Ladies of the Medieval European royal courts took as their humanitarian burden the guiding of the barbaric knights into civility. From this practice the ideas of courtesy and politeness entered the word "humanity" and thereby separated it from its synonyms "human" and "humane." Humanity's next meaning dates to the beginning of the Renaissance ("rebirth") when Cosimo, the ruler of Florence, Italy discovered the lost works of Plato in 1438.
He assigned the Greek scholar Ficino to translate these into Latin. But in 1460, when Cosimo was handed the lost works of the Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus (?5500 BC), he believed he had the words of the most ancient and the greatest sage of them all. Immediately, Cosimo ordered Ficino to switch over to translating Hermes' works. Thereafter Hermes' concepts sparked the emergence of a glorious new culture named the "Renaissance" -- because being "spiritually reborn" was at the heart of Hermes' philosophy.
Whereas the Medieval church had focused its teachings only on theology and religion, the mindset of the Renaissance imitated that of ancient Alexandria, Egypt. This mindset was to view science, art, literature, and religion as part of a united whole to be studied together. These studies, called the Humanities, gave "humanity" the added meaning of "mental cultivation." All aspects of human life were now opened as legitimate areas of intellectual investigation (Freke, Hermetica p. 8, 14). Subsequent meanings for humanity included "the human race" collectively; "human nature or the human condition;" and "studies of mankind."
Renaissance gentlemen -- those who gave birth to present Western culture -- acknowledged their debt to the Hermetica. Examples are Copernicus, Newton, da Vinci, and Shakespeare. By the 18th century the humanities included history, language, literature, philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, and poetry -- but not "divine" studies as were taught in Ancient Africa. Then specialized branches of academia became the trend during the 19th century. As the physical sciences (e.g. physics, chemistry) increased in importance, they broke away from the humanities.
So did the social sciences (e.g. history, sociology, anthropology, economics, geography, and civics). Humanist (those concerned for the welfare of the human race) narrowed the humanities primarily to classical African, Latin, and Greek works since those gave the greatest stimulus to the Renaissance's humane form of learning. The term Humane, arising out of the studies of the humanities, concerned those acquired qualities most becoming of a human being -- compassion, sympathy, consideration, gentleness, kindness, and charity (in the sense of acceptance).
Since the mission of the humanities was to describe man as a cultural being (rather than as a biological and physical entity), humanist eliminated the material focus and the investigative methods of subjects which examined the material world without reference to known meaning and purpose. Instead of mere observation and explaining, humanist preferred understanding and interpreting things done by humans.
Eventually, the method of investigating and not the subject matter was deemed to be of greatest significance in fitting the pieces of humanity into a big picture. Naturally, the definition of the humanities began to enlarge. The objective was for students to discover, internalize, and apply to their human interactions the thoughts, feelings, expressions, and deeds of the truly great. The reason was to deal with all people as a part of one undivided and indivisible family.
Except for the sciences, today's American humanities include most academic subjects like psychology, history, literature, sociology, theology, music, art (especially the fine arts of painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, dance), linguistics, philosophy, and sometimes mathematics. In summary, humanity consists of good character applied to people and to nature as a result of appreciating and respecting them for their own sake.
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.
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