Nicholas Zammit


Nicholas Zammit was a Maltese medical doctor, an architect, an artistic designer, and a major philosopher. His area of specialisation in philosophy was chiefly ethics. Throughout his philosophical career he did not adhere to just one intellectual position. Roughly two-thirds into his life, Zammit passed from a liberal way of thinking to a conservative one. This does not mean that there are no carry-overs, developments, or continuations between the two phases, or that Zammit himself acknowledged such a division. Notwithstanding, the development suggests that an analysis of Zammit's works will reveal different attitudes, dispositions, emphasis, and conclusions of the two periods.

Life

Beginnings

Zammit was born at Siggiewi, Malta, on 29 November 1815, from John Nicholas Zammit and Vicenza née Vella. He seems to have hailed from a well-established family, for he was given a good education, superior to that of other children in those days.
Later, Zammit entered the Royal University of Malta, at Valletta, to study medicine as a main subject. His subsidiary studies included Latin and Italian literature, philosophy, and architecture. All of these were subjects which Zammit continued to interest himself in throughout his life.
An incident which occurred in 1835 suggests that, as a university student, he was somewhat rowdy. Together with some of his classmates, he behaved badly, showed disrespect to some of his professors, and went as far as disrupting a graduation ceremony. The naughty lads were taken before the university council for a de moribus hearing. The council decided to expel Zammit and two of his pals from the university. However, subsequently, the punishment was commuted to one year postponement of their final exams. This suspension was upheld during the years 1838–39.
Zammit finished his university studies and won his colours as Doctor of Medicine in June 1839 at 23 years of age.

Liberal Phase (1838–1876)

First Writings

During the suspension year at the Royal University of Malta, Zammit might have composed and published a short tract entitled Pensieri Liberi di un Idiota sull'Interesse Mercantile.
During that same year, up till around 1846, Zammit began contributing with some writings in Italian in Il Portafoglio Maltese, a weekly paper issued by Paolo Sciortino.
Six years later, in 1845, Zammit left his home-town, Siggiewi, and went to live at the capital city of Malta, Valletta, the political and social centre of the island. During that same year, he began to contribute some articles in L'Unione. This was a weekly paper issued by an Italian political refugee, Luigi Zuppetta, and edited by Enrico Naudi. The paper had been begun to be produced that same year, and supported Maltese popular representation in government.
The following year, in 1846, Zammit probably began contributing also in the other papers, such as Giahan, a satirical weekly in Maltese edited by Richard Taylor.
During that same year, Zammit himself began issuing successively a three papers in Italian. The first, the fortnightly Il Foglio del Popolo, was begun on 27 June 1846. The second, issued for the first time on 1 August 1846, was called La Rivista, and was published monthly. The third, which was issued every ten days, was entitled La Fiammetta, and was published for the first time on 9 September 1946.
Between 1848 and 1849, Zuppetta was also instrumental in issuing another weekly paper in Italian, Il Precursore, which was edited by Salvatore Cumbo, a Catholic priest. Zammit seems to have contributed some writings also to this paper.
All of these works must be considered to be the first writings of Zammit's liberal intellectual phase.

Zammit's Liberalism

Zammit showed a favourable disposition towards his contemporary times and ideas. Nevertheless, not without reservation. For instance, in spite of his attachment to people like Zuppetta – who was a member of Young Italy and an acquaintance of Giuseppe Mazzini – Zammit did not share these Italian refugees' anticlericalism. Nor did he think that any eventual opposition to the Church could help the Maltese cause to attain popular representation in government.
Zammit was la liberal Catholic. Like so many of his contemporaries, in mid-1846, at the time of the ascension to the Holy See of Pope Pius IX, which was seen as a choice in favour of liberalism, Zammit was overjoyed. Initially the pope did not disappoint him. He granted a general political amnesty, began an administrative, legal and financial reform of the Roman Curia, and relaxed Church censure. This looked promising enough. In 1848, the pope went as far as issuing a new constitution which took the unprecedented step of establishing a two-chamber parliament for the papal states.
Lashing out at conservatives, Zammit proudly wore the pope's reforms like a feature in his cap. He mercilessly criticised the British colonial government in Malta, and was all out in favour of Italian unification. Zammit had no two minds that liberalism was 'the principle by which every free society should breath'.
With the 1848 revolutions throughout Europe, Pope Pius IX suddenly made a volte-face, vehemently opposing the Italian cause, and retracting most of the steps he had taken during the previous two years. Such a turnaround left people like Zammit in the cold. However, he still retained a strong belief in the Idea of Progress, political and social as much industrial, technological, scientific and artistic. Zammit wholeheartedly shared most of his contemporaries' enthusiasm for growth, development and advancement.
Zammit believed that liberalism – this champion of freedom and free enterprise – was by far the best tool to usher the forward stride of Progress.

Partnership with the British

Though somewhat disappointed with the pope, Zammit never succumbed to any anticlerical sentiments. Alternatively, he concentrated more on giving a push to the propitious wagon of Progress by beginning a long and close association with the British authorities in Malta. This was around 1949, when the British administration granted a Maltese elected popular representation in the council of government. To people with Zammit's frame of mind, this was enough to endorse British colonial rule.
On its part, government showed itself acquiescent to this new-found affection. In 1849, Zammit was appointed Assistant Superintendent and senior medical doctor of the local civil prisons at Corradino, Paola. He occupied this position for five years, up till 1854. During the same period, Zammit was also appointed Senior Supervisor of Aqueducts all over the Maltese islands.
Zammit's work with the British government included important projects which were intended to improve Malta's water supply and also the overall drainage system.

Teaching Career and more Publications

In the meantime, Zammit was also engaged with academic endeavours. Apart from lecturing at the Royal University of Malta at Valletta, he actively participated in meetings of intellectuals, artists or craftsmen. In 1864, for instance, he was chosen to be the first Deputy President of the Society for Sciences and Letters. Zammit's talk on the launching of the society was later published as Per l'Apertura della Società Maltese di Scienze e Lettere.
At the university, he lectured on philosophy, but also on other related subjects, such as art, architectural design, and technology.
In 1852, the same year in which – at 37 years of age – he married Melita Schranz at the church of St. Paul's Shipwreck, Valletta, Zammit composed a work in Italian entitled Primo Sviluppo e Primi Progressi dell'Umana Cognizione.
Through the next twenty years, while keeping up with his medical, academic, artistic, and social life, Zammit published a string of publications which dealt with a number of topics. In some way or another, all of them have some interest for the study of philosophy. For each publication sort of reveals a little bit more of Zammit's intellectual life and curiosity.
Some of these publications are religious in a social, and perhaps even anthropological, kind of way. These include Memorie del Centenario del Naufragio di San Paolo Apostolo, Divota Novena, and Il Transito Glorioso.
Other writings deal with industry, engineering and technological matters with a pronounced emphasis on social life and the environment, writings like Richerche Idrauliche, Esposizione di Industria Maltese, Malte et son Industrie, and Drenaggio.
Some others are of an artistic nature, such as Angelica o La Sposa della Mosta, and the periodical L'Arte.
Finally, La Fenice was another periodical which Zammit issued, dealing with current affairs.

Conservative Phase (1876–1899)

Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy

In 1875, at the age of sixty, Zammit was appointed professor to hold the chair of philosophy at the Royal University of Malta. The promotion came into effect at the beginning of the following year. He succeeded the Italian, Nicola Crescimanno, a judge and philosopher who had fled to Malta to escape persecution after the unification of Italy, and who had been Dean since 1872.
This employment seems to have sealed Zammit's definitive abandonment of his liberal views. Of course, this did not come abruptly. Various writings from the liberal phase attest to budding doubts and almost imperceptible shifts of positions. Nevertheless, it appears that it was only now that the swing – for a swing it was, considering his early and latter intellectual positions – seemed to set wholly in place.
Zammit's work as Dean was characterised by a thorough commitment to his academic and intellectual responsibilities. Though the prevailing system taught there was the Thomistic one, Zammit sought to widen the horizon of studies to include an intelligent concern with contemporary issues, such as those related to technology, empirical sciences and art.

Zammit's Conservatism

During this latter intellectual phase, Zammit's liberalism gave way to a more pessimistic, unadventurous and polemical approach to modern ideas and events. Religion became more and more important in his writings. His attitude towards most modern philosopher became markedly negative and apologetic.
There seem to be a number of reasons to explain why Zammit's liberal period could not last. One might mention the definitive opposition of the Catholic Church, and particularly Pope Pius IX, to all types of liberalism. It would surely have been a rather delicate affair in those times for someone to try to reconcile liberalism and allegiance to the Church, especially in ultra-conservative Malta.
Besides, in Maltese society there was no class which vied for liberal reforms. The Church was satisfied with the status quo. The higher classes wanted a share of power for themselves, not universal franchise. The reforms reluctantly brought about by the British colonial government were piecemeal and only dictated by necessity. They were on the whole disinclined to share power with the locals.
The rest of the population was made up mostly of peasants who lacked an essential condition for class consciousness, that is, a basic sense of common interest and shared opposition to other groups. The lack of class consciousness on the part of the peasants could be seen in their resistance to reforms abrogating the wheat tax, through which they were subjected to an unfair payment of tax, suggested by the Royal Commissioner, F.W. Rowsell, in 1877. On the contrary, the peasants supported the richer members of society who stood to lose by the suggested reforms.
Zammit's alliance with the establishment is underlined by his occupation of the chair of philosophy at the university. To be elected to such a position, the approval of both the British authorities and the local ecclesiastical hierarchy was needed.

Academic and Intellectual Work

At the Royal University of Malta, Zammit was very much appreciated, and even loved, by the students. Of course, most of these hailed from the middle-upper and upper classes, and Zammit seems to have felt a sense of deep responsibility in guiding them to conserve those values which safeguarded the current social system. The main interest to which he draws his students' attention seems to have been the improvement of the current way of doing things, both politically and socially, rather than perceiving its unfairness and inequalities or, much less, changing it.
This can be seen in Zammit's writings such as Prolusione al Corso di Filosofija, All'Occasione del Conferimento della Laurea, Al Rinnovamento del Corso Accademico di Filosofija 1879–82, Dio e la Suola, Dio e la Vita, In Morte del Prof. Arciprete Antonio Albanese D.D., and Alla Classe di Filosofia. Most, if not all, of these have a decidedly paternalistic attitude very congruous with the times, and bear to Zammit's positive abandonment of any liberal sentiments.
Whereas formerly Zammit had been very critical towards aristocrats, now he seemed to be propane in seeing them as the moral bulwark of society. This can be seen in writings such as La Contessa Maria Sonia Sciberras Bologna, All'Occasione della Solenne Apertura del Conservatorio Vincenzo Bugeja, Di Francesco Saverio Schembri, and Il Conservatorio Vincenzo Bugeja.
In matters of religion, Zammit could not have become more conventional. In Ai Funerali di Pio IX he excused the pope for his failures. Moreover, when it came to religion Zammit seems to have chosen of take a within-the-walls stance, preferring now to look too much to the philosophical possibility that opposing views might have a point after all. In 1883, at his home-town, Siggiewi, Zammit founded the St. Nicholas Philharmonic Society.

Decline and death

After all his vicissitudes, it appears that Zammit did not seem to want to leave the world without giving voice to his beliefs and concerns. This he did in his final writing – and the magnum opus of his conservative intellectual phase – which he named Pensieri d'un Retrogrado.
After published this tome, Zammit retained his post at the Royal University of Malta for two more years, up till 1890. He now had seventy-five years of age, and had been Dean for the last fifteen of those. Zammit was succeeded by Francis Bonnici.
On his retirement, as a sign of gratitude the British government granted Zammit an annual pension of a hundred pounds. He spent his last years in relative withdrawal at his residence at Sliema, Malta.
He died at home on 29 July 1899 at the age of 83. His funeral procession began at Sliema and proceeded to Siggiewi, where he had been born, and laid to rest at the cemetery there. A journalist who was at the funeral later commented that, considering the stature of the deceased, 'too few people, walking silently, accompanied the coffin'.

Writings

Zammit's writings are more or less all relevant for the study and appreciation of his philosophy. The major ones, of course, take pride of place. Nevertheless, all the others should not be discarded, as they offer glimpses, something quite important, into the mind and personality of the philosopher.

Major writings

It would be a mistake to study Zammit by reading just one single publication of his, namely the Pensieri d'un Retrogrado, as is commonly done. This will only provide a distorted view of the man's philosophy. Furthermore, even if it represents his thought during the final part of his life, it surely excludes his whole liberal phase completely. The list below includes all known works by Zammit. It should serve at least as an indication of the historically broad spread of his writings.
  1. 1838 – Pensieri Liberi di un Idiota sull'Interesse Mercantile – Attributed
  2. 1838–46 – Various contributions to Il Portafoglio Maltese
  3. 1845–46 – Various contributions to L'Unione
  4. 1846–48 – Various contributions to Giahan
  5. 1846 – Il Foglio del Popolo
  6. 1846–48 – La Rivista
  7. 1846 –La Fiammetta
  8. 1848–49 – Various contributions to Il Precursore
  9. 1852 – Primo Sviluppo e Primi Progressi dell'Umana Cognizione.
  10. 1855 – Richerche Idrauliche
  11. 1858 – Memorie del Centenario del Naufragio di San Paolo Apostolo
  12. 1861 – Angelica o La Sposa della Mosta
  13. 1862–66 – L'Arte
  14. 1864 – Esposizione di Industria Maltese
  15. 1864 – Per l'Apertura della Società Maltese di Scienze e Lettere
  16. 1867 – Malte et son Industrie
  17. 1868 – Divota Novena
  18. 1872 – Il Transito Glorioso
  19. 1872–76 – La Fenice
  20. 1875 – Drenaggio
  21. 1877 – Prolusione al Corso di Filosofija
  22. 1877 – All'Occasione del Conferimento della Laurea
  23. 1879 – Al Rinnovamento del Corso Accademico di Filosofija 1879–82
  24. 1878 – La Contessa Maria Sonia Sciberras Bologna
  25. 1878 – Ai Funerali di Pio IX
  26. 1880 – All'Occasione della Selonne Apertura del Conservatorio Vincenzo Bugeja
  27. 1880 – Di Francesco Saverio Schembri
  28. 1881 – Dio e la Suola
  29. 1883 – Il Conservatorio Vincenzo Bugeja
  30. 1883 – Dio e la Vita
  31. 1885 – In Morte del Prof. Arciprete Antonio Albanese D.D.
  32. 1886 – Alla Classe di Filosofia
  33. 1888 – Pensieri d'un Retrogrado

    Works of structural engineering and artistic design

Zammit was very much involved with commissions of design. Invariably, these were contracted by religious circles. Though some of them entailed relatively small, minor embellishments and adornments, others, such as the architectonic assignments, comprised large tasks.

Churches

All of the following churches are situated in Malta. It is as yet unknown whether Zammit was ever commissioned to work on other churches abroad.
Unfortunately, a complete and detailed list of the following is as yet unavailable.
Regrettably, this list here is almost certainly not exhaustive.
Within philosophical circles, Zammit has been sometimes taken lightly. This has been mainly due to the fact that most are only acquainted to his Pensieri d'un Retrogrado. Indeed, reading this work without any or scant knowledge of the rest of his literary output cannot but thoroughly distort Zammit's philosophical output and significance. Both his liberal and conservative phases must be taken into consideration to form a balanced and holistic view of his philosophy.
To date, a methodical and comprehensive appreciation of Zammit's philosophy has still not been done. Though the research and studies of Jimmy Xerri and Michael Grech come close, they might still have lacked a consideration of Zammit's philosophy in its entirety.
Most certainly, Zammit is not a philosopher to be discarded. His broad knowledge, together with his curiosity and perplexities, not only make his works interesting and intriguing, but they also can still engage contemporary philosophers in avid and profitable discussions.