MODULE 1
Man, Nature, & the Humanities
This chapter discusses the nature of Man. Man’s history is illustrated by timelines that
show how he and his community grows, from his extended families to small communities and to
larger societies. Man’s quest for answers to fundamental questions about Life and his attempt to
control his environment becomes the impetus for Man’s best creations.
The Humanities study the best that Man has created. Thousands of years of Man’s interaction with
nature and with his fellow men have produced creations that witness Man’s quest to understand
Life. Man has attempted to explain phenomena around him. Through time, he has come up with
answers and insights. He has expressed his thoughts and feelings about his conditions in his
countless struggles to come to terms with living and his world. In many ways, these expressions
form some of his greatest achievements: language, literature, history, art, music, and philosophy.
We study these answers and insights in the disciplines of the natural and social sciences. These
achievements form the Humanities (from homo, meaning man or human), the collective disciplines
which depict the human condition. These disciplines which are studies that attempt to make sense
of our world produced the sum of all the knowledge that Man has produced. One branch of this
knowledge is Science that explains Life in an objective and empirical manner. Another branch is
the Arts that reflect Man’s impressions about his existence and the world around him and which
constitute the fine arts, philosophy, religion, and culture. These entire disciplines embrace that
study about Man we call the Humanities. The Humanities, in revealing the best that Man has
produced, cover the disciplines we now call the Liberal Arts that consist of the pure sciences, the
social sciences, the arts and letters, and many other disciplines that have sprung from this great
interest to learn more about Man. Man needed to explain Nature and the world where he lived. He
carefully observed his world noting down what he saw. What he could not see he explained
intuitively using his feelings and intellect. Thus, Man evolved two general ways of explaining the
world, one from a scientific point and the other from an intuitive, creative point. The Sciences have
their empirical methods of studying nature and reality, while the Humanities interpreted life in
creations we call the Arts — silos of a deeper awareness of, knowledge about, and sensitivity to
Man’s greatest thoughts and feelings. The artists and the scholars, who study them and their
creations, are called “humanists.” These humanists possessed varied knowledge and talents. They
were the measures of the pinnacles of human achievement as Man was valued according to the
breadth of his knowledge in the Sciences and the Arts. They were the keepers of the souls of
cultures and nations. The Italians called the humanists the uomo universale or the “universal man.”
In its ranks were geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Bernini, and Albert Einstein.
Why Study the Humanities?
We study the Humanities because we wish to know about Man’s greatest achievements. Reviewing
what these great men were and what they did to humanity, we set them as models for our own
lives. Their works become our inspirations. Through their works, too, we learn about Humanity,
that big world which we are a part of. The achievements of great men make us appreciate how far
human knowledge and creativity can achieve. Studying the Humanities shows us a lot about how
Man thinks and feels. We uncover Man’s nature. Man is inherently inquisitive. He is anxious and
fearful, too. He tries to understand the phenomena around him and in so doing attempts to give
answers to questions that he himself has raised about his condition. Man — being rational,
sensitive, and imaginative – is distinct from beasts because of his capacity to think, feel, and muster
the courage to ask questions. Being an intelligent, sensitive, and expressive being, Man invokes
his faculties to express what he thinks and feels, and these expressions redound to enriching the
community’s knowledge. In appreciating the best of Man’s achievements particularly in his
creative works, we emulate both Man and his achievements. This knowledge gives us an idea of
the depths that Man has reached in seeking for answers to make the world less confusing to us.
Man’s works in the Humanities answer many of the questions we seek about Life, the most
compelling being: Who am I? Why am I here? Asking questions, in a way, leads us to seek for
higher meanings in life than that state where we are in now. The Humanities allows us to
experience a state beyond our routines of eating, sleeping, and working for a living.
Animal figures
in the Lascaux
cave, France, c.
15,000 B.C.
We learn about appreciating the world around us. We
become sensitive to our environment. We sense how nature
embraces us. We connect our lives to a higher cosmic order
that which gods, spirits, and the supernatural occupy. In seeking for a higher state of living, we
seek for the ideal and, in a sense, for perfection. See how much knowledge we have acquired from
the time primitive man discovered fire. Primitive man had little solutions to the problems that
plagued him. He was beset with disease, famine, drought, and the dangers of a hostile environment.
Through the ages, Man found answers and these answers enlighten us now. The knowledge that
men and women through the ages have bequeathed to modern man has not only produced in us a
better understanding of Humanity but has made us become better humans, as well. Man has studied
the Humanities for thousands of years. The collective knowledge that the human race has produced
has given us a far greater understanding of our world. Although these answers about our existence
are not in any way complete, still, the Humanities has given Mankind the directions to continue to
survive and to improve its present states of living. Besides studying the Humanities in the
classroom, we can experience the Humanities by watching performances like plays, concerts, and
recitals. We can attend art exhibits, visit the museum, watch films, experience the culture of an
indigenous community, or hands-on create our own works of art.
Early Man and his World
Early man may have been so insecure, what with the hostile occurrences around him. There were
natural events which he could not explain nor could he control. He needed to provide food for
himself and his family to survive. He took meat from wild animals like boars and bulls because he
had not yet discovered gathering and keeping grain. He was first a hunter before he became a
farmer. It will take many more generations to come before he would domesticate animals and learn
to plant for food. Animals then were a lot fiercer and bigger than they are today. Worse, man only
had sharp stones tied to long poles to kill the animals that were often the more successful hunters
of men. To protect themselves better, ancient hunters banded themselves to make their hunting
expeditions successful, but even then, these expeditions often ended with many of the men being
killed. Deep problems compounded Man’s early efforts to survive. Men had to hunt regularly as
meat could not be stored for long periods. Winter was particularly difficult. But having the ability
to survive, man devised means to control what he needed to control. Art played a vital role in these
efforts. Wanting to master control over his hunting trips and the animals, he drew images of the
beasts in the walls of his cave homes in the hope that by capturing the spirits of these beasts
(through ritual), he would weaken them for easy prey. Communities were small then, perhaps
consisting of only a few families that sought shelter in caves naturally formed on the side of cliffs.
The birth, therefore, of a baby was a
significant event since another person meant
an increase of the population of the extended
family, ensuring its survival and promising
the prospect of more help for labor and
hunting. Thus was the responsibility of
women delineated to ensure the progeny of
the clan. Primitive man had no inkling that
sex resulted in procreation. The act of birth
was attributed to fertility goddesses.
When archaeologists discovered what was perhaps the most
famous fertility icon of prehistoric man in Western Europe, they
endearingly called it the “Venus of Willendorf “(“Venus” was the
Roman goddess of eroticism). The Willendorf icon had swollen
breasts and an open vulva clearly suggesting a pregnant woman.
People believed that the goddesses of fertility decided whether or
not a mother should not bear a child, so that communities offered
appeasements and gifts to the goddesses to ensure progeny.
Offerings were done in rituals, and these offerings were events that
cemented Man’s relationships with his deities. Man communicated
to the supernatural world through expressions that facilitated what
he sought for from the gods. Man presented his intentions through
chants, music, and dances. These forms were perhaps the first
creative expressions. Meanwhile, some men had the greater
powers than others to communicate with the gods. They were the
shamans, the first artists sought by the community to “talk” to the
gods, because these baylans and baylanes were themselves
mediums with some access to the supernatural world. They, too,
had the craft to use chants, music, and dance to facilitate this process of prayer. The amusing title
of a movie The Gods Must Be Crazy suggests truth that Man often believed that the predicaments
in their lives were the gods’ doings. A whimsical god may punish a peeve with sickness or a whole
community with famine. Bounty was rewarded to the gods’ favorites. Many great Literatures
narrate Man’s endless relations with the gods. Truly, gods and religion played important roles in
the lives of early societies, as they still do today. Worship was manifested in sculptures, music,
and dances. Art was a part of religion. If religion is intrinsic in Man’s life, then Art, being intrinsic
to religion, is as much a part of Man as religion is. Art, therefore, facilitated the needs of Man. Art
was not just some appendage to civilization. Art, integrated with religion, was a necessary tool to
survive. The use of Art in religion proves that Man survived through Art.
Humanities as a Discipline
We study the Humanities in relation to how people appreciate art. Appreciation varies among
cultures. But differences in appreciation among the different cultures are distinct only in the
degrees of what beauty is and how beauty is perceived because human concerns like compassion,
family, survival, and love are universal and common to all humans.
Venus of Laussel, c. 25,000 B.C.,
Musee d’Aquitane, Bordeaux, France
Humankind will always perceive harmony as beautiful and chaos
as ugly. Physical deformity is ugly as a balanced body structure is
beautiful; these are values that cultures share. Values define the
appreciation of beauty. The study of beauty and its appreciation is
called Aesthetics. Aesthetics, influenced by values nurtured by
culture, evolve from long interactions of art works and the people
who perceive these works. Communities value beauty, in many
instances, because beauty works for their good. The positive is
associated with beauty. There are standards, and most often, the
standards of beauty we study are based on that set by Western traditions which have roots in Greece
and Rome. Asia has its own conventions of beauty different from those of the West. China and
India set the standards for great civilizations. These differences are largely the results of the
varying lifestyles influenced by religion, history, philosophy, politics, economics, and technology.
The sophistication in cultural expressions in the arts, particularly in literature and poetry, measure
the greatness cultures have achieved. In fact, language and literature are central topics in the
Humanities. In the West, we often refer to classical antiquity, namely the Ancient Greek and
Roman cultures, as a backbone of the Humanities. The Classics also refer to major traditions in
the Indian Vedas and Upanishads, the Chinese writings of Confucius, Lao-tse and Chuang-tzu, the
ancient Hammurabi Code, the Gilgamesh Epic from Mesopotamia, as well as the Egyptian Book
of the Dead. The study of the Humanities can be traced to ancient Greece where it became a basis
of broad education for the citizens. Today, this idea of a “broad” education refers to the pre-major
“liberal arts” preparation (or general education) for college students before they specialize in their
degree courses. In any case, we absorb a holistic learning studying the Humanities because,
through this study, we recognize all the facets that have made Man the human being that he is
today. By studying the Humanities, we pry open Man’s long story from the time he hunted beasts
for food to this time when he meets difficult challenges to save his earth. The Humanities seats us
in the ringside section of a long great spectacle where the protagonists engage in various battles
amid a setting called the world.