The Intellectual Life. Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods

THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE Its Spirit)

Conditions~

Methods

by A. G. Sertillanges, O.P. translated from the French by MARY RYAN, M.A.

THE NEWMAN PRESS Westminster, Maryland

19 60

Nihil Obsttd:

JACO.US BASIlBLE,

S.T.D.

C,nsor Deputatus Imprimatur:

+ DANIEL Episcopw Corcagiemis ,

die 2"8 Septembria, 1946

First printillg 1948, Second printing 1952 Third prinUng 1956.. Fourth printing with correctioDi 1959, Fifth printing 1960. AU rights reserved

Printed in the United States of A.merica

Foreword Among the works of St. Thomas there is a letter to a certain Brother John, in which are enumerated

Sixteen Prec~pts lor Acquiring ·the· Treasure of Knowledge. 1 This letter, whether it be authentic or ·not, muSt be loolc.ed at in itself; it is priceless; we should like to' imprint its every word in the inmost being of the' Christian thinker. We published it together with the Prayers qf t:he ~am.e teacher, in which his reUgious thought is condensed and his soul revealed.2 We conceived the idea of commenting on the Sixteen Precepts, in order to link up with them things.' 9f which it is perhaps useful to remind men of study in our day. In. practice, that method seenied ra.thex restrictive; we have chosen to adopt a freer procedure; but the substance of this little vol~me is none the less entirely Thomistic; it will be found to contain what the master suggests, in th.e Sixteen Precept$ and elsewhere, concerning the m·anagement of the mind. 1 They

are given in Latin and English, with a commentary,

in a lecture by Fr. Victor White. O.P.• published by Blackfriars, Oxfordl December 1944: St. Thomas A.quinas, De Modo Studendi, price 6d. 2 Les Prieres de Sai.nt Tho~ d'A.q1Jin~ tradnites et present~ par A.D. SertiIJanges. Librairie de r Art Catholique. 1920.

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THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE

. This little work has no pretension to replace Les Sources; a in part it is inspired by that book. The auth~rJ doubtless like many another, has not forgotten the stirring he experienced at twenty, when Pere Cratty stimulated· in him the ardent desire of knowledge. Let us of~en remind this agt;, which so sorely needs light, of the conditions that enable us to ge.t light and to prepare its diffusion by our work. We shall not speak. here of intellectual production in itself; that would be the ~ubj~ct of. another volume. But it is one and the same .mind that first seeks to enrich i tself and then gOes on to expend itself wisely. Since we shall have to say· later that to give out is in this. case one of the. m~$ of adding to our 's~re, we cannot doubt the identity of the principles which, in the one process as in the other, make our intellectu·al activity fruitful. For that reason we may h~pe to be ~eful to all J

CHANDOLIN August 15th, 1920.

a Translated into EngUsh under the title of The Well·

Springs

l

by 'Stephen

J.

Brown,

bourne. 1981.

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VI

'5.J.,

Bums Oates Be Was·h· j

Preface The little work now republished has been reprinted many times. It dates from 1920. I had not re-read it, and I wondered whether~ looking at the book with a fresh eye and fifteen added years~ experience, I should recognize my thought. I find it again. whole and entire, except for shades of difference' which I shall not fail to bear in mind in the revision that I am now undertaking. The reason is th.at in reality these pages h'ave no date. They came from what is deepest iiI me.. I had had them in mind for a quar~er of a century when they saw the light of day. I wrote them as ~ne expresses one's essential convictions and pours out one's hearL What makes me trust that they, have struck home is assuredly their wide diffusion; but still more the testimony of innumerable· letters: some thanking me for the technical help I gave to intellectual workers; others for the ardor that they $aid had been aroused in young or older hearts; the greater number for what seemed to the reader a revelation precious above :all-that ,of the spiritual climate proper to the awakening of the thinker, to his evolution, his progress~ his inspiration, his work. That is indeed the principal thing. The mind governs everything; it begins, accomplishes, per-

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THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE

severes, finally achieves. Just as it presides over every increase of knowledge, every creation, it directs the more hidden and more searching effect that the worker produces on himself throughout his career. I think that I shall not weary the reader if I insist once again on this which is the whole of the vocation of the thinker or speaker, of the writer and the apostle. It really is the preliminary question; it is further the fundamental question and consequently the secret of success. · Do you want to do intellectual work? Begin by creating within you.y-a zone of sile~ a habit of recollection, a will to renunciation and detachment which puts you entirely at the disposal of the work; acquire that state of soul unb~dened by desire an~ self-will which is the state of grace of the intellectual worker. Without that you will dO nothing, ,at least nothing worth while. The intellectual is not self-begotten; he is the son of the Idea, of the Truth, of the creative Word, the Life-giver immanent in His creation. When the thinker thinks rightly, he follows God step by step; he does not follow· his own vain fancy. When he gropes and struggles in the effort of research, he is Jacob wrestling with the angel and "strong against God." Is it not naturalt given these conditions, that the man of vocation should put away and deliberately forget his everyday man; that he should throw off everything of him: his frivolity,. his irresponsibility, his shrinking from work, his material ambitions,

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PREFACE

his proud or sensual desires, the instability of his will or the disordered impatience of his longings. his over-rea4iness to please and his antipathies, his acrimonious moods and his acceptance of CUlTent standards the whole complicated entanglement of impediments which block the road to the True and hinder its victorious conquest? The fear of God is the b~ning of wisdom, says Holy Writ; this filial fear is, at bo~tom. fear of sell In the intellectual sphere, we might call it attention freed from every inferior preoccup'ation, and fidelity perpetually' alive to the- danger of falling away. An intellectual must always be ready to think, that is, to take in a part of the truth conveyed to him by the univers'e, and prepared for him, at such and such a turning-point, by Providence. The Spirit passes and returns not. Happy the man who holds himself ready not to miss, nay rather to bring about and to utilize, the miraculous encounterl Every intellectual work begins by a moment of ecstasy; 1 only in the second place does the talent of arrangement, the technique of transitions, connection of ideas, construction, come into play. Now, what .is this ecstasy but a flight upwards, away from self, a forgetting to live our own poor life, in order that the object of our delight may live in our thought and in our heart? Memory itself has a share in this gift. There is an inferior memory, that of the parrot and not of the J

a man is lifted ou t of and above himself: Greek eh-stasis, out of one's ordinary foothold. (Tr. Note.) See pages 81, 138, 255. 1 Because

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inventor; this memory is an obstruction, closing up the ways of thought in favor of words and fixed formulas. But there js another memory, receptive in every direction, and in a state ot perpet~.al dis.. covery. In its content there is nothing "readymade"; its gains are seeds of the future; its oracles are promises. Now that kind of memory, too, is ecstatic; it functions in contact with the springs of inspiration; it does not rest complacently in itself; what it contains is still inspiration und.er the name of remembrance, and the self in which that memory