che in questi globi si ragaona,
In questo ultim-noglobo (della terra,
Mettendo il mar che la circonda e serra.
(Cf. also Marjorie Nicholson, A World in the Moon). Ain(l Camoons expresses himn-
32
MILIETU, AND
Aii1I
JAx
NCEX
33
But in his departure from the Scholastics, not always did Descartes
reject or destroy outright: in some cases, by his new interpretation and
of St. Helena, choosing this spot as representing the center of the Spanish empire,
catholic and universal, which embraces the two hemispheres, resorts to the same
''compartmental" manner of expression in his paraphrase of the Biblical creation:
Luego que el supremo Artifice tuvo acabada esta gran fibrica del mundo,
dizen trato repartirla, alojando en sus estancias sus vivientes.
Convocolos todos . . . fu'les mostrando los repartimientos y examinando a cada
uno quail dellos escogia para su morada y vivienda . . . [Man] obliga todos
los elementos a que le tributen quanto abarcan, el ayre sus aves, el mar sus
peces . . ."
Note that the elements contain (abarcan) the beings which belong to them and which
stay in "their" places-Standortgebundenheit!
26 The word "straits,"
incidentally, reminds us that the Straits of Gibraltar, the
columns of Heracles which Dante's Ulysses had still considered a non piu oltre,
have ceased to form the limits of the known world.
34
RESEAR(CH
AND PHENOMETNOLOGICAL
PHILOSOPHY
fit contactus"),
but as the
For this mediante dere aliisve corporibus is an allusion to none other than
that famous invention of Descartes, the "matiere subtile": that tenuous
substance with which he imagined all space to be filled (thereby echoing
the xrv4lca of the ancients and anticipating the "ether" of modern physicists) and which also, according to him, could penetrate the interstices
of all bodies-including the human body. Thus the "surface at which
all contact must occur" becomes, at the hands of Descartes, itself subtly
transformed, conditioned by this new element he has introduced.
And thereby are dissolved the sharp lines between the body and its
-rptCxov upon which Aristotelian and Thomistic physics had insisted.
No longer is the body impenetrably encased; into every pore and crevice
creeps this subtle ether, the same with which the celestial bodies are surrounded. The stuff which fills the heavens is at the same time within us,
within all bodies. One can well understand how this theory of penetration,
of "boring-from-within" must have found favor during the time of Descartes -a period in which the tendency was away from the older stable
order based upon a trust in the validity of sharp lines of demarcation.
Moreover, even the distinction between mind and matter was threatened
by the introduction of the matiere subtile. This element was, on the one
hand, a material substance, yet it was assumed to possess such active
properties as esprits vitaux, esprits animaux which could affect organisms;
and this assumption must have served somewhat to volatilize, to melt,
the too, too solid nature of matter the "subtlety" of this "matter"
must have tended to undermine the firmness of Cartesian dualism itself!
1ILIEU
AND AMBIANCE
35
36
L RESEA RCH
PHILOSOPHYAND PH-ENOMEINOLOGICA
37
38
PHILOSOPHY
AND
PHENOMENOLOGICAL
RESEARCH
However, this is not to say that the medium of Newton is actually and
throughout to be defined as "medium of transmission of influences" or
some similar phrase; in regard to his aetherial medium, such a translation
would be clumsy at best-and in scores of other cases, particularly in the
ity alone; the aetherial medium is also referred to as a conductor of light. And
this was perhaps the original technical reference of medium as applied to the air.
Centuries before Newton, mezzo (diafano, transparente, etc.) is to be found with
Dante, in passages dealing with perception (it may also be noted that the first examples of medium in English, at the end of the sixteenth century, refer to optics,
and that the first example of aetherial medium attested in English [1624] is to be
found in a similar context; in Greek the word /j4ovo was used to refer to air as the
medium of perception):
Queste cose visibili . . . vengono dentro a l'occhio . . . per lo mezzo diafano . . . si quasi come in vetro transparente.
E ne l'acqua ch'e ne la
pupilla de l'occhio, questo discorso (= this transit), che fa la forma visibile
per lo mezzo, si si compie, perched quell' acqua e terminate che passar piA
non puo, ma quivi, a modo d'una palla percossa si ferma; si che la forma,
che nel mezzo transparente non pare [nell' acqua pura] lucida e terminate
. . .acci6 che la visione sia verace, cioe cotale qual e la cosa visibile in se,
conviene che lo mezzo per lo quale a l'occhio viene la forma sia sanza colore,
e l'acqua de la pupilla similemente: altrimenti si macolerebbe la forma
visibile del color del mezzo e di quello de la pupilla ... [la stella] puote parere
cosi [non chiara e non lucente] per lo mezzo che continuamente si transmuta.
Transmutasi questo mezzo di molta luce in poca luce, si come a la presenza
del sole e a la sua assenza; e a la presenza lo mezzo, che e diafano, e' tanto pieno
di lume che e vincente de la stella . . .
(Convivio III, ix, 6-12; Vol. IV of Barbi's edition of Opere di Dante)
The commentators of this passage quote parallel sentences of Thomas Aquinas:
In corporibus specularibus aliquando apparet color clarus, quando scilicet
speculum est purum et mundum non habens aliquem colorem extraneum,
et medium similiter purum. . . quando aer vel aliud perspicuum est in
propria natura purum, et non aliquo coloratum, tunc habet solum rationem
medii, per quod videtur objectum, non autem habet rationem objecti....
In another passage of the Convivio (III, xiv, 3-4) Dante introduces a normative
judgment concerning this light which needs a mezzo, assigning it to a lower level of
the hierarchic order in comparison with Divine Light:
lo primo agente, cioe Dio, pinge la sua virtue'in cose per modo di diritto
raggio, e in cose per modo di splendor reverberate; onde ne le Intelligenze
[= the angels] raggia la divina luce sanza mezzo, ne l'altri si ripercuote da queste
Intelligenze prima illuminate . . . mostrero differenza di questi vocaboli,
secondo che Avicenna sente. Dico che l'usanza de' filosofi e di chiamare
'raggio,' in quanto esso e per lo mezzo, dal principio al primo corpo dove si
termina; di chiamare splendorre' in quanto esso e in altra parte alluminata
ripercossa. Dico adunque che la divina virt-h sanza mezzo questo amore
tragge a sua simulitudine.
Cf. again Thomas Aquinas: "agens per voluntatem statim sine medio potest producere quemcumque effectum"; oness
angeli (= Intelligenze) . . . immediate vident
Dei essentiam."
The modern commentators of the Italian passage explain: "Dante
39
vibrations
. (ibid., p.
A very little variation of obliquity will change the reflected Colour, where the
thin Body or small Particles is rarer than the ambient Medium (ibid., p. 254).
Hallucinantur igitur qui credunt agitationem partium Flammae ad pressionem,
per Medium ambiens, secum lineas propagandam conducere (Principia, 1714 edition).
The one interpretation which is always fitting is simply "element (or substance)." Thus the aetherial (etc.) medium = "the aetherial element"
(sc. the air); transparent,refractingmedium = "any element of transparent
property," "any element serving to aid refraction"; ambient medium =
"any element immediately surrounding a body." At the same time, it is
also true that a functional connotation (of varying intensity) is everpresent with the term medium; the very choice of this word in reference
to the various elements reflects the point of view of a scientist conscious
of the potentialities, the properties of all elements with which he has to
insiste nello spiegare qual sia il modo onde Dio riduce a sua similitudine l'amore
della sapienza. Egli fa cio sanza mezzo . . ., senza usare d'altra causa o creatura,
ma immediatemente convertendolo a se, come a fine ultimo."
Finally we may note the following passage from the Paradiso (XXVII, 73); the
vision of the Beati which the poet had for a while been granted, fades from view as
the mezzointervenes:
Lo viso mio seguiva i suoi sembianti,
E segui in fin' che il mezzo, per lo molto,
Gli tolse il trapassar del piu avanti
(the commentators explain: "lo spazio di mezzo tra l'occhio e i vapori trionfanti").
Thus, in the wake of the beatific vision (this lofty goal of the Christian) the idea of
the interposed medium is a reminder of a basic limitation of mankind (which needs
the mediative activity of Christ, called IeTLTela, medium).
it was due to its theological ties that this term passed over into Renaissance physics
as the optic medium. However, it cannot be denied that already in Thomistic science, medium, without benefit of a theological impetus, had been accepted as a term
of physics: to refer to space which fosters movement.
The Fremdworterbuchof Schulz-Basler quotes a German sentence (Sturz, 1768):
"jedes Volk ist gewohnt, durch ein eigenes Medium zu sehen" which shows how the
"medium of perception" could develop a meaning somewhat akin to "mentality."
Goethe says in 1794: "durch das Medium seiner Personlichkeit begreifen."
40
RESEARCH
PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGICAL
deal; who in his experiments, in the formulation of his theories, sees any
given element as a "factor": as, in some way, an active entity, a means
to an end-in the largest sense, as a means through which the efficacy of
physical laws manifests itself.
Thus, regardless of the multiplicity of reference of which medium is
capable, there is perhaps one "meaning" throughout: an element envisaged
as a factor.32 And yet, for practical purposes it is convenient roughly to
divide Newton's mediums into two main groups: (1) the phrases which
regularly refer to one element alone: aetherial, fluid, vibrating medium =
the air or ether; (2) phrases which refer to elements of various types and
various functions: transparent, refracting, ambient medium. Of these last,
that which would seem at the furthest extreme from aetherial medium is
ambient medium: it is wholly colorless and unrevelatory of the nature of
the element; it is found (and frequently found) in the most perfunctory
of references and has a narrowly local significance, used for the practical
purpose of emphasizing the immediately surrounding element of any given
substance (it appears in Samuel Clark's Latin translation of the Opticks
as medium circumjacens, circumjectum).3 And it is also the least vital of
all the mediums; it need have no property save that of contiguity. (In
the Optickswhich is written in English ambientmedium shows the adjective
with a small a whereas Aetherial medium has always a capital A!)
It is very striking that ambient should be regularly used to accompany
the least of all the mediums; with Newton it appears devoid of that "allembracing" connotation which originally ambire shared with amplecti.
The "all" is obviously lacking in his ambient medium since this may not
32 Cf. the word mezzo used in Galileo in the meaning
"element (envisaged as a
factor)": "[the movement or quiet] de' diversi corpi solidi ne' diversi mezzi"; "il
peso d'altrettanta mole del medesime mezzo" (Discorso intorno alle cose galleggianti,
1611).
33 It is possible that the expression
ambient medium was a ready-made term to
which Newton fell heir: mezzo ambiente is to be found in the first half of the century,
with Torricelli:
Sarebbe un effetto senza causa, cioe un assurdo in natura, se una palla
volasse attraverso per 'aria, impedita dal mezzo ambiente, e non ajutata da
potenza alcuna che l'accompagnasse.
It is possible, however, to give this mezzo ambiente a slightly different interpretation
from that ascribed to Newton's phrase. The Italian expression may be simply the
equivalent of aere ambiente-or of ambiente alone in that meaning: cf. "I corpi
leggieri essere mossi all' insuc, scacciati dall' impulsione, dall' ambiente piuc grave"
(Galileo).
The substantive ambiente, however, did not always refer to the air: it could also
be used with apparently the exact meaning of Newton's ambient medium, in reference
to any element whatsoever which surrounds a given body (cf. Galileo: il contenuto
fosse una sfera solida e l'ambiente un liquid, quoted by Tommaseo-Bellini).
41
refer to the vast expanse of the heavens;34 nor is ambiens any longer
"embracing": no overtones of warmth and beneficence emanate from this
perfunctory phrase, used in the most trivial of references. And the fact
that Newton was insensitive to the all-embracingness of ambient is perhaps
a bit of semantic evidence of the truth that is everywhere manifest in his
description of the universe: that Newton had lost the feeling of "man and
his ireptexov." Now, man is alone in an infinite chilly cosmos traversed by
innumerable forces of attraction, in a universe run according to rigid laws
and ruled over by a God who bears no relation to man; a God who, says
Newton, should be called Deus and not Dominus which implies a reference
to human subjects and human worshippers (he admits that man does dare
to say meus dens, but meus Aeternus would be impossible, since the quality
of eternality, as of almightiness, is absolute).
In this Newtonian universe of objective and infinite grandeur man appears in all his insignificance, overwhelmed by the Whole, the All; he is
nothing, or at best possessed of only relative values.35 There were those
who were able to adapt themselves to this new universe; indeed, with
Rousseau and Shaftsbury, the infinitism of the Newtonian system encouraged an impulse toward a mystic merging with the Whole. But there
was something essentially bleak in this vision of a universe totally mindless
of man; with Copernicus the earth had ceased to be the center,lsa with
Newton, man himself was fallen from his high estate, no longer the
"measure of all things." Thus it is not difficult to understand that a
Goethe should defy this system (in what Croce, Critica XXXVIII, 170,
calls "la vana e assurda polemica contro il Newton"), moved as he was
by a desire to feel that his universe was protected by a beneficent atmosphere:
Die Erde empfand er als ein kugelhaft in sich abgeschlossenes Lebewesen, gleichsam mit einem eignen k6rperartigenOrganismusund eigner Atmosphare, die er durch
eigne Normen tatig und leidend wissen wollte, ohne willkiirlich masslose und zufallige
Eingriffe aus dem unermesslichen und gestaltlosen Weltraum. Mit andren Worten:
seine Vorstellungsart war selbst bei Betrachtung der anorganischen Naturreiche,
der Luft und der Steinwelt, wesentlich bedingt durch das eigentliche Korpergeffthl,
auch hier war ihm der menscbliche Organismus, die begrenzte, in sich abgeschlossene,
aber von inneren eignen Bildungskraften erfullte Gestalt, das Mass, ja das Bild der
Erscheinungen.
Seine ganze Naturlehre ist die ins Theoretische projizierte, auf alle Naturreiche
34 Rogerus Cote, however, in his Preface to the 1713 edition of the Principia,
uses the expression "fluidum ambiens" to refer to interstellar space.
35 We may remember Voltaire's Micromegas, that inhabitant of the stars who had
no absolute stature, but varied in size according to the magnitude of the body with
which he was compared.
35a Cf. Nietzsche: "seit Kopernikus rollt der Mensch aus dem Zentrum ins x."
42
angewandte Umsetzung eines mit seinem Leib schon gegebnen Instinkts, der ihn bis
in die entlegensten Forschungen hinein fuhrte, und dieser Instinkt war eben der
griechische, wie er sich in dem Wort lraTrcveIrTpOv AvOporoS manifestiert, auf deutsch:
der Leib ist die Grundlage unsrer Erkenntnis, der Sinn der Welt.36
(To be continued)
LEO SPITZER.
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY,
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
36 Gundolf in his biography of Goethe plays up in full relief the latter's ties with
Greek culture; equally truly he might have called attention to his feeling for the
Middle Ages (if it were not that in the school of Stefan George the pagan is preferred
to the Christian), and the relationship of this to his anthropocentricism.
Of course, if Goethe had been absolutely consistent, he should also have objected
to the heliocentric world-system of Copernicus, and have insisted on making man
the measure of the universe-in some such parallelism as that of the Spanish mystic
Luis de Le6n who, in his "Introducci6n al simbolo de la fe," wrote:
... toda la tierra, solida y redonda, y recogida con su natural movimiento
dentro de si misma, colocada en medio del mundo, vestida de flores, de yerbas,
de irboles y de mieses ... Pues, ! qu6 dir6 del linaje de los hombres, los
aguas ... Y 61 tambien sostiene sobre si el vuelo de las aves, y nos da el aire
con que se mantienen y sustentan los animales (chapter "la Tierra")
Here again we have a reminiscence of the ancient concept of the ether that nourishes:
aether pascit.