Gerdil, Hyacinthe-Sigismond

GERDIL, HYACINTHE-SIGISMOND. - Cardinal, philosopher, educationalist and theologian, b. at Samoëns (Savoy) on 23 June 1718, d. in Rome on 12 Aug. 1802. Having entered the Congregation of the Barnabites at the age of 16, he completed his higher studies at the University of Bologna. He taught philosophy in the Colleges of Macerata and Casale Monferrato; then natural ethics (1749) and moral theology (1754) at the University of Turin.

In 1764 he left teaching, having been taken into court as tutor to Prince Charles Emmanuel (the future King Charles Emmanuel IV). In 1776 he was summoned to Rome by Pope Pius VI, and the following year elected titular bishop of Dibona, then in the Consistory of 23 June 1777 created cardinal. For twenty years he was extremely busy, both in the offices of the Curia (he also held the governance of the S. Congregation de Propaganda Fide), and in the compilation of polemical works against the errors of the time and the attacks on the Church. When Rome was occupied by the French (Feb. 1798), he had to withdraw to Piedmont (there treated with some consideration by the French occupiers). He was papabile in the Conclave of Venice (1800; he failed because of the veto placed by Card. Herzan in the name of the Emperor of Austria), from which Pius VII emerged as pope; the latter recalled G. to Rome, where he remained until his death. He was a member of distinguished academies (Academy of Sciences of Turin; Institute of Bologna; Accademia della Crusca).

G.'s scientific activity is predominantly philosophical. As a theologian, apart from the contemporary polemics, he left no original works (but rather a large, good treatise on Moral Theology); to him is also due the drafting of the bull Auctorem fidei (condemnation of the Synod of Pistoia, 1786). As a philosopher, he followed, with vigilant critical sense, the developments of thought throughout the century; so that in his activity three periods can be distinguished: 1) in his first works (L'immaterialité de l'âme démontrée contre Mr. Locke, etc., Turin 1747; Défense du sentiment du p. Malebranche, etc., ibid. 1748) he is frankly Cartesian, criticizes Locke with acumen (whom he nonetheless appreciates), and enthusiastically embraces the ontologism and occasionalism of Malebranche; 2) mature in years and studies, he professes a more independent Platonism, with an eclectic tendency (Introduzione allo studio della religione, Turin 1755, a work of history of philosophy, with, in an appendix, two very notable dissertations: Dell'esistenza di Dio e dell'immaterialità delle nature intelligenti and Dell'origine del senso morale; Recueil de dissertations... Paris 1760; etc.); 3) finally he treated, on spiritualist and Christian foundations, the moral and social problems in full development in the last decades of the century, in which Rousseau and generally the masters of irreligious empiricism seemed to hold sway (De l'ordre, Turin 1770-73; Discours philosophiques sur l'homme, ibid. 1769; De l'homme sous l'empire de la loi, ibid. 1774; Précis d'un cours d'instructions sur l'origine, les droits, et les devoirs de l'autorité souveraine, ibid. 1799).

G.'s more strictly religious cultural activity comprises ascetico-religious treatises (Vita del b. Sauli, Rome 1805; Breve esposizione dei caratteri della vera religione, Turin 1767, a short work for some time very widely circulated, translated also into Polish, etc.), of positive theology (Saggio d'instruzione teologica, Rome 1776), moral (see above) or polemical (in confutation of Raynal, Eybel, G. Febronius, Pfaff and others).

From an overall point of view, G.'s philosophical thought, which can be defined as a critical and progressive spiritualism, obeys a twofold implicit postulate: trust in the cognitive powers of the human spirit and at the same time in the intrinsic necessary harmony of reason with faith; and it expands along the following lines: 1) defense of Cartesian-Malebranchian spiritualism, against Lockean and later sensistic empiricism; 2) more general defense of rationalism against empiricism, and, above all, of Christian spiritualism against materialistic naturalism and pantheistic tendencies; 3) study of problems of mathematical and natural philosophy; 4) critical study of moral and political problems, both fundamental and topical.

In political doctrines G. accepts the concept of equality, but eliminates its deviations: men are equal by nature, but relative inequalities necessarily subsist among them, and therefore the state of nature does not in itself conflict with the state of society. This does not, however, mean unconditional approval of society as it finds itself constituted: indeed G. is opposed to the conception of the patrimonial State and to every paternalistic form of government, whenever it lacks the positive and conscious contribution of the subjects.

Antonio Lantrua

II. PEDAGOGY

G. must also be regarded as a distinguished pedagogue on account of the various works in which he sets out a complete program of instruction and education.

Leaving aside the two short works he composed as tutor to the prince of Piedmont, later King Charles Emmanuel IV — Plan des études pour S.A.R. le Prince de Piémont, avec quelques opuscules relatifs à la même institution (Opere, I, p. 185 ff.) and Pensées sur les devoirs des différents états de la vie (ibid., p. 285 ff.) — the works that best reflect G.'s theories and methods are: Considerazioni sopra gli studi della gioventù (ibid., p. 149 ff.), in which the reform introduced into the school is censured, because it proclaimed the adoption of easy, expeditious and compendious methods, the increase in the number of subjects, and paid more attention to the quantity of knowledge to be imparted to the pupil than to depth and seriousness. The pupil, on the other hand, must be persuaded that study entails effort and toil; easy and expeditious methods make no impression on the mind, nor do they strengthen its faculties, nor do they foster the art of learning by oneself. Just as physical powers increase the more they are exercised and trained to overcome difficulties, so too do the intellectual powers. Naturally this toil must not weigh entirely on the pupil's shoulders, for he would lose heart; but it must be made pleasurable by a thousand devices on the teacher's part. In the Plan des études pour un jeune seigneur appelé aux emplois les plus distingués pour le service du prince et de la patrie (ibid., p. 169 ff.) G. insists on the fact that the object of the school is not, or not only, to adorn the mind with knowledge, but above all to form it; and that the great art of instructing consists in exercising the mind and training it to act on its own, so as to discover, almost without noticing it, the truths the teacher intends to teach. Only thus are the precious habits of reflection strengthened, on which the most esteemed qualities of the mind then depend: correctness, penetration, breadth, balance. The "young lord," who wishes to make himself useful to the prince and to the fatherland, should learn the rules of grammar and the cultivation of style, especially epistolary style, the national language and Latin, more through appropriate readings and exercises than through precepts, mythology, chronology, geography, the elements of mathematics, philosophy, and of this especially logic. Nor should he neglect or undervalue the contribution of religious instruction, which is the sole and firm foundation of morality.

An even more important work are the Réflexions sur la théorie et la pratique de l'éducation contre les principes de J.-J. Rousseau (Turin 1763; later republished under the title Anti-Emile, in Opere, I, p. 3 ff.), which form a serene, calm and complete examination and refutation of the Emile. The Genevan philosopher, in fact, wholly intent on defending the education that comes from nature and on subordinating to it that which derives from men, had founded his observations upon three principles: 1) The child is born good, therefore the first impulses of nature are always right and hence must not be repressed; 2) society corrupts the child, who therefore must have no point of contact with it; 3) at the age of 10 or 12 the child's reason is not yet developed and therefore the teaching of religion and of the subjects that serve to cultivate reason must be deferred to a later time.

Against these observations G. affirms: 1) Daily experience teaches that inclinations, deriving from pleasant or unpleasant sensations, develop in all their force without being able to be either restrained or moderated by reason, which is still too weak in the child. If they were not repressed and mastered from the very beginning, bad habits would be formed, which later reason will have to condemn, but will not be able to overcome except with great difficulty. 2) Nature itself has made man sociable, therefore every individual must be educated with a view to society, which he can never do without. Everything in the universe is connected; and just as in the physical world corporeal natures, losing the relations that bind them one to another, lose their activity, so intelligent natures, made to occupy a place in the moral world, that is, in society, cannot break the bonds that unite them without denaturing themselves and depriving themselves of the exercise of their noblest functions; one will never be able to make a perfect man, unless one makes of him a perfect citizen. 3) The child, moreover, is capable of reasoning considerably before the age of 10 or 12; he knows very well, in fact, how to discern when he is punished wrongly or rightly; he knows how to distinguish a good action from a bad one; it is therefore harmful to leave this capacity uncultivated, which ought instead to be cultivated and refined. In particular, moreover, the idea of God is not so sublime that it cannot be acquired, without danger of false speculations, even before the age of 10 or 12, as Rousseau claims, because the child also knows that a house, a statue, a painting did not make themselves; he asks, in fact, at once: who made this? Consequently it is harmful to delay religious instruction beyond the time in which the passions would find in religion a guiding norm and a dominating force. And G. concludes: « The contempt for every revealed religion and for Christianity in particular, I would dare to say, the forgetfulness of the divinity, hatred against every established government, revolt against every legitimate authority, an unbridled spirit of independence and liberty, obedience erased from the dictionary of children, a false indulgence in not repressing the excesses of their natural liberty, a false restraint in not reasoning with them, in not cultivating their mind with any of the studies suited to their age: these are the fruits of the new plan of education ». The fineness of G.'s observations was acknowledged by Rousseau himself, who asserted that G.'s work was the only one that he had had the patience to read to the end, regretting only that the author had not understood him.

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