The Origins of Humanism
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In the modern era there has been a trend toward increasing secularization and so away from religious influence in social and political life in Western society. This period has been one of considerable turmoil in Western society, with a number of intellectual movements developing from secular roots. One might think that the development of anti-religious Marxism as an enemy ideology would be met with a resurgence of religious fervor in the West, but this did not happen. Instead, the underlying forces that produced Marxism as well contributed to a more secular emphasis in the Western world, forces such as urbanization, the development of a new scientific paradigm, the ascendance of rationalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a new emphasis on nationalism. Perhaps the primary force underlying many of these developments derives from the intellectual power of humanism, or the idea that what is most important for study are human interests and human values. Humanism also emphasizes the human capacity for self-realization through reason and a rejection of supernaturalism. An examination of the origins of humanism and the way it developed immediately thereafter shows a growing secular influence with the application of human reason to the affairs of this world. The development of humanism in the Renaissance involved a shift in how people thought, and this occurred at the same time that the horizons of the West were expanding, be they geog
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tten him as a priest. . . in baptism. . . (Luther 21).
Luther's approach also demonstrated the human resistance to any perceived tyranny, physical or intellectual, and the human tendency to develop new modes of thought and action to counter such tyranny. At the same time, Luther demonstrated both his own deep personal faith and a certain naive belief in the willingness of others to learn and to change. His was not the first protest against the Catholic Church and its abuses, but he succeeded where others had failed because of his own charismatic conversion. He was one of the people and spoke their language.
The scientific revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries offered a new view of the universe and a new way of investigating nature. Most important of all, it overthrew the medieval conception of nature as a hierarchical order leading to a realm of perfection:
Rejecting reliance on authority, the thinkers of the Scientific Revolution affirmed the individual's ability to know the natural world through the method of mathematical reasoning, the direct observation of nature, and carefully controlled experiments (Perry, Peden, and von Laue 31).
Reason was the cornerstone of the methods of Francis Bacon in addre
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Approximate Word count = 1437
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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