A Counter-Modern Intellectual Life
First appearing in 1921, The Intellectual Life, by the great French Dominican and thinker A.G. Sertillanges, has provided a sure guide for generations of scholars. It has done this not so much by providing research methods or even by proposing an intellectual system (though he highly favors Thomism), but rather, as his title suggests, by proposing a way of life. It was the pleasure of the authors of this article to co-lead a discussion group on Sertillanges’ classic text with university students over the course of four weeks this summer. In this article, we wish to share some reflections and insights we gained from reading and discussing this timeless work, especially those lessons we found most applicable to individuals today.
The book is about “the intellectual life,” and yet, contrary to what one might expect, it does not spend much time considering properly intellectual questions. Instead, it is intensely practical, almost a “how to” manual for carrying out the life of an intellectual. He considers such matters as healthy living (he recommends frequent walks, plenty of rest, and light food when working), the proper way to take notes (he is a great champion of the individual notecard), and the proper organization of one’s time (how to make the best use of one’s hours of study as well as the other hours of the day). The fact that Sertillanges finds all these practical matters necessary for helping someone to live a properly intellectual life reveals one of his key insights: the intellectual is a human being, and a human being is more than just a spiritual soul. Sertillanges rejects Cartesian dualism, which separates and prioritizes the soul over the body, and reminds us that we are a unity of body and soul. “You . . . who intend to devote yourself to the vocation of study,” he writes, “beware of turning your back for its sake on the rest of life. Give up nothing of what belongs to man.”
While much of the book is spent offering practical guidance on how to pursue the intellectual life, the last chapter, titled “The Worker and the Man,” once again reminds intellectuals that they are humans and must live as such. Whereas previous chapters had emphasized the necessity of managing the various affairs of one’s life for the sake of one’s work, Sertillanges now reminds the intellectual that there is more to life than intellectual work; his life cannot be reduced solely to his work. This is sound advice for anyone, but Sertillanges makes this point at the end of his book because he has spent much of it emphasizing the sacrifices necessary to living an authentically intellectual life.
Let us now turn to another important lesson for today’s readers. He warns frequently against the dangers of distraction and dissipation of attention. It is astounding that his admonitions were written before the rise of the internet, since much of what he says applies so well to our increasingly digital world of iPhones and social media. He writes, for instance: “The mind is dulled, not fed, by inordinate reading, it is made gradually incapable of reflection and concentration, and therefore of production; it grows inwardly extroverted, if one can so express oneself. . .” Although Sertillanges was referring to the dangers in his own day of obsessively following the news, his words ring even truer today with the advent of the internet: “The continual sight stimuli thus occasioned destroy mental energy, as constant vibration wears out steel.”
Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges, OP
Reading these lines, one wonders whether Sertillanges was granted a form of prescience. His advice, more important today than ever, offers a sobering reminder of the dangers of losing oneself in endless scrolling and refreshing on internet sites. Of course it is necessary to be informed about the world; no one can or should live in a bubble today. But we must be careful not to lose ourselves in the endless sea of information that floods us every morning, afternoon, evening, and night. We must be willing to take ourselves away from the tumult of the world in order to cultivate interior silence. He writes: “When silence takes possession of you; when far from the racket of the human highway the sacred fire flames up in the stillness; when peace, which is the tranquility of order, puts order in your thoughts, feelings, and investigations, you are in the supreme disposition for learning . . .”
When considering Sertillanges’ advice against distractions, we must keep in mind the reason why he urges the reader to reject distraction. Sertillanges reiterates that the intellectual life is a calling, a vocation. And it is the deleterious results of distraction upon this calling, rather than a decrease in productivity, which prompt Sertillanges’ many warnings on the topic. This sets his work in stark contrast to modern self-help articles and books, whose advice about simplifying and shutting out distractions are reducible to a desire for what is termed “mindfulness.” Mindfulness generally is the attempt to become fully present to the moment, to oneself, and one’s current experience. This is not equivalent to what Sertillanges urges, which is to remove distractions not for one's own sake, but for the sake of pursuing something outside oneself: the Truth.
While his advice about avoiding distraction is by no means only valuable to intellectuals, we should keep in mind that Sertillanges is still writing specifically to those with an intellectual vocation. For Sertillanges, this category is not limited to those who earn their living by means of intellectual work. It is not, however, a universal calling. Everyone has a vocation, but not everyone has a vocation to be an intellectual. It is true that we should all act so as to flourish in the way of life to which we have been called, and hence in a broad sense we should all be concerned to avoid distractions that could divert us from that calling. But Sertillanges is at pains to warn the intellectual in particular from this precipice. This may be because he believes the intellectual is uniquely susceptible to this particular temptation of “distraction” in the form of the vice traditionally known as curiositas. Curiositas is most dangerous to the intellectual because it can divert him from the proper end of his work. Though he may specialize, the intellectual must be a servant of Truth. His or her goal is not the mere accumulation of facts, but the grasping of Truth. And all truths for Sertillanges—as a good Catholic and a good Thomist—find their ultimate grounding in Truth Itself: God.
St. Catherine of Siena writing letters
Thus while Sertillanges’ warnings about distractions apply to everyone in our highly distracted contemporary society, he is speaking especially to those who wish to make the life of the mind their own life. He wishes them to join in this work and not to fear its challenges. As he puts it: “The life of study is austere and imposes grave obligations. It pays, it pays richly; but it exacts an initial outlay that few are capable of. The athletes of the mind, like those of the playing field, must be prepared for privations, long training, a sometimes superhuman tenacity. We must give ourselves from the heart, if truth is to give itself to us.”
Sertillanges’ exhortation is, to be sure, challenging. He places the bar high for anyone wishing to pursue the intellectual life. In his view, it demands commitment and sacrifice. At the same time, his call is simple: individuals called to the intellectual life must, above all, know and love the truth. If anything, Sertillanges’ call to seek the truth whole-heartedly is even more necessary today than when he first wrote his work. A hundred years later, we stand in need of thinkers, writers, and holy individuals to reset our priorities. It is good to recall the words of G. K. Chesterton, a contemporary of Sertillanges:
The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age. Yet each generation seeks its saint by instinct; and he is not what the people want, but rather what the people need . . . . Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.
St. Dominic at Prayer by Fra Angelico
These words certainly apply to Sertillanges. Today there are countless forces pulling us in countless directions. We are awash in information, contrasting viewpoints, and conflict. It can be hard, almost impossible, to get one’s bearings in such an environment. Fr. Sertillanges provides numerous antidotes in his work. He gives encouragement and the reassurance that one need not seek to know everything; instead, one ought to seek the highest truths, and indeed, the Highest Truth. In all of this, he manifests by his own example the beauty of seeking truth with all one’s being. He offers his words as advice from someone who has traversed the intellectual life himself and desires others to join him. He writes: “[These words] came from what is deepest in me. I had had them in mind for a quarter of a century when they saw the light of day. I wrote them as one expresses one’s essential convictions and pours out one’s heart.”
Br. Christopher Daniel joined the Dominican Order in 2017. He studied theology and philosophy at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and received his Masters of Theological Studies from Boston College. He is currently a student brother studying for the priesthood at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
Br. John Henry Peters grew up in Michigan and studied philosophy and theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit before entering the novitiate for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph in 2019. He is currently a student brother at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.