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Articles: David T. Runia Philo of Alexandria Han van Ruler Cartesian Disenchantment Jack Lynch Milton, Johnson, and the English Renaissance Nathaniel Wolloch ChristiaanHuygens GregoryMatthewAdkins The Moral Philosophy of Fontenelle Richard Bourke Burke's Idea of Empire Paul Nelles Sainte-Beuve RuthKinna WilliamMorris Elizabeth Brient Hans Blumenberand Hannah Arendt
July 2000
Vol. 61, No. 3
ISSN 0022-5037
Journalof the History of Ideas ISSN 0022-5037 Volume 61 Number 3 July 2000 Copyright? 2000 by the Journalof the History of Ideas, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this journal may be reproducedby any process or technique without formal consent of The Johns Hopkins University Press. Authorizationto photocopy items for internalor personaluse, or the internalor personaluse of specific clients, is grantedby The Johns Hopkins University Press for librariesand other users registeredwith the CopyrightClearanceCenter(CCC) TransactionalReportingService, providedthat the base fee of $8.00 per articleis paid directlyto CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers,MA 01923. This consent does not extend to otherkinds of copying, such as copying for general distribution,for advertisingor promotionalpurposes, for creating new collective works, or for resale. 0022-5037/94 $8.00.
The purposes for which the Journal of the History of Ideas was founded are: to foster studies which will examine the evolution of ideas in the development and interrelationsof several fields of historical study-the history of philosophy, of literatureand the arts, of the naturaland social sciences, of religion, and of political and social movements-to afford a medium for the publicationof researcheswhich are likely to be of common interestto students in differentfields; to bring togetherperiodically or make available otherwise such studies, and to promotegreatercollaborationamong scholarsin all the provinces of culturaland intellectual history.
The Journal of the History of Ideas is published quarterlyin January,April, July, and October and is abstractedand indexed in Abstracts of English Studies, Bibliography of the History of Art, Book Review Index, InternationalPolitical Science Abstracts, Index to Book Reviews in Religion, The Philosopher's Index, and Religion Index One. Address editorialcorrespondenceto the Editor,Journal of the History of Ideas, 88 College Avenue, RutgersUniversity,New Brunswick,New Jersey 08901-8542. Manuscriptsshould be submitted in triplicate with text and endnotes typed double-spaced, following the Chicago Manual of Style, and should not exceed 9,000 words including endnotes. Authors should omit their identity from manuscripts. Subscriptionprices: individuals$26.00 per year; institutions$64.00 per year. Subscribers in Canadaand Mexico add $4.50 postage; all other countries, add $11.00 airfreight. Address subscriptioninquiriesto the publisher:JournalsPublishing Division, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2715 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-4363. Phone: (410) 516-6987; Toll-free: (800) 548-1784 / Fax: (410) 516-6968. http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/joural_of_the_history_of_ideas/index.html Periodicals postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Journal of the History of Ideas, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Journals Publishing Division, 2715 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-4363. Printed at Capital City Press, Montpelier,Vermont. This journal is printed on acid-free paper.The paperused in this publicationmeets the minimumrequirementsof AmericanNational Standardfor InformationSciences-Permanence of Paperfor PrintedLibraryMaterials,ANSI Z39.48-1984.
July 2000
Volume 61
Number 3
Table of Contents
Articles
Page
The Idea and the Reality of the City in the Thoughtof Philo of Alexandria D avid T. Runia
..........................................
361
Minds, Forms, and Spirits: The Nature of Cartesian Disenchantment Han van Ruler .......................................
381
Betwixt Two Ages Cast: Milton, Johnson, and the English Renaissance Jack Lynch .............................................
397
ChristiaanHuygens's AttitudetowardAnimals .....
415
Nathaniel Wolloch
When Ideas Matter:The Moral Philosophy of Fontenelle .................................
Gregory Matthew Adkins
433
Liberty,Authority,and Trustin Burke's Idea of Empire .. RichardBourke
453
Sainte-Beuvebetween Renaissanceand Enlightenment......
Paul Nelles
473
William Morris:Art, Work, and Leisure .................
RuthKinna
493
Hans Blumenbergand HannahArendt on the "UnworldlyWorldliness" of the Modem Age ..........................
Elizabeth Brient
Books Received .............................................
Copyright 2000 by Journalof the History of Ideas, Inc.
513
533
Journal of the History of Ideas An InternationalQuarterlyDevoted to IntellectualHistory Board of Editors ExecutiveEditor: Donald R. Kelley, Rutgers University Associate Editor. Robin Ladrach,Rutgers University Hans Aarsleff, Princeton Univ. John E. Murdoch,Harvard Univ. David Bromwich, Yale Univ. Steven Nadler, Univ. of Wisconsin Institute Helen Pontifical Brown, North, SwarthmoreCollege Virginia John F. Callahan,DumbartonOaks Francis Oakley, WilliamsCollege Julia Ching, Univ. of Toronto Anthony Pagden,Johns Hopkins Univ. Marcia Colish, Oberlin College Claude Palisca, Yale Univ. David H. Donald, Harvard Univ. Peter Paret,Inst.for Advanced Study Charles C. Gillispie, Princeton Univ. Eugene F. Rice, Columbia Univ. Daniel Gordon, Univ. of Massachusetts Dorothy Ross, Johns Hopkins Univ. David HarrisSacks, Reed College Anthony Grafton,Princeton Univ. J. B. Schneewind,Johns Hopkins Univ. Emily Grosholz,Penn State Univ. JerroldSeigel, New YorkUniv. Knud Haakonssen,Boston Univ. David Hollinger, Univ. of California Nancy G. Siraisi,Hunter College MaryanneC. Horowitz, Occidental Coll. Quentin Skinner, Cambridge Univ. Bruce Kuklick, Univ. of Pennsylvania Gisela Striker,Harvard Univ. Joseph M. Levine, Syracuse University David Summers, Univ. of Virginia John W. Yolton, Rutgers Univ. EdwardP. Mahoney,Duke Univ. Allan Megill, Univ. of Virginia Perez Zagorin, Univ. of Rochester
ConsultingEditors Sidney Axinn FrederickBeiser GregoryClaeys Stefan Collini Brian P. Copenhaver William J. Courtenay W. R. Elton James Engell Ivan Gaskell Bentley Glass Maurice M. Goldsmith Loren Graham
Henry J. Hoenigswald J. Paul Hunter Victoria Kahn George Kateb William R. Keylor RobertM. Kingdon Samuel C. Kinser Norman Kretzmann Elizabeth Lunbeck Rudolf Makkreel Hajime Nakamura David Fate Norton
Steven Ozment Peter Reill PatrickRiley Alan Ryan GordonSchochet Jean Starobinski Nancy S. Struever Brian Tiemey Aram Vartanian Brian Vickers Stewart Weaver Donald Winch
Publishedby The JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress July 2000
Volume 61, Number 3
The
Idea
and
the in
City Philo
Reality the
of
Thought of
the
of
Alexandria
David T Runia
The theme of my paperis the conceptionof the city as a social and cultural phenomenonheld by the Jewish exegete and philosopherPhilo of Alexandria (15 BCto 50 AD). Therecan be no doubtthatthe city occupied a centralposition in his own life. As an inhabitantof Alexandriahe was thoroughlyimmersedin a highly urbanizedform of life. From a more theoreticalangle the city has an importantplace in his thought because of what it represents:of all physical productsof humanactivitythe city is the largestandmost complex (herethereis in fact little differencebetweenPhilo andus, althoughthereis an obvious difference in scale). It is not my aim to examine Philo's political philosophy,i.e., his views on how the city shouldbe governed,nor his views on the actualpolitical administrationof the Roman Empirein his time. These subjectshave already been treatedwith sufficientcompetenceby others.1I will arguethat,thoughas an AlexandrianPhilo was very much a homourbanus,he neverthelessrevealsa significantambivalencetowardsthe city.This attitudeis relatedto his dualideological background(Jewish and Greek), and anticipatesdevelopmentsin later antiquity. As always in the case of Philo, it is necessaryto reflect on the methodology that should be used to reach our aim. Trueto his usual method,Philo nowhere examines the natureof the city in a sustainedway. It is necessaryto cull statements frommany differentplaces in his variousworks. For his views on living in the city of Alexandriawe can examine his historicaltreatises.A more theoreticalperspective is gained from his exegetical and philosophicalworks; but these, too, arenot wholly devoid of topical remarks,such as the famous text in 1 See R.
Barraclough,"Philo's Politics: Roman Rule and Hellenistic Judaism,"ANRW,II, 21.1 (Berlin, 1984), 417-553, which supersedes the earlier study by E. R. Goodenough, The Politics of Philo Judaeus, Practice and Theory(New Haven, 1938; Hildesheim, 1967).
361 of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. 2000byJournal Copyright
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which he complainsthathe has had to exchange the contemplativelife for immersion in the maelstromof Alexandrianpolitical life (De specialibus legibus 3.1-6). In the analysis of the numeroustexts in which Philo speaks of the city, it would be a mistake to try to compartmentalizehis thought too much, i.e., to makea sharpdistinctionbetweenhistorical-apologetic andexegetical-philosophical modes of thinking.It is truethatPhilo devotes the greatestpartof his oeuvre to giving exegesis of the Law of Moses. But for him this is far from a merely antiquarianexercise. Philo is convinced of the universal relevance of the Pentateuchfor both Jew and Gentile, including those who live in a complex urbanenvironmentutterlydifferentfromthe circumstancesof tent-dwellingPatriarchsor itinerantIsraelites.The Law, it is assumed, representsthe constitutionof a Mosaicpoliteiadeservingof universaladmiration.So whenPhilospeaks of the city in his exegesis of Mosaic texts, his remarksmay well be relevantto our theme. This applies also to allegoricalforms of interpretation.The method of allegory enableshim to bringforwardthe more theoreticaland "philosophical" aspects of the theme. It remainsa problemthat our materialconsists of a large numberof scatteredandepisodic remarks.These can be assembledtogetherinto the shapeof a plausibleandinformativepicture,butthe aspectof a scholarlyconstructcannot be entirelyavoided.Thereare compensationsin Philo's case throughthe sheer volume of the materialhe has left behind.This lessens the chancethatwe should attributetoo much significance to what may be no more than casual remarks. We should, however,have no illusions aboutthe extent to which we can penetratebehindthe facade of his works. These were not writtenwith the motive of disclosing his personalviews on a wide scale of issues. The personalityof Philo theAlexandrianJew remainslargelyhiddenfromview. Philo as Citizen of Alexandria In his descriptionsof the traumaticevents thatbefell the Jewish inhabitants of Alexandriain the late 30s, Philo on a numberof occasions dwells on the relationshipbetween the city and various political protagonists.Flaccus, the deposed Governorof Egypt, bewails his fate in the maddeningisolation of the island Andros, throwinghimself on the groundand moaning: "I am Flaccus, who just a shorttime ago was governorof Alexandriathe mega-city [megalopolis] or ratherthe multi-city[polypolis].Whenevery day I went out of doors, I was escorted by a multitude of followers. Was this all a dream and not the truth."2The man who broughthim low, the EmperorGaius, had a love affair with the city. His householdslave Helicon had excited in him the vision thathe 2 Translationsare
my own unless otherwise indicated.
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would travelthereand, in the presenceof delegationsfromothercities, "would be feted by the greatestand most glorious city of them all" (Legatio ad Gaium 173;cf. 338). WithheavyrhetoricaldisplayPhilocontraststhe loathsomeCaligula with his illustriouspredecessorAugustus. Most deservedlythe latterhad been honoredthroughoutthe oikoumene,and"particularly in ourAlexandria"(Legatio ad Gaium 149). The vast temple complex called the Sebasteumconstructedin his honorwas quite unmatchedelsewhere. Philo describesit in glowing terms (Legatio ad Gaium 151). These passages give an indicationof the pridethatPhilo must have felt for his native city.As far as we know,he was bornin Alexandriaand lived thereall his life, except on those occasions when he was called elsewhere for duties of a political or religious kind (we know thathe travelledto Rome and Jerusalem). As the metropolisof the EasternMediterraneanAlexandriawas in every way the matchof Rome, except thatit was not the centerof power.Its populationhas been estimatedto havebeen half a million.3The variouspieces of informationon the sophisticationsand perils of urbanlife that Philo scattersthroughhis writings-festivals, theaters,statues,an ingenious bronze clock, exotic animalsin wealthy homes, fires runningout of control,burdensometaxes-are based on his own experiencesin Alexandria.4Fromtime to time he also mentionspersonal participationin the amenitiesof city life, such as dinner-parties,theaterperformances, and racing contests.5Such participationwas to be expected from one who was a memberof the privileged elite of the city. Therecan be no doubt,in short,thatPhilo was a homo urbanus,accustomedto living in the hubbubof the largecity. Philo, we may be sure, was a citizen of Alexandriawith all the rights to which such citizenshipentitledhim.6At the same time, however,he was a leading member of the Jewishpoliteuma, the communitywhich had received the right to administeritself within the largerframeworkof the city. Philo tells us thatthe Jews occupiedsignificantpartsof two of the five quartersof the city (In Flaccum 55). It has been estimatedthattheirnumbermay have been as high as 30 percentof the population.7DuringPhilo's life-timethe positionof the Jewish communitywithin Alexandriabecame increasinglyprecarious,and until vio3 See D.
Delia, "The Populationof RomanAlexandria,"TAPA,118 (1988), 275-93. agricultura 113; De posteritate Caini 104; De Abrahamo267; De Providentia 1.42; De animalibus13, Defuga et inventione74; De specialibus legibus 4.27; De specialibus legibus 1.142, 2.92, 3.159ff. 5 Legum allegoriae 3.156; Quod omnisprobus liber sit 141, De Providentia2.103. See P. Borgen,Philo, John and Paul (Atlanta, 1987), 277-79, and D. Sly, Philo s Alexandria(London, 1996), passim. 6 As conceded by the most skeptical analyst of Jewish access to Alexandriancitizenship, A. Kasher,TheJews in Hellenistic and RomanEgypt: TheStrugglefor Equal Rights (Tilbingen, 1985), 88. 7 Delia, "The Population,"288. 4 De
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lence broke out in the pogrom of 38 AD.Philo's efforts on behalf of the endangered Jewish communitywere considerable.These concernswere responsible for the "ocean of political anxieties"which threatenedto overwhelm him and made it increasinglydifficult for him to concentrateon his studies.8We do not know to what extentthese events alienatedPhilo fromhis own comfortablepositionin Alexandriansociety.Thereis no indicationin the writingsthathis socioeconomic position was jeopardized.Very likely the huge wealth of his family made him immune to such pressures.9It is importantto note that this wealth would not have been confined to the city itself. Evidence suggests thatPhilo's family had considerableinterestsin ruralEgypt.10It is likely that they would have had one or more countryretreats.Philo the homo urbanuscould get away fromthe city, if he wished to. Despite all these troubles Philo belonged to the establishment of the Alexandrianmetropolis,and this would have colored his view of what a city should be. His attitudetowardsthepax Romana,which had made its presence so strongly felt in his own city, has been a source of dispute. Barraclough's conclusionis sound: GrantedthatPhilo wrote too extravagantlyof the peaceful state of the RomanempirebeforeGaius'madness,I cannotagreewith Goodenough thatPhilo did not appreciatethe benefits of Romanrule. His emphasis on peace, law and harmonyin describingthe Roman orderwas in accord with the conditionshe consideredmost desirablein a state." And Dorothy Sly is no doubtright in speculatingthat Philo was "not entirely displeasedwith the outcome,"when the newly elevatedemperorClaudiusintervened in the turbulentAlexandrianaffairs.'2It will emerge that the notion of orderand sound organizationof the complexities of social and political life is precisely whatPhilo appreciatedin the city. The City as Symbol of Order Philo's most famous general descriptionof a city is located in his treatise devoted to the explanationof the Mosaic creation account in Genesis 1 (De opificio mundi 16-18): See De specialibus legibus 3.1-6 referredto on p. 362. On the socio-economic and political statusof Philo's family, see J. Morrisin E. Schiirer, G. Vermes, et al., The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh, 1973-87), III, 815. '0Cf. A. Fuks, "Notes on the Archive of Nicanor,"JJP, 5 (1951), 207-16. Barraclough,"Philo's Politics," 452, referringto Legatio ad Gaium 8-22, 140-58. 12 Sly (n. 6), 180, referringto Claudius's Letterto the Alexandrians(P Lond. 1912). 8 9
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When a city is founded, in accordancewith the soaring ambitionof a king or generalwho has laid claim to supremepower and, in the magnificence of his conception,addsadditionaladornmentto his good fortune,it may happenthata trainedarchitectcomes forward,who, having observedthe favorableclimate and location of the site, first designs in his mind a plan of almost all the parts of the city to be producedtemples, gymnasia, public offices, market-places,harbors,shipyards, constructionsof walls, structuresof private and public buildings. Receiving the imprintsof each object in his soul as in wax, he carries around the noetic city as an image in his head. Then ... like a good
craftsmanhe begins to constructthe city out of stones andtimber,looking to the model andensuringthatthe corporealmaterialcorrespondsto each of the incorporealideas. The conceptionwe have concerningGod shouldbe similarto this, namelythatwhen he decidedto foundthe great city of the cosmos, he first conceived its outlines.....3 As has been demonstratedelsewhere,this descriptionis inspiredby accountsof the foundingof his own city Alexandriaby Alexanderthe Greatandhis architect Dinocratesof Rhodes.'4Philo has adaptedthe details to suit the purposeof his exegesis, which wishes to show how the intelligible plan or structureof the cosmos is located in the divine Logos. This well-known text is by no means the only one in which Philo uses the analogy of the city in order to explain some aspect of his cosmological and theologicalthought.It is now not Alexandriawhich is the megalopolis,as in the ravings of Flaccus quoted above, but the universe as a whole. We note the followingthemes: 1. the image of the city illustratesthe orderanddivine administrationof the cosmos (De opificio mundi 17, De specialibus legibus 1.13, De praemiis et poenis, De exsecrationibus33); 2. the city is used as the key examplein the cosmological argument,arguing from the orderof the universe to the existence of a creator(Legumallegoriae 3.98, De specialibus legibus 1.33-34, 3.189, De praemiis et poenis, De exsecrationibus41); 3. the cosmos as megalopolis is ruled by the law of nature(De opificio mundi3, 142), which can also be describedas the Logos (De losepho 29); 4. the orderedstate of the megalopolis also points to an intelligible cosmos which is the Logos of God in the act of creation(De opificio mundi24, andthe passage cited above); Similar catalogue of urbanfeaturesat De posteritate Caini 50. D. T. Runia,"PolisandMegalopolis:Philo andthe Foundingof Alexandria,"Mnemosyne, 42 (1989), 398-412. 13
14
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5. as in a city theremust be a single ruler(De confusione linguarum170), for nothing is worse thananarchy(De opificio mundi 11); 6. the role of a city administratorillustratesGod's providentialadministration of the cosmos (De Providentia2.49, 99); 7. comparisonwith a city (and its walls) also indicatesthe confinementof the cosmos-it is not possible to move outside it (De posteritate Caini 7, cf. De ebrietate 101, De specialibus legibus 3.189). Philo's exploitationof the themesof the cosmos as megalopolisandmanas kosmopolites(citizenof the world)is all the morestrikingwhen we considerthat the terms he uses scarcely occur outside his works.'5Traditionallyit has been held that Philo is adaptingStoic ideas, such as are found elsewhere in authors like Cicero, Plutarch,Seneca, Dio Chrysostom,and Epictetus.The precise development of this complex of ideas is still far from clear. Recently Malcolm Schofield has arguedthat it is possible to distinguishan early Stoic (Zenonian and Chrysippean)tradition,in which the analogy is limited to the cosmos as location of a community(politeia) of gods and sages, froma laterdevelopment in which the analogy focuses on the rationalorganizationof the cosmos under the leadershipof a supremedeity.l6In the case of the lattertheme it is to be agreedthatPlatonicinfluenceis strong.Plato'ssimpleimageof the divinecraftsman has been upgradedto a more complex metaphorinvolving a king and an architect.'7Aristotle's reductionof all cosmic motion to a single transcendent cause has also played a role, as is clear fromvarioustexts in which the image of a city (or a palace or a household) occurs.'8 The philosophicaloriginsanddevelopmentsof the cosmos as city is not our first concern. In fact the direction of our argumentis the reverse of what is usuallythe case. We wantto know whatPhilo's use of the philosophicalanalogy of the cosmic city tells about his views on the city, not the other way around. What it tells us is that he wishes to emphasize the rationalorganizationand administrationof the city, ideally by a single beneficent ruler.Philo reveals a positive attitudetowardsthe classical Greekconceptionof thepolis as the ideal and "natural"structurefor humanliving, constructedand organizedin such a way as to ensurethe well-being and concord of its citizens. The philosophical emphasison single rule (monarchia)coincides well with the political structure of the RomanEmpireas a whole, with the Emperorat the apex andhis powerful representativesin commandin individualcities such as Alexandria. 15Outside Philo and the Patristictraditiondependenton him kosmopolitesis found only
twice (esp. the anecdote of Diogenes Laertius,6.63) and megalopolites not at all. On Philo's terminologicalinfluence on the Fatherssee my remarksat VChr,46 (1992), 314ff. 16 M. Schofield, The Stoic Idea of the City (Cambridge, 1991), esp. ch. 3, "The Cosmic City." 17See D. T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Leiden, 19862), 168. 18 Cf. Metaphysics A 10 1075a11-20, De motu animalium 10 703a28-b2, and also ps.AristotleDe mundo 396bl, 398al4, 400b7.
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This ideal of the harmoniousandwell-governedcity is not withoutits tricky aspectwhen set along the realitiesof civic life in Philo's own metropolis.As he learned to his cost, the various communities that made up the city were not always able to live together in harmony.He is very critical of the Prefect of Egypt for favoringone groupabove anotherandnot giving the Jews a fairhearing (In Flaccum 24). In his political theory,therefore,he adds a second ideal, demokratia.This stateoccurswhenjustice andproportionalequalityareprevalent in a city.19The city can only prosperand its inhabitantslive well if the ruler recognizes the rightsof its variouscommunities. The ideal of the well-organizedandwell-governedcity or communityalso informsPhilo'spresentationof the Mosaicpoliteia, which is distinguishedfrom all othersthroughthe excellence of its laws handeddown from its founder.The laws of Moses are an accuratereflection of the divine Law or Logos thatrules the universe,but codified at a level that correspondsto humanliving (De vita Moysis 2.49-51). Only envy andthe fact thatthe Jewishnationhas been undera cloud have caused cities andnationsto neglect this legislation and give preference to the laws of Greeklawgivers such as LycurgusandPlato (De vita Moysis 1.2, 2.43-44, cf. De opificio mundi 1-3). Observanceof the Law of Moses will bring about the peace and harmonythat should characterizepolitical life (De virtutibus119-20): This is above all what the most holy prophetwishes to bring aboutby meansof his entirelegislation,concord,a sense of community,unanimity of mindandfeeling, a blendof characters,as a resultof which households andcities andnationsand lands andthe entirehumanrace might advanceto the highest well-being. But up to the presenttime these are no morethanprayers.They will become the truestreality-that at least is my conviction-if God grantsabundanceto our virtues... Philo is realistic:thereis a largegap between the ideal of a Mosaicpoliteia and the situationthathe and fellow-Jews foundthemselves in Alexandriaand elsewhere. It is not yet clear,however,how he envisages thatpoliteia.Does it imply a communityanda way of life thatapproximatesthe conceptionof the classical Greekpolis in the changedcircumstancesof the early Romanempire?Or does he have somethingquitedifferentin mind? The City as Exegetical Theme andAllegorical Symbol A furthersource of materialon the city is found in Philo's vast exegetical output. Cities of various kinds assume some prominencein the pages of the MosaicPentateuchwhichPhilosets outto expound,forexample,the city founded 19See Barraclough,"Philo's Politics," 520-23.
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by Cain (Gen. 4:17), the city of Babel with its megalomaniactower (Gen. 11), the doomedcities of Sodom andGomorrah(Gen. 18), the cities of Egyptwhich the Israeliteshadto help build (Ex. 1), the cities of Canaan(Num. 13), the cities of Refuge (Num. 35), and so on. As we noted earlier,the allegorical method allows Philo to make these texts relevantto his own situation,and so also of directrelevanceto ourtheme. Let us begin with the most strikingexample of Philo's allegorizationof the city. Cain builds a city. In the literal sense this is absurd,for therewas no one else to live in it buthimself. The text, properlyunderstood,speaksof a "dogma" or a "way of thinking"espoused by the mind that is full of arroganceand selflove (philautia), impiety and every kind of wickedness. This mind gives the creditfor its achievementsto itself and not to God (De posteritate Caini 49-52, cf. De specialibus legibus 1.334ff.). Quite reasonablyPhilo sees a connection with the story of the tower of Babel (De posteritate Caini 53, De confusione linguarum122). The wicked person,whom this city symbolizes, raises a tower of evil action and godlessness in his soul (De confusione linguarum83, 196). Babel means confusion, and that is precisely what reigns in the soul (De confusionelinguarum84), for it thinksthatpleasureand harlotryshould be its goal (De confusionelinguarum144). A furtherparallelcan be seen in the cities thatthe Pharaohbuilds. The king of Egypt,symbolizingthe minddominatedby the passions of the body, forces the Israeliteswho representthe race that sees God to make bricks for these strong cities of wickedness (De confusione linguarum91, cf. Deposteritate Caini 54, De somniis 1.77-78).20Philo's treatise De confusionelinguarum,which has as its main subjectthe exegesis of the incidentof the tower of Babel, is dominatedby the contrastbetween harmony and confusion, as the final paragraphsshow. God plants nobility and virtue in thepoliteia of the cosmos, butthe city of vice andgodlessness, inhabitedby the fool, he scattersto the wind (De confusionelinguarum196-98, cf. Gen. 11:8). Not all cities receive a negativeexplanation.As we have seen, Philo likes to work with contrasts.The city of Sodom was destroyed by its overwhelming wickedness(De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 121).21Even the sage Abrahamcould not rescue it. Yet those who are less far advanceddown the pathto destruction may still be rescued.Philo continues(De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 124-26): Formy part,when I see a good man living in a house or city, I deem that house or city blessed and believe that the enjoymentof their present blessings will be secure, and that their hopes for those as yet lacking will be fulfilled.... I know indeedthatthey cannotescape old age, but I
20 21
Based on the (false) etymology of Israel as "he who sees God." See J. A. Loader,A Taleof Two Cities (Kampen, 1990), 86-96.
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praythattheiryears may be prolongedto the utmost.For I believe that, as long as they may live, it will be well with the community....22 Philo then gives a furtherexegetical example, namely,the cities of the Levites, which are "ransomedforever" (Lev. 25:32) because the worshipperof God (therapeutes)has harvestedeverlastingfreedom(De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 128). But why are these cities open to fugitives as places of refuge? This is appropriatebecause the Levites, too, are in a sense exiles, because they have abandonedchildren,parents,all theirloved ones, in orderto obtainan immortal inheritancefromthe rulerof all. The excellence of the wise man is thus of inestimablebenefitto the city andits institutions(De ebrietate91-92, De mutatione nominum149). In anotherpassage, however,Philo is pessimistic.Althoughthe law states thatevery day shouldbe a festival for householdsand cities alike, in factthenumberof virtuouspeopleleft in the cities is smallindeed(De specialibus legibus 2.47).23
A numberof texts use the image of the rulerexercisingcontrolover the city in orderto illustratethe dominancethat should be exertedby the rationalsoul over the desires and vagaries of the body (Legum allegoriae 3.191, 224, De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 49). No less often, however, the image is used to describea less irenic situation.Justas civil strifeand factionaldisputecan rage in the city,so warcanragein the soul (DeposteritateCaini 183-84,Degigantibus 51, De confusionelinguarum46). Thereare some men who for almost all their life have not known this internalwarfare.They were filled with a deep peace which is the archetypeof the peace thatis enjoyedby cities andwere regardedas trulyfortunate.But in the very sunsetof theirlife they founderedon the rock of hithertounsuspecteddesire. So we should earnestlybeseech God thathe grant us this deep peace in all its purity(De somniis 2.147-49). A final text bringstogethermost of the themes discussed in this section. We returnto the treatiseon the tower of Babel. The proposalof the tower-builders that they build for themselves "a city and a tower whose head shall be unto heaven"suggeststo Philothe following exegesis (De confusionelinguarum1078): The lawgiver thinksthatbesides those cities which are built by men's handsuponthe earth,of which the materialsare stone andtimber,there are otherswhich men carryabout establishedin their souls. Naturally these last are models or archetypes,for the workmanshipbestowed on them is of a more divine kind,while the formerarecopies composedof 22
Based on Colson's translation. A Stoicizing topos; see also De mutationenominum35-37, De Abrahamo 17ff., Quod omnis probus liber sit 63. 23
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David T Runia perishingmaterial.Of the soul-city thereare two kinds, one better,the other worse. The better adopts as its constitution democracy,which honors equality and has law and justice for its rulers-such a city is extolled in the Psalms as the "city of God."The worse, which corrupts and adulteratesthe better,as the false counterfeitcoin corruptsthe currency, is mob-rule (ochlokratia),which takes inequalityfor its ideal, and in it injusticeand lawlessness rule supreme.24
The conceptsof democracyandochlocracyarederivedfrompoliticaltheory, butPhilo clearlygives them an idiosyncraticmeaningin this context.The basic antithesisis between the soul and the city of virtue,equalityandjustice (which can be called the city of God) and the soul and the city of vice, inequalityand injustice,symbolizedabove all by the tower-buildersof Babel. As we shall see, this contrastis laterpicked up by Augustine. Once again in our discussion we are distortingsomewhat the directionof Philo's thought.Forhim, in the allegoricalcontext,the city above all illustrates the innerworkingsof the soul, whereaswe areinterestedin whatthese passages tell us abouthis views on the city. As thereare two kinds of soul, thereare two kindsof city, the one markedby orderandvirtue,the otherby disorderandvice. These allegorical passages suggest that Philo had been well-acquaintedwith bothkinds. Criticismsof the City We turnnow to those passageswherePhilo overtlycriticizesthe city andthe way of life that is lived there. The city is the place where sexual license and slanderflourish(Quoddeteriuspotiori insidiarisoleat 99, 174,cf. De specialibus legibus 3.37). It is inhabitedby the impious and godless, who have rejectedthe values of theirupbringing.These people arethe chief pests thatruinprivateand public life in theircities (De ebrietate 78-79). The contrastbetween the worthless andthe uprightman is illuminating:the formerrestlessly hauntsthe public institutionsof the city, ever full of curiosity and ready to meddle; the latter rejectssuch activitiesnot becausehe is a misanthropebutbecausehe reviles the evil thatthe crowdloves, and so he stays home, or even prefersto leave the city altogetherandto spendhis days in isolationout in the country,wherehe has the companyof books recordingthe excellence of those who lived in the past (De Abrahamo20-23). Those who practicewisdom avoid the gatheringsof men and devote themselves to contemplation(De specialibus legibus 2.44-45). How seriously, we may ask, are we to take passages such as these? The exhortatorypurposethat underliesthem can easily be recognized. They have 24 Based on Colson's translationand his excellent emendationof the text. On Jerusalemas the "city of God" see below p. 375ff.
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often been regardedas drawingon the traditionof the diatribe,a popularizing form of philosophicaldiscoursein which the readeris encouragedto abandon the depravitiesand superficialitiesof his presentway of life and turnto a truly worthwhileform of living.25Moreoverthe descriptionof the large city or metropolisas a hotbedof evil anddangerwhich one shouldflee if at all possible is a frequenttopos in imperialliterature,best knownfromJuvenal'sbrilliantThird Satireon life in the Imperialcapital.26In this respecttherewould no doubthave been little to choose between Rome andAlexandria,its sister-metropolisin the East.Shouldwe not regardtheseremarksas no morethan"gelegentlicheAnfliige von Zivilisationsmiidigkeit,"to use Klauck'scompactphrase.27 Thereare,however,otherpassages to be takeninto account,in which Philo goes a step furtherand praises the antithesis of the city, the desert where no civilization is possible. The most strikingpassage is found in his answerto the exegetical quaestio why Moses chooses to lay down his laws in the desert(De Decalogo 2-17). Cities, Philo replies, are full of evils, and especially pride, which bringshumankindto honorfalsehoodandtreatthe divine with uttercontempt.Moreoverthe personwho is aboutto receive the laws must first cleanse andpurifyhis soul fromthe deep stainsthatit has receivedfromcontactwith the promiscuouscrowdsof the city. Similarly,the translatorsof the divine laws need to leave the confusion and disease of the city in orderto do theirwork, and so retireto the solitude of the island of Pharos,each alone with his own soul (De vita Moysis 2.34-36).28In Philo's time this event is celebratedwith a picnic on the samespot,andhis descriptionsuggestsconvivialityratherthansolitude(? 41). The truedesert,however,is a place of purification.Thereareof courseplentyof otherbiblical exemplathatPhilo can exploit. Moses leaves Egypt andbecomes a shepherdfor Jethro,leadinghis thoughtsaway fromthe pursuitsof thepoliteia into the desertso thathe will not commitinjustice(De sacrificiisAbelis et Caini 50). The long journey of the people of Israelthroughthe desertis equatedwith the way of philosophy devoid of passions and acts of injustice (De somniis 2.170).29
has not yet been mentioned.In But the archetypalbiblical"city-abandoner" his accountof the life of Abraham,Philo praiseshim forbeing an emigrantwho leaves his fatherlandandfamilybehindandventuresforthwherethe divinecommandleads him, first from Chaldeato Haran,then fromthereto the solitude of 25 See P. Wendland,"Philound die kynisch-stoischeDiatribe,"in Beitrige zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie und Religion (Berlin, 1895), 1-75, and S. K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (Chico, Calif., 1981). Problemsof 26 But this is notjust a topos. See J. D. Hughes, Pan s Travail:Environmental the Ancient Greeksand Romans (Baltimore, 1994), 149-68. 27 "Jerusalembei Philo und Lukas,"Kairos, 28 (1986), 129. 28 The unhealthynatureof the city is anothertopos; cf. Celsus, De medicina 1.1-2. 29 See V. Nikiprowetzky, "Le theme du desert chez Philon d'Alexandrie," Etudes philoniennes (Paris, 1996), 293-308.
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the desert(DeAbrahamo60-88, exeg. Gen. 12:1-9). Who would not have felt it a burden,Philo rhetoricallyasks, to be separatedfromhis nativelandandalso to be drivenout of every city into a tracklesswaste where the travelleronly with difficulty can find his way (? 86)? But Abrahamrejectedsuch sentiments,recognizing that solitude is dear to God and to the soul in search of him (? 87). Without difficulty we recognize here the theme of the "sojourner"or alien (paroikos), i.e., the wise man who abandonsthe familiaritiesof familial and civic life in searchof a higher realm, or-another possibility-participates in "ordinarylife" to the extentnecessary,buthas his heartelsewhere.30Only in this passage, however, does Philo expoundAbraham'semigrationin anythinglike literalterms.Elsewherehe spiritualizesin termsof the soul's emigrationout of the body or her departurefrom an earthlyto a heavenly fatherland. There are two otherwell-known texts, however, in which Philo undercuts this pictureof criticismof the city andpraiseof solitude,whetherin the country or in the desert.Giving exegesis of Deut. 8:15 in which Moses says thatGod led Israelthroughthe greatandterriblewilderness,Philo speaksunexpectedlyof his own experience(Legumallegoriae 2.85):31 For I have often myself left kinsmen,friends,andcountryto come into andgained thewildernessto reflecton somethingworthyof contemplation nothingfromit, butmy mind scatteredor bittenby passionwithdrewto mattersof a contrarysort. There are times, however, when I am unmoved amidsta huge crowd,God has routedthe mob throngingmy soul andhas taughtme thatit is not differencesof place thateffect good and bad dispositions,but God who moves and leads the vehicle of the soul whicheverway he pleases. The second text is even more famous. In De migrationeAbrahami89-93 Philo mountsa strongattackon those interpretersof the Mosaic law who abolish all obligationto literalobservance.It is as if they live all on theirown in the desert or as if they hadbecome disembodiedsouls, knowingneithercity norvillage nor household nor any company of humanbeings at all, exploring the truthin its nakedness(? 89). The same terms that are used so positively of Abrahamthe sojournerhere receive a negative twist. Humansare social beings, with obligations to the communityin which they live, whetherin the city or in the countryside. This aspectof the communityemergesin our following theme.
30
See R. Bitter,Vreemdelingschap bij Philo vanAlexandri.:een onderzoeknaarde betekenis
van rrapotKo9 (diss. Utrecht, 1982). 31 Tr.D. Winston,Philo ofAlexandria. The ContemplativeLife, The Giants and Selections (New York, 1981), 78 (exegesis of Deut. 8:15).
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Two IdealizedExtra-urbanCommunities In an apologetic work consisting of a numberof book-lengthsections, the originalextentof which we do not know Philo undertookto describetwo Jewish communitieswhich he admiredandwhich he took to be exemplaryexamplesof the practicalandthe contemplativelife respectively.32His extensivedescription of the community of the Essenes in Palestine is lost, but we can substitutea shortertreatmentgiven in Quodomnisprobuslibersit 75-91. Philobegins (? 76) by sayingthatthesepeople inhabitvillages in the countryside,avoidingthe cities because of the lawlessness which is endemic amongcity inhabitantsandwhich could attacktheirsouls like the disease causedby a pestilentialatmosphere(we recall the criticismof the city as a place of disease). Philo emphasizes(? 77)once againspeakingfromthe viewpointof the homourbanus-that theirlack of wealth is a matterof choice, not the resultof a lack of good fortune.In this they form a great exception, as also in the fact that they have no weapons and no slaves (? 78-79). Theirway of life is characterizedby both love of God andlove of humankind.The latteris above all shownin the factthatthey live a communal life withoutprivateproperty(? 85-87). Elsewhere a second descriptionof this communityis given.33Two differences should be noted. First Philo now says thatthe Esseneslive in manyJudeancities as well as villages, andno criticismof city life is given.34Moreoverhe now claims thatthey rejectmarriage(i.e., any form of contact with women) as being the principalthreatto their communal life.35 Philo's descriptionof a second communityis more famous.An entirebook is devoted to the Therapeutaeand the Theapeutrides(both names explicitly at De vita contemplativa2, 88). It is entitledDe vita contemplativabecause this communityexemplifiesthe contemplativelife, which in Philo's view is the most excellent way of life to which humanscan aspire.Wishingto explainthe name of these devotees at the outset,he is uncertainandgives two alternatives.Either it means"healers"becausethey curethe evils of the soul (presumablytheirown) betterthan doctorspracticingin the cities who heal only the body, or it means "worshippers"of God as highestBeing (? 2). Philo does not confine this kindof person to one group. They are found in many places (? 21), whereverpeople leave family,property,andpossessions behind in searchof the blessed and immortallife (? 13). In leavingtheirfatherlandbehind,Philo continues(? 19-20):36
32 See Morris (n. 10), 856.
33Hypothetica 11.1, in a fragmentpreservedby Eusebius;Philo LCL edition, 9.437-443. 34The contradictionis noted by Schiireret al., II, 562. 35Similar informationin Josephusand Pliny; cf. ibid. II, 570. 36 Tr.
Winston, Philo, 45.
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... they do not emigrateto anothercity like unfortunateor worthless slaves who demandto be sold by theirowners,thus obtainingfor themselves a changeof mastersbutnot freedom.Forevery city, even the best governed,teems with tumultandindescribabledisturbancesthatno one couldabideafterhavingbeenonce guidedby wisdom.Insteadtheyspend theirtimeoutsidethewallspursuingsolitudein gardensor solitaryplaces, not fromhavingcultivateda cruelhatredof men, butbecausethey know thatintercoursewith personsof dissimilarcharacteris unprofitableand injurious. Again the paradigmof the emigrant,Abraham,may be recognizedbehindthis description.Philois aboveall interestedin one communityof suchcontemplatives, foundin Egypton a hill beside Lake Mareotis.The locationmustbe takento be just outside Alexandria,almost in its "suburbs,"certainly in the countryside ratherthan in the desert.37The climate and situationof the communityare describedin idyllic terms.The dwellings arevery simple andaustere.They arenot so nearto each otherthatthe desiredsolitudecannotbe achieved, as is the case in towns, but they are also not so far apartthat its members cannot function togetheras a communityand offer each help in the case of attack(? 24). Philo then goes on to describethe way of life of the Therapeutaeas practicedsix days of the week in individualisolation and on the sabbathcommunally.All their activities are directedtowardsthe pursuitof wisdom, as derived from study of the sacredbooks and meditation,for such is the aim of the contemplativelife (? 35, 75-78, 89-90). Philo's descriptionof the Therapeutaeis notoriouslydifficult to interpret and has given rise to much speculation.Did they really live in the way he described?Had he himself visited them or even been a memberof the community?38The difficulty is thatwe lack otheraccountsor archaeologicalevidence to check what he tells us. It is plain thatPhilo idealizes the communitybecause they representfor him the embodimentof a spiritualideal. But how does this ideal relateto his own thinkingandhis own way of life? David Hay arguesthat Philo idealizes the communitybut at the same time only partlysharesthe ideals that he portrays.39Hay gives a long list of issues on which the Therapeutae appearto differfromwhat he himself espouses or practices.Forus the interesting case is the questionof the relationbetween city andcountryside. 37
On the location see F. C. Conybeare,Philo about the ContemplativeLife (Oxford, 1895), 274ff; F. Daumas,De vita contemplativa,Les Oeuvresde Philon d'Alexandrie,29 (Paris, 1963), 35 (who argues that it was not in the desert). Recently,however, G. P. Richardson,"Philo and Eusebius on Monastieriesand Monasticism:The Therapeutaeand Kellia," in B. McLean (ed.), Origins and Method (Sheffield, 1993), 346, has suggested a location furtherfrom Alexandria, to the southeastof the lake near Nitria. 38 As was already speculatedby Epiphanius,Panarion 1.29.5. 39 "ThingsPhilo said and did not say about the Therapeutae,"SBLSP, 31 (1992), 673-83.
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Philo, Hay affirms, "is a creature of the city, not evidently sharing the feelings of those who find urban life spiritually intolerable. Much of his writing seems aimed at showing how Jews living in a Gentile-dominated environment can preserve their spiritual identity."40In my view this presentation is one-sided. Philo does choose to continue to reside in the city and may even be called a homo urbanus, but at the same time he is, as we have seen, decidedly ambivalent about the city and the way it interferes with the possibility of achieving the ideal of study and the search for wisdom. To this extent he can unreservedly, it seems to me, praise the choice that the Therapeutae have made, even if his own circumstances make it difficult to follow their example fully. A long section of Philo's treatise is devoted to a somewhat unexpected and vehement attack on Greek symposia, including the one described by Plato and Xenophon, as compared with the sober feast enjoyed by his own heroes and heroines (? 40-63). One detail is interesting for our theme. Philo strongly attacks the practice of pederasty. One of his arguments is a stock one: since barrenness and childlessness would ensue, it would lead to the desolation of cities.41 As Hay rightly observes, Philo's position seems inconsistent,42for in the treatise he assumes that the community is celibate (? 34) and praises the virginity of its female members (? 68). Perhaps, however, the women are called such because they are beyond child-bearing age.43 Issues that Philo raises in this intriguing treatise were to have a long future.44As Peter Brown has emphasized, the conflict between a sexuality-denying asceticism and the desirability of continuing civic life (no easy matter in the ancient world) becomes a critical issue in the relations between pagan and Christian culture.45Eusebius, as is well known, identifies the Therapeutae as protoChristians. The explicit connection with monasticism is first made by Epiphanius, and later Philo's "monks" become a standard theme in accounts of the origin of the monastic movement.46
40 Ibid., 676. 41
The same argumentis used by Plato himself, Laws 839a. Hay, n. 40, 674, n. 6. 43 As suggestedby R. S. Kraemer,"MonasticJewish Womenin Greco-RomanEgypt:Philo Judaeuson the Therapeutrides,"Signs (Chicago), 14 (1989), 352; D. Sly, Philo s Perceptionof Women(Atlanta, 1990), 209. 44 Because Philo's account seemed to anticipatelater developments so accurately,it was long suspected to be a Christianforgery.See the account in Conybeare(n. 38), 258-358, who proved once and for all that the work was authentic.Furtherdetails on the controversyin my Philo in Early ChristianLiterature(Minneapolis, 1993), 32. 45 The Body and Society (London, 1988), 31-32 andpassim. 42
46 See Runia, n. 45, 227-31.
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Jerusalem,the IdealCity? For Philo the Jew thereis anothercity thathas to have a special place in his thought.In his fine articleon Philo's views on JerusalemKlauckreachesthree conclusions.47First, Philo regardsJerusalemfrom the outside, as it were, but neverthelessconsidersit to be the holy citypar excellence, investingin his view of it considerableemotional and religious capital;the reason for this is firmly groundedin his Jewishidentityandloyalties.Second,he speaksaboutJerusalem most frequentlywhen he is concernedwith concrete issues, esp. in his Legatio ad Gaium.Finally,the relationbetween Jerusalemandthe Jewish communities in the diasporais describedby Philo in termsof the relationbetween a "mothercity" (metropolis)and its colonies, borrowingand adaptinga conceptionfrom earlierGreekhistory. Buildingon these results,I would arguethatfor Philo Jerusalemis not a city like other cities. Physically and geographicallyhis vision is dominatedby the conceptionof Jerusalemas the greatreligiouscenterfor all Jews, as symbolized above all by the Temple.In a well-knownpassage(De specialibus legibus 1.6869), with totaldisregardfor history,he describeshow the lawgiverMoses envisages the temple as a place of pilgrimage: He does not consent to those who wish to performthe rites in their houses, butbids themrise up fromthe ends of the earthandcome to this temple.In this way he also appliesthe severesttest to theirdispositions. For one who is not going to sacrifice in a religious spiritwould never bringhimselfto leave his countryandfriendsandfamilyandspendtime in a strangeland, but clearly it must be the strongerattractionof piety which leadshim to endureseparationfromhis most familiaranddearest friends.... And we have the surest proof of this in what actually happens. Countlessmultitudesfromcountlesscities come, some over land, othersover sea, from east and west and northand south at every feast. They take the Templefor theirport as a generalhaven and safe refuge from the bustles and great turmoilof life, and there they seek to find calm weather....(translationColson LCL) Here again the exemplumof Abrahamis recognizable, but this time it is of dubiousrelevance.48The pilgrimageto Jerusalem,in which Philo himself participated(De Providentia2.107), is read in terms of a temporaryrelease from the cares of ordinarylife (perhapsas experiencedin the metropolisof Alexandria).Jerusalemis thusnot so muchan ideal city as the concreteembodimentof Klauck, "Jerusalem,"147; see also Borgen, Philo, 273-75. As notedby Y.Amir,"DieWallfahrtnachJerusalemin PhilonsSicht,"in Die hellenistische Gestalt des Judentumsbei Philon von Alexandrien(Neukirchen, 1983), 58f. 47
48
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Philo ofAlexandria
a religiousideal. Therearetwo templesof God, the cosmos itself andthe temple made by hands,located in Jerusalem.49 Thereis one famous passage in Philo where Jerusalemis explicitly called "thecity of God"with referenceto Ps. 45:5, "therushingof the rivermakesglad the city of God" (De somniis 2.245-254, see also De confusione linguarum 108
cited on p. 369). Klauck is right to emphasize that Philo in general is rather reticent in spiritualizingJerusalemand its temple. Here, however, he does so very deliberately,justifying his move by pointing out that there are no rivers near Jerusalem.The city of God is not only the cosmos but also the soul of the wise man. Its name Jerusalemmeans "vision of peace."This city shouldnot be soughtin the regionsof the earth,for it is not madeof wood andstone,butrather in the soul which sets for itself the goal of the life of peace and contemplation
(? 249).50 No one canreadthispassagewithoutthinkingof the muchmorefamousand elaboratetreatmentof the "City of God" in Augustine. I agree with Johannes van Oortwhen he arguesthatPhilo cannotbe regardedas the sole progenitorof the Augustinianconception.51 Far too much is missing, most notably the contrastbetween JerusalemandBabel. Philo tendsto espouse precisely thathierarchical (and Platonizing) contrastbetween a higher and lower existence (e.g., heaven andearth)thatAugustinewishes to avoid. On the otherhandwe should neglect the exegetical backgroundof the Augustinianmotif. The contrastbetween the two cities ultimatelygoes back to a Philonic antithesisbetween the city of Cain and the city of Abel-Seth.52ThoughPhilo does not explicitly contrastthe peace of city of God with the turmoilandconfusion of the city founded by Cain and continuedby the tower-builders,the antithesisis clearly implied (see De confusione linguarum41ff.). The contrastis between peace and war, unity anddisorderlymultiplicity,goodness andvice. It bringsus back to the use of the city as an exegetical and allegoricalthemewhich we discussed earlier. Some Conclusionson a ComplexTheme The themeof this paperhas provedrichbutcomplex. As so often in the case of Philo, the problem is not too little evidence (except in the case of autobiographicalmatters)but rathertoo much. Philo's writtenremainsare so copious 49 We should note also the eschatological passage (unique in his oeuvre) at De praemiis et poenis, De exsecrationibus 165-68, where Philo envisages that all scatteredJews will come together in "the one appointedplace" (left unspecified). Philo here gives exegesis of Deut. 30:3-5. 50 Cf. also De confusione linguarum 77-78, where the image of a mother-city and its colonists is for souls returningto heaven, but there is no mention of Jerusalem. 51 J. van Oort, Jerusalem and Babylon. A Study into Augustines City of God and the Sources of his Doctrine of the Two Cities (Leiden, 1991), esp. 250-52. 52 See J. P. Martin,"Philo andAugustine,De civitate Dei XIV 28 and XV: Some PrelimiThe Studia Philonica Annual, 3 (1991), 286ff. Observations," nary
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thatit is easy to makehim say whateverone wants. My endeavorhas been to do justice to both the evidence and the breadthof my theme. On the basis of the analysispresenteda numberof conclusions can be reached. There can be no doubtthat Philo is ambivalenttowardsthe city. This attitude is morethanjust the wearinessof the big-city dweller,comparablewith the disgustthateven the most dedicatedNew YorkersorAmsterdammersfeel from time to time towardsthe thingsthatgo on in theirchosenplace of domicile.It has deeper roots, connected with aspects of Philo's thoughtas well as his experience. The materialwe have assembledpointsto threecontrastsor antithesesthat shapehis thinking. Firstly, Philo contraststhe ideal and the reality of the city. The city is a potentsymbol of orderon accountnot only of its plannedandpurposefuldesign and construction(in the traditionof rationalGreektown-planning)but also of its civic life, providedof course that it is well governedand administered.But the realityof life in the city often belies such an ideal. The capricesof rulersand the vagariesof the crowdproduceturmoilandstriferatherthanpeace andprosperity,as the Jews found to their cost in Alexandriaand elsewhere. Moreover, the normalitiesof urbanlifestyles often fail to measureup to Philo's exacting spiritualand moral standards. The second contrastin effect restatesthe first at a more theoreticallevel, namely the contrastbetween the good and the bad city. In the former piety, virtue,andhumanityreign;in the lattergodlessness,wickedness,andilliberality make life miserablefor everyone (andespecially for the perpetrators).The two kinds of city are evidentlyrelatedto two statesof soul in its citizens. Hence the prevalenceof this contrastin Philo's psychologizing allegories. On the whole Philo is pessimistic about which kind of city one is more likely to encounter. Truesages are rare,and the Jewish nation,whose laws if followed might bring aboutradicalchange, is not in a position to bringaboutreal improvement. Thirdly,Philo frequentlyjuxtaposes city life and solitude, representedby the countrysideoutsidethe city's walls or, moreradically,by the very antithesis to the city, the desert.Abandoningthe city means thatone can be purgedof its evils anddiseases as one gains spiritualandphysicalrefreshment.Paradigmatic here are the Therapeutae,who are depicted as leading an ideal life outside the city in a communitywhich combines solitude with a minimum of social life focused on study and worship. Another model to follow is Abrahamthe sojourer, who symbolizes an even more radicalattitudeto all forms of earthly life, aspiringonly to heavenlywisdom. Concentratingnow only the last two, more theoretical,contrasts,we find a mixture of both classical (i.e., Greek and philosophical) and Judaic cultural input.It is the latter,I submit,that furnishesthe interestingnew impulses. The good city is not only well-administeredandpopulatedby a communityof sages. It is also directedtowardsworship of the One God as practicedby the Jewish
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politeia within its walls. The books of Moses can be read as enjoining civic life in the idealized Mosaic polity. But much of what they describe relates to life outside the polis. The desert is a not unequivocal symbol, clearly enough, but it is certainly prominent-much more so than in Greco-Roman literature-and Philo turns it to his advantage in his spiritualizing allegory.53To some degree, therefore, Philo anticipates the change in attitude towards the city that would commence with the Christian movement in the second century, as summarized in the famous words of the Epistle to Diognetus (5.5), "they dwell in their own native cities, but as sojourners (paroikoi)." The Jewish politeia would have a successor within the walls of the ancient city whose power and influence was to become immeasurably greater.But the link should not be overemphasized. Philo's ambivalence towards the city is not the result of disillusionment with the social situation of himself and his fellow-Jews, such as may be postulated for the early Christians.54His own superior social status precluded this. In conclusion, Philo's conception of the city looks both backwards andfrom our later perspective-forwards. He looks back to the ideal of the polis as developed in classical philosophy and continued in the changed circumstances of the Roman world. In a sense his exercise in imaginative contemporary exposition of Mosaic thought looks back as well, bridging the gap between a distant past and the present. More interestingly, however, his double contrast between city-life and solitude, and between the good city (or community) and the bad city looks forward to later developments, occurring centuries after he wrote, in the period that civic life was under grave threats such as Philo could hardly imagine, when, paradoxically, it was the desert that was to become like a city.55No doubt this anticipation contributed to his later popularity among Christian thinkers when, though a Jew, he was adopted as a Church father honoris causa.56 Leiden University. 53Idealizationof the countryside,as noted above, is found frequentlyin classical literature, but mostly in the form of the "retreatto the country."Greco-Romancultureremainsresolutely city-centered. 54 See E. Pliimacher,Identitdtsverlustund Identitdtsgewinn:Studien zum Verhdltnisvon kaiserzeitlichterStadt undfriihemChristentum(Neukirchen-Vluyn,1987). For the social background see W. A. Meeks, TheFirst Urban Christians(New Haven, 1983). 55Cf. the title of Derwas J. Chitty's accountof the monastic movement, TheDesert a City (London, 1966), derived fromAthanasius, VitaAntonii, 14 (where the city, note well, is the ev TOlS
oUppavosio
TrOXLTEiC).
See Runia, Philo in Early ChristianLiterature. This paper was originally presented at a conference on Theology, Scientific Knowledge and Society held at the Centerof Theological Inquiry,Princeton,in November 1993 and to the Philo Seminarat the conference of the Society of New TestamentStudies held in Edinburghin August 1994. I would like to thank scholars at both conferences for their constructivecomments, and especially David Hay, Piet van der Horst,David Satran,Greg Sterling,andNikolaus Walter. 56
Minds, The
and
Forms, Nature
of
Spirits: Cartesian
Disenchantment
Han van Ruler
What is Descartes's contribution to Enlightenment? Undoubtedly, Cartesian philosophy added to the conflict between philosophical and theological views which divided intellectual life in the Dutch Republic towards the end of its "Golden Age."' Although not everyone was as explicit as Lodewijk Meyer, who said that his theological doubts were inspired by Descartes's philosophical method, Cartesianism along with Copericanism, Socinianism, and Cocceianism played an important part in the growing skepticism towards the authority of Scripture.2 Apart from Descartes's general method, however, specific Cartesian ideas encouraged a new view towards nature and towards God's role in governing it. In physics and physiology the new philosophy replaced the image of mind working on matter with the image of a self sufficient mechanism. This new causal metaphor led to a typically Cartesian form of "disenchantment." In this article I argue that on account of their approval of a Cartesian theory of causality, even authors with sincere religious motives came close to accepting radical and nearly Spinozistic ideas. I start with disenchantment in a very literal sense: Balthasar Bekker's denial of the activities of devils, angels, and other spirits. A comparison of Bekker's arguments with those of another Cartesian, Arnold Geulincx will, I hope, bring out the nature and importance of what I shall present as 1
See Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806 (Oxford, 1995), 637-99 and 889-933; and Theo Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy 1637-1650 (Carbondale, Ill., 1992). 2 See L. Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturce Interpres (Amsterdam, 1666), Prologus:
"quemadmodumilli in Philosophia,sic & mihi in Theologia liceret, conduceretquein dubium revocare, quicquidin dubiumrevocariposset." Cocceians, the followers of the Leiden theologian JohannesCoccejus (1603-69), contributedto the development of the science of Biblical criticism but were by no means disloyal members of the Reformed Church. See Israel, The Dutch Republic, 660-69, 690-99, 909-16.
381 Copyright2000 by the Journalof the Historyof Ideas,Inc.
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Descartes's "mechanical reduction" in physics. Finally, I argue that the Cartesian separation of mind and body gave rise to a form of disenchantment that reached far beyond contemporary debates. Devils, Ghosts, and God's Omnipotence Balthasar Bekker's classic book The World Bewitched (1691-93) does not so much deal with the practice of sorcery as with its theory. Bekker offers a wide range of theological and philosophical arguments in order to combat the idea that ghosts, devils, and angels influence natural or historical events. In particular Bekker draws some important conclusions from the philosophy of Descartes. Yet it is immediately clear to the reader that the motives for his critique are religious rather than philosophical.3 The WorldBewitched is not written as a scientific assault on superstition. Bekker, at the time serving as a Calvinist minister in Amsterdam, presents his work as a new and perhaps final phase in the perfection of Christianity. For two centuries it had been a goal of the Protestant Reformation to accentuate God's majesty and to establish the idea of His absolute power over creation. Bekker's Worldagain expresses this idea. His denial that ghosts and devils are active in the world is a logical consequence of the belief that there is no room for demigods in nature. Bekker thus adds a final touch to the project of the Reformation. The WorldBewitched will testify to the fact "that I return as much of the honor of His Power and Wisdom to the Almighty, as they took from Him who gave it to the Devil. I ban [the Devil] from the World and I bind him in Hell."4 Removing devils and spirits from nature, Bekker aims to distinguish superstition from true faith. The battle against superstitious beliefs had formed a characteristic element of Protestant tactics. Dutch Calvinists, for instance, took offense at the continuing practices of blessings and incantations.5 Bekker wanted to go even further.The Protestantization of Christian dogma could only be completed by making everything in nature's course depend on God's unique power and providence.6 "Science" in our sense of the word was a subsidiary matter.7 Still, Bekker saw the new scientific theories of his day as useful allies. In particular it was the new philosophy of Descartes that attracted him. Following Descartes, Bekker reasons "that I think, that I will, 3 See W. P. C. Knuttel, Balthasar Bekker,de bestrijder van het bijgeloof (The Hague, 1906); and Wiep van Bunge's Einleitungto Bekker,Die bezauberteWelt(1693) in Freidenker der europdischenAufkldrung,I, vii, 1 (Stuttgart,1997). 4 BalthasarBekker,De Betoverde Weereld(Amsterdam,1691), "Voorrede,"unpaginated. 5 See A. Th. van Deursen,Mensen van klein vermogen:Het kopergeldvan de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam,1991), 276-82; also KeithThomas,Religionand theDecline ofMagic (London 1991), ch. 3, "The Impactof the Reformation,"58-89. 6 Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,I, 137, argues that since the days of Lutherand Calvin, too little attentionhas been given to the project of purgingreligion of superstitiouselements. 7 Cf. De Betoverde Weereld,II, 7 and IV, 10.
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[and]thatI understandsomething,"withoutanypartof my body being involved in this type of consciousness. Mind andbody in fact have nothingin common: My thoughts,my will and my intellect cannotbe measuredin yardsor inches, nor can they be weighed in pounds:but my Body, my flesh and bone and my blood will keep theirsize and weight, or they will not be what they are.... That is why I keep myself to this; that a Mind is a thinking substance [selfstandigheid] and a Body an extended [uitgestrekte] one.8
Again in accordancewith Descartes,Bekkerdeduces God's existence fromthe idea of perfection.9Yet both the distinctionof body and soul and God's perfection aregiven new explanatoryroles in the contextof Bekker'sdisenchantment. Since God is both perfect and unique, He does not allow semi-deities or other cooperativebeings beside Him. All things natural-including the tiny animals thathadjust been discoveredwith the help of the microscope'0-are governed by a single Rulerand Creatorof the world. Thus fromGod's perfectionalone it is evident thatthere is no room for any activity of devils or of spiritsin nature. A second argumentis based on the Cartesiandistinctionbetween body and mind. We know the mind, or the soul, only in so far as we know our own mind. Accordingly,if we areto say anythingwith regardto mindsor spiritsin general, ourjudgmentmust be based on the experiencethatwe have of our own mental faculties. However, if we focus on the activity of our soul, we easily see thatit neverinfluencesanothersoul except by makinguse of the body as intermediary. Moreover,the mutualinfluencebetweenbody andsoul is suchthatcertainmovementsarealways linkedto specific experiences.The will to standup, to sit, to lie down, to eat, to drink,to speak, to read, or to write always expresses itself in specific bodily movements;and the same is truethe otherway round:a certain impressionon our senses always resultsin a specific mentalexperience.We do not understandthis interactionof body and mind; yet we must accept the fact that God connected body and mind in the way we continually experience. It makesno sense to speculateaboutalternativeformsof mind-matterinteraction. A humansoul joined to a tree or to a stone will never form a humanbeing. Not only does our soul need a body throughwhich it can express itself, it also needs 8 Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,II, 7. 9 Bekker, De Betoverde Weereld,II, 8-9. Cf. the third of Descartes's Meditations:"The Existence of God," Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. CharlesAdam and Paul Tannery(Paris, 1982), (hereafterAT),VII, 34-52; ThePhilosophical Writingsof Descartes, tr. John Cottingham,Robert Stoothoff,Dugald Murdoch,andAnthonyKenny (Cambridge,1985-91) (hereafterCSM),II, 24-36. 10Bekker, De Betoverde Weereld,IV, 10, shows a deep admirationfor the work of the "diligent and inquisitive Antonius van Leewenhoek of Delft."
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a humanbody, even a complete andwell-trainedhumanbody.1 Forthis reason alone, it is very unlikely that a devil or an angel could simply tie itself to a naturalobject, or even to the body of a woman or man. When The WorldBewitchedwas published,Bekkerreceived a host of hostile reactions.12This was partlydue to the persistenceof superstitiousbeliefs. As AndrewFix has pointedout, the belief in active spiritswas still very much alive inAmsterdamat the time when BalthasarBekkercame to workthereas a vicar.13 Besides popularconviction, however, it was the Bible itself that seemed to enhance the belief in good and evil forces.Accordingly,Bekkerhad to questiona literalreadingof the Scripturesand, as a result,has been describedas an adherent of the theoryof"accommodation,"i.e., the view thatGod's Wordis written in a formwhich is adaptedto averageintellectualcapacities.14Bekkerrefusesto interpretthe Bible as a source of scientific knowledge. Moreover,since he explains Biblical references to devils and angels using scientific and historical argumentsandsince he gives priorityto "philosophical"interpretations,it is not withoutreasonthathis methodhas been characterizedas a "Cartesian"form of to the hermeneutics.'5It would be wrong,however,to reducehis "Cartesianism" way in which he interpretsScripture.It is his way of understandingthe relation between matterand mind which is the most typically Cartesianaspect of his work. Angels andOccasionalism In a follow-up to his firststudyof Bekker'sCartesianism,AndrewFix considerablychangedhis formerideas aboutBekker's influence on the Enlightenment.Fix arguesthatthereis no evidence for a decreasein superstitionunderthe influence of Descartes,since Cartesianswere found on either side of the spectrum-both amongthe defendersof the activityof ghosts andamongthose, like Bekker,who criticizedsuchideas.HenricusGroenewegen,forexample,defended the thesisthatghostscouldinfluencebodieswithoutthemselvesbeingembodied. Indeed,accordingto Groenewegen,this truthappliesto God Himself: God is a spirit;so if God acts on [werktop] a body, a Spiritacts on a body. Nobody can deny thatGod is a Spirit;nor can anyone deny that, as the Creatorand keeper [onderhouder]of all things, He acts on the " Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,II, 42-43. Knuttel,Balthasar Bekker,224 ff. 13Andrew Fix, "Angels,Devils, andEvil Spiritsin Seventeenth-CenturyThought:Balthasar the Bekker and Collegiants,"JHI, 50 (1989), 536-39. 14 van Bunge, "BalthasarBekker's CartesianHermeneuticsand the Challenge of Wiep British Journalfor the History of Philosophy, 1 (1993), 55-79. Spinozism," 15 Van Bunge, "BalthasarBekkers CartesianHermeneutics,"72ff. 12
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matter that He has created and which He sustains [onderhoud] day by day. Thus it follows that a Spirit acts on a Body.'6 We know from experience that God has also provided some of His creations with certain powers. We know, for instance, that there is a causal relationship between the human mind and the human body and between bodies among themselves. There seems to be no reason to doubt that individual spirits and angels might not just as well influence the course of events as we know it. According to Groenewegen, the Bible makes it sufficiently clear that angels and devils do in fact influence earthly events.17 Another reaction to The WorldBewitched also mentioned by Fix, is that of Johannes van Aalst and Paulus Steenwinkel, both, like Groenewegen, ministers of the church.18They, too, defended the possibility that angels at least influence the course of things. Moreover, they expressly mention Cartesian arguments in support of their view. According to Steenwinkel and Van Aalst, the nature of the soul does not include anything but "thought." This, however, implies that the activity of the soul is necessarily restricted to thought. In other words although the soul may think and although it may will, it cannot do anything else. The human will is so to speak "confined to the soul, without any action or power flowing from it.""9It is only through the will of God that the activity of the soul may result in certain effects taking place in the body. But if this occurs through God's will, why should not God allow angels to act on our souls as well, or on our bodies, or on other material things? Again, according to Van Aalst and Steenwinkel, Scripture bears witness to the fact that this is indeed the case.20 Van Aalst's and Steenwinkel's reaction is influenced to an important degree by the work of the Flemish philosopher Arnold Geulincx.2' Geulincx had been one of the very first Cartesians to formulate what has become known as the theory of "occasionalism": the view that all relations of cause and effect are directly dependent on God. He has an original argument for this view, linking all forms of activity to the conscious experience of an act. We ourselves are active when we think and will. When we move our bodies, however, the situation is more complicated. Though we may take full credit for our thoughts-in this 16 Henricus
Groenewegen, Pneumatica, ofte Leere van de Geesten (Amsterdam, 1692), in Balthasar Bekker, 240. See also Andrew Fix, "BalthasarBekker and the Knuttel, quoted Crisis of Cartesianism,"History of EuropeanIdeas, 17 (1993), 582. 17 Fix, "BalthasarBekker and the Crisis of Cartesianism,"581-83. 18Cf. Knuttel,Balthasar Bekker,244 ff. 19 JohannesAalstius and Paulus Steenwinkel, Zedige Aanmerkingen,quoted in Knuttel, Balthasar Bekker,245. 20 Fix, "BalthasarBekker and the Crisis of Cartesianism,"583-84. 21 Here and elsewhere, Van Aalst and Steenwinkel expose their approval of Geulincx's ideas and indirectlycontributedto theirdiffusionby introducingothersto his works. See Arnold Geulings, Geest en Wereldkunde(Dordrecht,1696), 3-4.
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case for the decision to move-there is no way in which we can accountfor the relationbetween our mental experience and the physical result that seems to follow. Geulincx thereforearguesthat there must be a causal source, different frommyself, which is responsiblefor all activitiesthatexceed the "I."Not only must an independentsourcebe looked for in orderto accountfor the involuntary phenomenawhich enterour consciousness, but also for othernaturalphenomena. We see the activity of things aroundus: a fire warms,the Sun shines, and a stone falls down. On secondthought,however,we may not ascribethe same sort of activityto these objectswhich we ascribeto our soul when we experienceits activity in judgment and thought. For the forms of activity outside our own minds, such as the interactionof body and soul or of physical bodies among themselves, anotherSpirit must be responsible.This Spirit can be none other thanGod, who holds the world of naturein His hands.22 In the discussion on the activity of spiritsVanAalst and Steenwinkeltake advantageof Geulincx's philosophicalposition. If God is the true cause of all interactionof body and soul, nothing prevents Him from securing the causal efficaciousnessof otherspiritsas well, in particularthe activityof angels. Thus, the discussions following the publicationof The WorldBewitched show that Cartesianscouldjust as easily defendthe activity of spirits.AndrewFix rightly concludes thatopposite views were held within the Cartesiancamp itself. As a consequence Fix also retractedhis earlier view concerning the influence of Cartesianismon the Enlightenment.However,the case is not thatsimple, since Descartes'snew way of dealingwith matterandminddid not relateto devils and angels alone. PhilosophicalDemigods BalthasarBekker's disenchantmentreachedfurtherthaneverydaypopular belief. ForBekker,divine poweris axiomatic.God's absolutepowerwas threatened by the supposedpower of angels and devils. Apartfrom such individual spirits,however,God's perfectsovereigntyalso ruledout abstractphilosophical principlesthatmight act as "statholdersandmediators"of divine omnipotence. Thus,Aristotle'sforms and Plato's ideas are put on a parwith the demigods of superstition:"No Intelligences ... no Ideas, no Demons, no Semi-deities:God alone is all in all."23In particularBekker criticizes the Aristotelian idea of "concomitantSpirits"(bygesteldeGeesten),24which were thoughtto be responsible for the motions of heavenly bodies. Aristotle'stheoryof the animationof 22 Arnold Geulincx, Metaphysica Vera,in: SdmtlicheSchrifteninfiinf Bdnden,ed. H.J. de Vleeschauwer (hereafter:Opera) (Stuttgart,1968), II, 147-50. 23Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,II, 16. 24Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,I, 132.
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heavenlybodies is nothingbutan academicsequelto the childishbelief in devils, ghosts, and witchcraft.25 Despitethe factthatothersquotedhis worksin oppositionto Bekker,Arnold Geulincxsharedthis view to an importantextent.Geulincxalso emphasizesthe uniqueness of divine power. Geulincx, too, criticizes the idea of introducing othercausal principlesthan God's omnipresentwill. In a speech at the startof the 1652 Saturnalia,a festive week of less formaldisputationsat Leuven University, the young professor Geulincx took a swipe at the tendency of natural philosophersto depict the naturalworld as being animated.26In poetry, says Geulincx, this may not be a problem. Physics, however, should be freed from animisticexplanations.Accordingto Geulincx, all philosophershad traditionally explainednaturewith the use of concepts drawnfromhumanmentalexperience. Stoics, Platonists, and Pythagoriansattributevirtue, sense, and even thoughtto the world. According to the Aristoteliantradition,naturehas fears and impediments,desires and dislikes, sympathiesand antipathies,forms and intelligences,powers andpotencies.27 BekkerandGeulincxboth welcomed Descartes'sphilosophyas an alternative. In particularit gave them a philosophical foundationfor their religious intentionto link naturein a more direct mannerto the activity of God. By its strictseparationof the physical andthe mentalrealms,Cartesianismdoes without any causalagenciesapartfromGod andman.In fact,accordingto Descartes, "all forms of inanimatebodies" are to be explainedthrough"themotion, size, shape,and arrangement"of theirmaterialparts.28In so faras bodily change can be accountedfor in termsof the mutualinfluenceof moving partsof matter,the whole of physicalnaturemay be comparedto a machine.This mechanisticview revealsa fundamentalchangein the notionof causality.Accordingto Descartes, all bodily changesmay be explainedas the directresultof previousbodily states accordingto a law-like process. In such a causal scheme mentalistic"forces" areredundant. As we saw, BalthasarBekker rejected the idea of "concomitantSpirits" which were intendedto accountfor the regularmotionof heavenlybodies. Cartesian naturalphilosophycould do withoutsuch independentcentersof causality, since it explains the motion of bodies on the basis of the motion of the surroundingmatter.In otherwordsno "spirits"areneeded to initiatemovementas demigodsof change.The same appliesto all othersourcesof causality.In schoBekker,De Betoverde Weereld,I, 131-32. Rainer Specht, Commercium,Mentis et Corporis (Stuttgart, 1966), 157-58, points to Robert Fludd and Nicolas Malebranche,who also held the idea that Aristotelianismis a source of idolatry. 26 The lecture and the text of the Qucestionesquodlibeticceto which it forms an introduction were later republishedas Saturnalia (Leiden, 1665). See Geulincx, Opera, I, 1-147. 27 Geulincx, Opera, I, 17-18. 28Descartes,Le Monde, AT XI, 26; CSM I, 89. 25
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lastic physics "substantialforms"were held to be responsiblefor the activity of naturalobjects as the initiatorsof movement.Descartesconsideredsuch "principles" superfluous.He preferrednot to commit himself and "for the sake of peace with the philosophers"did not explicitly deny the existence of"what they furthersupposeto exist in bodies, such as theirsubstantialforms."At the same time he was confidentthathis new philosophyhad no need for them.29 Descartesaddressesthe school philosophers,but his criticismof theirway of doing naturalphilosophyreachesbeyondPeripateticthought.Indeed,a range of philosophicalschools kept to the idea thatthe problemsandthe explanations of naturalphilosophy shouldbe put in termsof the interplayof active and passive forces. Aristotelianssaw the form as the active principlein a physical process and regardedmatteras being passive. Alternativesixteenth- and seventeenth-centuryphilosophiescame up with otherprinciplesbutnonethelessmaintainedthe dualisticscheme. Few contemporariesinterpretedmaterialelements simply as differentkindsof matter.Moreoften thannot elementswere classified accordingto theiractive or passive characteristics.Whetherthey were of a Platonic, Neo-Stoic, alchemical,or eclectic nature,the philosophical"principles" which were brought forwardas alternativesto Aristotelianmatterand form, followed the samepattern.Moreover,the alternativephilosophiesexplicitlypresentedactivityas being of a "spiritual"nature.On top of this, manyacceptedthe Platonic-Paracelcistidea that natureas a whole was governed by a Soul-a hidden spiritualforce which was often heapedtogetherwith the Stoic pneuma and the Holy Spiritof Christianity. WithDescartesnaturewas cleansed of such spiritualor would-be spiritual forms.The strictseparationof body andmindandthe mechanisticconceptionof physical processes thus went handin handandput an end to the ongoing philosophical quest for active principles.30Geulincx and Bekker,who were both inspiredby the religious motive of securingthe uniquenessof Divine efficaciousness, greetedCartesianismwith open arms.Yet the deanimationof the material world unmistakablykindled the fire of irreligion, since the Cartesianban on active principlesput all forms of spiritualinterventionat risk. God as Spirit Following the publicationof the first, Leeuwardenedition, The WorldBewitchedwas so fiercely attackedthatBekkerfelt the need to complainaboutits receptionin the preface to Book II, which was printedin Amsterdam:"people have thus describedit, and have publicly (althoughnot in this city) preached about it [in such a way as if] I taught that there is neither Hell nor Devil29 30
Descartes, Meteores, AT VI, 239. J. A. van Ruler, The Crisis of Causalit, (Leiden, 1995), 310-15.
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which God forbid.... 31Bekkerneverdeniedthe existence of the devil or of hell. Whathe denies is thatthe devil can influenceworldly events. This misinterpretationwas not, however,the only one. In W. P.C. Knuttel'sbiographyof Bekker we also find the example of the UtrechtministerHenricusBrinck,who was of the opinionthat,accordingto Bekker,God has no influenceon humans.32 This again is an opinionBekkernever held. Nevertheless,it is quite logical thathe was associatedwith it. If therecan be no activityof spiritsin the material world,the questionsoon ariseswhetherGod Himself,being of a spiritualnature, could actuallyinfluence the course of things. Bekkeranticipatedsuch possible objections. The view that God might be regardedas a spirit is exactly what Bekker denies at variouspoints in The WorldBewitched.Despite our habit of seeing God as a spirit-a habit which, by the way, we also come across in Scripture-God has no affinitieswhatsoeverwith the kindof spiritthatwe know, i.e., with the humanmind,or soul. Body andsoul, says Bekker,are"substances" (Selfstandigheden),butat the sametime they arecreatures(Schepselen).33Since thereis an "infinite"differencebetween createdanduncreatedsubstance,body and soul are both equally far removed from their Creator."I only call [God] a Spirit,"Bekkerwrites, "since I cannotfind a word in any language,with which I could characteriseHim in the rightway." God, however, does not shareanything with createdspiritsbutthis name. Bekkerin particularlevels his criticism at those classical and modem philosopherswho presentthe humansoul as "a This expression from Horace (divinaeparticula aurae, partof God's spirit."34 "a parcel of God's breath")is founded on the Stoic conviction that individual We find the idea in humanspiritsarepartandparcelof the Spiritof the World.35 modem times as well. Withregardto the originof the humansoul JustusLipsius It is of crucialimporwrites that"we are, as it were, [God's] limbs andparts."36 tance to Bekkerto say thatGod cannot be comparedto a createdspirit.Bekker denies thatany spiritsapartfromhumanspiritsinfluencethe courseof events in nature.37If God be regardeda spirit He would-as Bekker's opponentswere quick to point out-not be able to influence eitherman or nature. Geulincx's position is potentially even more dangerous.WhereasBekker rejectedthe Stoic view concerningthe identityof humanand divine souls, this idea is taken up anew in a quasi-Cartesianform by Geulincx. Comparingthe 31Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,II, "Voorrede." H. Brinck, Toet-steen der waarheid (Utrecht, 1691), "Voorrede,"quoted in Knuttel, Balthasar Bekker,235. 33 Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,II, 6. Cf. Descartes,ATVIII-I, 24; CSMI, 210. 34Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,II, 9. 35 Cf. Horace,SatiresII, 2, 79, andRene Descarteset MartinSchoock,La Querelled 'Utrecht, tr. Theo Verbeek(Paris, 1988), 470, n. 63. 36 See JacquelineLagree, Juste Lipse. La Restaurationdu stoicisme (Paris, 1994), 74. 37 As for the existence of an animal soul, Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,II, 23, keeps his options open. 32
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relationshipbetween God and individualminds with the relationshipbetween individualmaterialthingsandnatureas a whole, the Flemishphilosopherin fact welds God and human souls together to form a single substantialunity. Our mind is a modus of the divine spiritin the same way as bodily objects are modi of materialsubstance.38 But when minds are so to speakcosubstantialwith God and at the same time incapableof moving matter,the questionarises how God Himself could influencethe courseof things. Contemporariesnever confrontedoccasionalistphilosopherswith this objection. It was only in 1739 that David Hume spoke out against "the Cartesians,"arguingthattheirpositioncould lead to the blasphemousconclusionthat no force is to be met with in God. If, says Hume, "no impression,either from sensationor reflection,implies any force or efficacy, 'tis equally impossible to discover or even imagine any such principlein the deity."39If all spiritualinfluence on natureis denied, God's activity in naturewill have to be reconsidered. BekkersimplydeniesthatGod is a spiritin the usualsense of the word.Geulincx is, as we have seen, less observant;but he is awareof the necessaryrestrictions in comparingGod with humansouls. Geulincx arguesthat, in a certainsense, the influenceof God's will on natureremainsmysterious(ineffabilis),since we cannotdeduceany formof influenceon matterfromthe notionof spiritualactivity alone. The will can desirea formof bodily movement,but desiringmotionis not a formof motionitself. Thus,when we say that"Godmoves [matter]through His will,"we do notreallyunderstandwhatwe aresaying.Nevertheless,Geulincx is willing to keep to the idea thatGod governsnaturethroughthe activityof His will. The will of a spiritof"infinitepower"is simply incomparableto ourown.40 Both Bekker and Geulincx take the necessary steps to exclude God from their Cartesianiconoclasm. God is not a spirit in the usual sense of the word. Whatthey do not seem to have takeninto account,however,is that,traditionally, the idea of causalitywas itself put into spiritualterms.Bekker'sdisenchantment is specifically directedagainstdevils, ghosts, andwitches. Yetbeing developed along the lines of the Cartesianmechanizationof natureand the mind-matter dualismthataccompaniesit, this disenchantmentpoints to a more fundamental formof disenchantmentby which natureis strippedof its centersof spontaneous activity.Inpre-Cartesianphysics all naturalactivityis explainedby active forces influencing what is passive. If this anthropomorphicmetaphoris abandoned, there is, contraryto what Bekker and Geulincx expected, not more but ultiGeulincx, Opera, II, 237-39 and 273. The argumentis based on the idea thatthe infinite has metaphysicalandepistemologicalpriorityover finite things,which, as parts,are like residues of the whole; see EugeneTerraillon,La Moralede Geulincxdans ses rapportsavec la philosophie de Descartes (Paris, 1912), 37-39. 39 David Hume, A Treatiseof Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch (Oxford, 1978), 160. 40 Geulincx, Opera, II, 502, thesis VIII. 38
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mately less reasonto talk of God in physics. Accordingly,the CartesianGod is surprisinglydisinclinedto interferewith nature'scourse. God andNatureCoalesce DespiteBekker'stheologicalmotivations,the philosophicalnotionof God's of those Biblical texts power andperfectionnecessarilyled to a reinterpretation in which angels anddevils arereportedto actively partakein historicalevents41 In otherwords even the strangestphenomenamightbe explainedin naturalistic terms.Bekker,for instance,explainstelepathicexperiencesby the idea of diffusions of"sympathetic"particlesfromthe humanbody.Althoughin this case he shows himself to be a very uncriticalnaturalphilosopheranda badmechanicist at that,it is clear thathe favors naturalisticexplanations,indicatinghow "what is often associatedwith Witchcraftor the workof Devils" may also be explained "naturally."42
BalthasarBekkerobjectsto Geulincx'sview thatGod is directlyresponsible for all naturalactivity, since he disapprovesof involving God in every natural operation.When,says Bekker,we ask ourselveswhetherhorsescan fly, it would be preposterousto arguethat in view of God's Almighty Power,horses are indeed able to fly: "thequestionwas not what God is able to do, but what a horse is able to do."Accordingly,following the Scholastics, we should only talk of God's "influence"and "concurrence"with respect to the usual, law-governed course of nature.It is of no interestto science to know what kind of divine assistancewould be needed in orderfor trees to grow on the sea or ships to sail in the mountains.Bekkerseems to have no philosophicalproblemswith reintroHe simplylinkshis commonsensical ducingScholasticnotionslike"concurrence." God preservesthings according Genesis: view of natureto the Biblical word of to the specific way in which He createdthem-in otherwords, He createsand keeps all beings "aftertheirkind."43 Geulincx'spositionseems to be the very oppositeto Bekker'sin this respect. Accordingto Geulincx, each and every naturalactivity is a directconsequence of God'swill. Yethereagaintherearemoresimilaritiesthandifferencesbetween BekkerandGeulincx,as bothauthorsreveala diminishedconcernforthe exceptional. Bekker'sunwillingness to mention God in every instanceforms partof his strategyto emphasizethe commoncourseof nature.The "dailyrule of divine 41 Thus, Bekker interpretsthe devil's temptationof Christ in the desert not as a personal confrontationwith the Evil One,but as an innerconflict of Christ.Bekker,De BetoverdeWeereld, II, 133. 42 Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,IV, 10, 13. 43Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,II, 40. Apartfrom Genesis 1:1, 12, 21 and 24-25, Bekker quotes Revelation 4:11, Psalms 65:10-14 and 104:14-15, Hosea 2:20-21, Hebrews 6:7 and James 5:7.
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omniscience"and"thecontinualefficacy of divine omnipotence"shouldbe understoodin terms of nature'snormalcourse. Showing a preferencefor natural explanationsover explanationsthatintroducethe activityof individualspiritsor of God, Bekkerstressesthe importanceof interpretingnatureas governedby a fundamentalregularity.Geulincx links all naturalaction directlyto the activity of God. This, however, does not mean that he is concernedwith exceptional occurrencesor extraordinaryphenomena.On the contraryGod's omnipresence leaves no room for the exceptional. WithGeulincx,the fact thatwe know God from His works leads to a fascinationwith the commoncourseof natureandnot with the anomalous.Insteadof miracles, it is the miraculouscharacterof everydayphenomenawhich invariably amazes him. Thus, Geulincx uses the term "miracle" (miraculum, wonderwerk)only in relationto his idea of seeing the world as a "spectacle" (spectaculum,schouwspel) of wonderfulphenomenaand not in its traditional religious sense. The laws of naturedependonly on God's free will: So thatit is reallyof equalsignificanceandin itself as muchof a miracle that,upon the commandof my will, my tongue tremblesin my mouth when I say "Earth"as thatthe Earthitself would trembleuponthe same command;the only difference is, that it has pleased God that the one thing happensat a certainmomentof time, but not the other.44 The identificationof God's will with naturallaw is a recurrenttheme in postCartesianphilosophy.Likewise with BekkerandGeulincx. In Geulincxa statement concerningthe will of God maybe quite literallya statementof physics. Bekkerholds on to the idea of a personalDivinity,operatingindependentlyfrom nature.Even so, his emphasis on naturalexplanationsand "disanimation"of naturealong Cartesianlines leave little roomfor a kindof divine governmentin termsof an activelyinterveningspiritualforce.Thetheologicalworld-viewbased on the dualisticterminologyof active principlesacting on passive matteris replaced by a deterministicview of naturewhich does not admit of spiritualor would-be spiritualinterferencein naturalprocesses.The only remainingway to interpretnaturein religioustermsis by reformulatingphysicalinsightsin a theological phraseology,just as Spinozaconsistentlydid. Withrespectto Bekker'sbiblicalhermeneutics,Wiepvan Bunge concluded that"[the]best way [for Bekker]to have defendedhimself againstthe accusation of being a Spinozistwould probablyhave been to become one."45We may now see in what way Bekker-and Geulincx, for that matter-approach Spinozismalso in a philosophicalsense. Both authorshadmuchaffinitywith the 44 Geulincx, Opera, III, 36 and 280. See also Amout Geulincx, Vande hoofddeugden,De eerste tuchtverhandeling,ed. Corelis Verhoeven(Baam, 1986), 97, andVictorVanderHaeghen, Geulincx:Etudesur sa vie, sa philosophie et ses ouvrages, Diss. Liege 1886 (Gent, 1886), 77. 45Van Bunge, "BalthasarBekkers CartesianHermeneutics,"79.
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new naturalphilosophy which did withoutspiritsor othercentersof causation. Yet in the alliance of Protestantismand Cartesianismwhich they formed, all seeds of a naturalisticworld-view are present. In particulartheir Christian Cartesianismembodies the germs of Spinozism.Along with devils and angels God Himself gets into a tight comer. Furthermore,God and naturecontinueto drawcloser.As the image of spiritualactivity is ruledout as a causal metaphor for naturalchange,the subjectiveview of naturein termsof humanexperienceis replaced by an objectivist view in which the scientific and the metaphysicotheological descriptionsof the world are increasinglyseen as two sides of the same coin. As Andrew Fix has arguedbefore, Bekker's Cartesianismfunctionedprimarilyas an ad hoc argumentagainstspirits.46Cartesianism,however,brought with it morethanBekkerhadhopedfor:a new conceptionof causality,replacing the old metaphorof active spirits acting on passive matter.Bekker wrote The WorldBewitched at a time when Spinoza was alreadyknown as a notorious atheist.He thereforeexplicitly rejects the "foolish aberrationof Spinoza, who interminglesGodandWorld."47 Spinoza,says Bekker,is someonewho "boarded" Descartes'sfoundations"toobroadly."Thereby,however,Bekkerhimself confirmedthatCartesianismwas a slipperyslope. DescartesandModem Thought Both Aristotelian critics and occasionalist and Leibnizian followers of Descarteswere, in theirreactionto the mechanicalphilosophy,intriguedby the same question: "If forms do not activate matter,then what does?" The idea was-and often still is-that somethingmust be responsiblefor action; somethingmustdo the causalwork.Froma Cartesianstandpointthis is ultimatelythe wrong question.Indeedthe very idea behindCartesianphysics is thatthe metaphorof mind actingon matteris no longervalid as a scientific explanation.The naturalworld is matterwithout form. Althoughmetaphysicaltheories of analogy might cover up things in the case of God, the role of independentforces in naturehad come to an end.Arguingthat it must be God who is responsiblefor changein a worldwithoutforms,occasionalismin fact held on to the old causal metaphorthatDescarteshad done away with. This may also serve as an answer to the questionwhetherDescarteshimself was an occasionalist.Indeedhe was not. The reason is not that he had other ways of dealing with the problemsof mind-bodydualismor thathe neverreally elaboratedthe idea of God's continuous creation.48The reason is that, startingwith Le Monde, he had made it his Andrew C. Fix, "Hoe cartesiaanswas BalthasarBekker?"It Beaken, 58 (1996), 118-37. 47Bekker,De Betoverde Weereld,I, "Voorrede." 48 See Daniel Garber,"How God Causes Motion: Descartes, Divine Sustenance,and Occasionalism,"in The Journal of Philosophy, 84 (1987), 567-80, and Descartes' Metaphysical Physics (Chicago, 1992), 263-305; also Van Ruler, The Crisis of Causality, 274-76.
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task to substitutethe form-matter,active-passive,type of causal argumentation with a new, mechanical,one. It was exactly the old anthropomorphic conceptof causalitythatoccasionalismreintroduced. Looking back, we may considerthe consequencesof the Cartesianban on active principlesover a longerperiod. Even today anthropomorphicideas play an importantrole in ourconceptionof nature.In commonschoolbookrepresentationswe explainthe phenomenonof gravityfor instancein dualisticterms:an active force pulling away at passive lumpsof matter.Some of us may be aware of the fact that this is only a mannerof speaking, that in fact this account of gravityis based on the law-like regularityof observedphenomena,expressedin a mathematicalway. It is to seventeenth-centurythought,and to IsaacNewton in particular,thatwe owe this kindof mathematicalrepresentation. Yetthe mathematicallaw itself leaves open the questionof its interpretation.The possibility of interpretingthe law of gravity in mere positivistic terms, i.e., as a precise formulationof observedregularitieswithoutconsideringthe questionof causalidea.The seventeenthcenturydid,however, ity, is a typicallynineteenth-century witness its own revolution with regard to causal interpretationsof nature. Descartes'sstrictdistinctionbetweenmentalandbodilyeventsis nowadaysmostly interpretedwith respectto the questionof mind-bodyinteractionism.Descartes himself, however, was not so much occupied with this question as with the removal of mentalistictermsfromphysics. As he wrote to PrincessElisabeth: when we supposethatheaviness is a real quality,of which all we know is that it has the power to move the body that possesses it towardsthe centreof the earth,we haveno difficultyin conceivinghow it moves this body or how it is joined to it.49 The real qualityof gravityis like an active force carryinga body to the centerof the Earth.Yet we must, says Descartes, be skeptical of such real qualities, of such "powers"in nature.Thatwe representnaturein this way is the resultof an anthropomorphicprojection.We ourselves have the experienceof a power that moves the body. Interpretingnatureas being riddenwith active forces, we call upon our"primitivenotion"of the unity of body and soul. We should,however, wherephysics is concerned,makeuse of the primitivenotion of materialextension. As Descartes explained to Princess Elisabeth:"I think we have hitherto confused the notion of the soul's power to act on the body with the power one body has to act on another."50 Although many of his contemporarieswere prone to ridicule, along with Moliere, the unproductiveScholasticconcepts of real qualities andsubstantial forms, only a few were able to drawthe consequences from Descartes's argu49
Descartes to Princess Elisabeth,21 May 1643, AT III, 667; CSMIII, 219.
50 Idem.
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ments against them. Balthasar Bekker saw the possibility of applying Descartes's arguments to superstitious beliefs. Arnold Geulincx was one of the few who saw what Descartes's philosophy meant for the traditional, anthropomorphic way of doing physics and was exceptional in his way of explicitly discussing the metaphor of animation which lay concealed in the traditional philosophical accounts of nature.51But Descartes's separation of body and soul should not merely be seen in relation to the question of superstition or to the critique of ancient and medieval philosophies. In fact Descartes introduced a new model of natural causality, the most striking feature of which is that nature contains no "little souls," no spontaneous centers of activity.52The modem concept of determinism is a direct consequence of this idea. The substitution of active spirits by natural causes is reflected in the substitution in natural philosophy of spontaneous centers of causation by outward, "material" circumstances. Nature, in other words, is stripped of its anthropomorphic properties, its active faculties-which is exactly what Descartes meant when he said that he could do without the "forms." A choice in favor of Descartes implied a redefinition of God's relation to nature. Considering the consequences of Descartes's disenchantment in the long run, we may conclude that the mechanical reduction of reality had a lasting effect on our way of seeing the physical world, even though specific mechanistic explanations in physics were soon to be forgotten. Rather than by exorcising superstition or promoting a more allegorical reading of the Bible, it was by rejecting the image of body and soul and by replacing it with that of the machine that Descartes influenced our concept of nature. Spiritual activity was no longer accepted as a model for natural change. As a result, even Cartesians of strong faith were prone to accept ideas that were typical of the Age of Reason. Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
He may have been influencedby Willem van Gutschoven.In a 1651 universitydisputation, Van Gutschoven criticized the Scholastic notions of "sympathy,antipathy,antiperistatis, magnetic forces, influence of heavenly bodies, occult qualities"and other"powerfulfaculties," arguing that "for us, matter and motion suffice." Student lecture notes show that this would remainthe acceptedview at Leuven universityuntil as late as 1766. Cf. G. Vanpaemel,Echo s van een wetenschappelijkerevolutie. De mechanistische natuurwetenschapaan de Leuvense Artesfaculteit(1650-1797) (Brussel, 1986), 82-84. 52 Descartesto Mersenne,26 April 1643, AT III, 648; CSMIII, 216: "I do not suppose that there are in natureany real qualities, which are attachedto substances,like so many little souls to theirbodies." On Descartes's idea that Scholastic theory attributesa form of substantialityto the "qualities"themselves, see: Descartes to Princess Elisabeth, 21 May 1643, AT III, 667; CSMIII, 219: "Weimaginedthese qualitiesto be real, that is to say to have an existence distinct from that of bodies, and so to be substances, although we called them qualities."Descartes seems to regardthe notions of "realquality"and "substantialform"as being interchangeable. See also Les Meteores, AT VI, 239. 51
Betwixt
and
the
Two
Ages
Cast:
Johnson, Milton, Renaissance English Jack Lynch
Tojudgeby themostvisibleinstitutionalmechanismsof literaryperiodization -the anthology,the history of literature,and the survey course-John Milton has come unstuckin time. TheNortonAnthologyofEnglish Literatureprintsits excerptsfromParadise Lost underthe rubric"TheEarly SeventeenthCentury (1603-1660)" along with Jonson and Bacon, not under "The Restorationand EighteenthCentury(1660-1785)"alongsideDrydenandBunyan.'Miltongets a chapterto himself in volume five of the OxfordHistory of English Literature, English Literaturein the Early SeventeenthCentury1600-1660, not in volume six, English Literatureof the Late SeventeenthCentury.2And StanfordUniversity's two-partsurvey of English masterpiecesputs Milton in English 10 ratherthanEnglish ("Chaucer,Shakespeare,MiltonandtheirContemporaries") 11 ("Fromthe Enlightenmentto the Modem Period").But his most important work appearedin 1667, the same year as Dryden'sAnnusMirabilis and Sprat's Historyof theRoyal Society,worksnow invariablyconsignedto the latterof the two periods.Miltonis almostuniverallyaccordedthe title of the last greatwriter of the English Renaissance,while his contemporariesstandat the beginningof whatwe clumsily call the "longeighteenthcentury."3 The situationis not new; it beganneitherwith the NortonAnthologynorthe OxfordHistory.As long ago as 1853 HippolyteTaineplaced Milton in book II ' TheNorton Anthologyof English Literature,ed. M. H. Abramset al. (2 vols.; New York, 19936). 2
Douglas Bush, English Literaturein the Earlier SeventeenthCentury1600-1660 (New York, 1945); James Sutherland,English Literatureof the Late SeventeenthCentury(New York, 1969). 3 See, however,RobertDeMaria,BritishLiterature1640-1789: An Anthology(Cambridge, Mass., 1996), which extends the "long eighteenth century"to before the Civil Wars and includes the complete ten-book Paradise Lost.
397 of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. 2000byJournal Copyright
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of his Historyof EnglishLiterature,"TheRenaissance,"ratherthanin book III, "TheClassic Age."4But Tainewas not the originatorof this habit;he was only an inheritorof olderparadigms.In fact a searchfor the causes of this treatment of the seventeenthcenturywould take us back to the seventeenthcenturyitself, only a few years afterthe publicationof Paradise Lost, and into the eighteenth, when Milton's epic took its centralplace in the Englishcanon. To remarkupon this peculiarviolationof strictchronologyin English literaryhistoryis not necessarilyto quarrelwith it; it may well be thatspecialists in the English Renaissancehave more interestingthings to say about it than do those in the eighteenthcentury.But Milton's treatmentat the handsof literary historiansdeserves attention,for it takes us straightto the heartof questionsof literaryperiodization.Because eras make sense only in relationto one another, periodizationis neverentirelydisinterested.Periodsareimposedin retrospectin an attemptto extractthe most useful or satisfyingnarrativeout of the events of the past, andit is thereforeinevitablethatthey shouldserve the culturalneeds of the present. Some of the most enduringacts of periodizationcome out of culturalmovementswhich divide themselves fromtheirimmediatepredecessors,dividing us from them,now from then. ThomasVoglerobserves that"theperennialgoal of historicalthoughtcan be seen to be a mode of self-definition in the form of a narrativein which a 'modernity'defines itself over againsta past perceivedas essentially different."'As Peter Burgerpoints out, periodizationinevitably,if sometimesindirectly,resultsin "theconstructionof the present."6This invocation or creationof an ever-newsense of now (along with its resultingcreationof a series of thens) amountsto a declarationof modernity. Perhapsthe most importantsuch declarationof modernitycame when the Florentinehumanistsof the fourteenthand fifteenthcenturiestradedthe classical and Christianmodels of six ages or four monarchiesfor a new three-term model,one withthreegreatages:ancient,middle,andmoder.7 FrancescoPetrarca is a centralfigurein this transformation:for him, definingmodernitymeantfirst discoveringor inventinga post-classicalDarkAge againstwhich to measurethe brightnessof moder enlightenment. Petrarchnevergave a definitiveaccountof a moder world,thoughby allying himself with antiquityinsteadof the "moder" world-his termfor whatwe H. A. Taine, History of English Literature,tr. Henry Van Laun (New York,n.d.). (1986), 131-60, 135. 6 Peter Burger,"On LiteraryHistory,"Poetics, 14 (1985), 199-207, 202. CompareWalter term Jetztzeit,which makes clear the importanceof the now in periodization. Benjamin's 7 See Giorgio Falco, La Polemica sul medio evo, nuova edizione, ed. Fulvio Tessitore (Naples, 1974), 29-41, and WallaceK. Ferguson, TheRenaissance in Historical Thought.Five Centuriesof Interpretation(Cambridge,Mass., 1948), 1-77. 4
5 ThomasVogler,"Romanticismand LiteraryPeriods,"New GermanCritique,38
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call the Middle Ages-he hinted at the dawning of a new age, one that would restorethe learningof the ancients. This legacy was inheritedby succeeding centuries,as the humanistswho followed him-Valla, Ficino, Erasmus-used this conceptionof historyto distinguishtheirown newly enlightenedage from what came before, to carve themselves a place in history by portrayingtheir immediatepredecessors as barbarians.Their now-familiar story of barbarity overcome by enlightenmentwas used to bring about a revolutionin learning, poetry,statecraft,andeventuallyreligion, as humanistsdefinedthemselves and their age as not medieval. The Renaissancerecognized-or at least propagandized-itself as somethingnew;therewas a sensethatEuropehadpassedthrough a dark age and was at last emerging on the other side, an emergence Vasari christeneda rinascita, a rebirth.The new three-termparadigmhad its origin some time late in the fourteenthcentury-it has been tracedback to Filippo Villani in 1382-and remainedessentiallyintactin Europeanthoughtfor about threehundredyears;indeed,it is still our dominantconceptionof history. By the late seventeenthcentury,the humanists'tripartitehistoricalmodel was firmlyin place andwas summarizedmost effectively for a learnedaudience by Cellarius,who uses the fall of Constantinopleto markthe end of medieval andthe beginningof moder history.8Butparadoxically,at the very time thatthe humanistperiodizationwas receiving its definitive form,this vision of a homogeneous moder periodcame to seem inadequate,at least in England.Thatis to say, Dryden's and Pope's contemporariesno longer thoughtof themselves as belonging to the same modernityas Erasmusand Shakespeare.The three-term system of ancient, medieval, and moder needed a new term:modernityhad grownunwieldy andhad to be split in two. And in thatsplit, the age we call the Renaissancewas born.The humanistsinventedtheirown modernity,but it took the next age to turnit into a coherentperiodwith a beginning and an end. Britishwritersof the lateseventeenthandearlyeighteenthcenturies,in other words,madethe samesortof declarationof modernitythathumanistslike Petrarch and Erasmushad made centuriesearlier.The literarypast was for the firsttime criticsrecogbeing viewed throughthe lens ofhistoricism,as eighteenth-century nized theirdistancefromtheirpredecessors.Andjust as the humanisthistoriographerscreatedthe conceptionof the MiddleAges as a by-productof theirselfconstruction,the thinkersof the eighteenthcenturydeveloped an idea of the English Renaissancein drawinga line between themselves andtheirpredecessors.Indistinctat first,by the end of the eighteenthcenturythe line was firmlyin place, and it had then become common to refer to the era of Spenser and Shakespeareas "thelast age."
8 See Historia nova, hoc estXVIetXVIIsaeculorum (Jena, 1727), andHistoria Universalis breviterac prespicue exposita, in antiquam,et medii aevi ac nouam divisa (Jena, 17277).
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There are many references, even contemporarywith Dryden, to the "last age," but such evidence requirescaution. Sometimes "the last age" is charged withmillenarianmeanings-the finalage-as whenSandersonspeaksof"Decads, Centuries,Chiliads of novel Tenents,broughtin in this last Age."9"Age" is sometimessimplya synonymfor "century":Johnson'sfourthsense of age in the Dictionaryis "Thespace of a hundredyears;a secularperiod;a century.""The last age,"then, can refer simply to the seventeenthcentury,comprisingJonson and Donne along with Dryden and Newton undera single rubric.But another sense of "age" is less strictly confined to arbitrarycentury boundaries, for Johnson'sfirst definitionis "Any period of time attributedto somethingas the whole, or part,of its duration:in this sense, we say, the age of man, the several ages of the world, the golden or iron age." Thus when Evelyn refersto Hamlet by noting in his diaryin 1661, "Now the old plays begin to disgust this refined age,"he suggeststhathis epoch is not Shakespeare's,thoughthey wroteonly six decades apart.10This is also Dryden's sense when he refers in 1672 to "the dramaticpoetry of the last age,"" and Etheredge'swhen four years later he invokes "theFormsand Civilities of the last Age"'2:the past was being divided into periodsto renderit more comprehensible. If it is truethatJohnson'scontemporariesconsideredthemselvespartof an age distinctfromwhatwe call the Renaissance(andwhatthey often called "the revival of learning"or "the age of Elizabeth"),theremust be some momentor eventto markthe divisionbetweenthe two ages, locatedsome time in the seventeenthcentury.Before searchingfor the dividing line, however,we shouldnote that periodizationcan vary from nation to nation and genre to genre. The English drama,for instance,had a convenientandunmistakableline of division in which the extrinsic factors of political history and the factors intrinsicto the worksthemselvescorrespondedneatly:the closingof the theatersin 1642marked the end of one age, andtheiropening in 1660 markedthe beginningof another. Thus Dryden invokes "the last Age" in the Epilogue to Allfor Love, Rymer refers to "the tragedies of the last age" in the title of his book of 1678, and Buckingham'sGeneralKey to the Writingsof the BritishPoets of the LastAge lumpstogether"Johnson,Shakespear,andBeaumont,"referringto all Elizabethan,Jacobean,and early Carolinedrama.3
Sermons(London,1689),490. 9 RobertSanderson, Elizabethan '0JohnEvelyn,26 November1661,citedin EarlR. Wasserman, Poetryin the 12. 1947), (Urbana, Century Eighteenth " "Defenceof the Epilogue,"Essaysof John Dryden,ed. W.P. Ker (2 vols.; Oxford, 1900),I, 162. 12
TheMan of Mode, I.i.
A GeneralKey to the Writingsof the GeorgeVilliers,SecondDukeof Buckingham, Poetsof theLastAge (London,1723),iv. 13
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In nondramaticpoetryandprose,however,no suchmomentpresenteditself, and the problemwas more vexed. Many eighteenth-centuryreaderstherefore looked to the most obvious epochal watershed,not in literaturebut in politics. The Civil Warshave long markedone terminusad quemof the Renaissance:as JonathanRichardsonputs it, "theYear 1660, as all the Worldknows, Open'd a New Scene in England."'4This is not the place to discuss eighteenth-century ideas aboutthe Civil WarsandRestoration,alreadythe topic of many volumes. It is enough to note that this new scene markedthe end of one epoch-both political and cultural-and the beginning of another.The age of Elizabethhad passed, and a new modernityhad begun. Epochalrupturesof this sort are often the source of greatculturalanxiety. But Dryden-among the first to express this sense of a new age-saw not a threatbut an opportunity:"'Tis well an Old Age is out, /And time to begin a New." Like the earlyhumanists,he hopedto claim the liminalpositionbetween ages for his own: "Lethim retire,betwixt two Ages cast, / The first of this, and hindmostof the last."15But while his claim to be "The first of this" age is as good as thatof any of his contemporaries,subsequenthistoriesusually give not DrydenbutMiltonthe positionof "hindmostof the last."Milton,the preeminent poet of the middle seventeenthcentury,stood on the fault line between the two ages. Perhapsthe best way to place Miltonin literaryhistoryis to begin by asking where he places himself-a difficultmatter,because periodizationis often visible only in retrospect.Whatevidencethereis suggests Miltonacceptedwithout significantqualificationthe humanisttripartitehistory,with ancient,medieval, andmoder ages, andconsideredhimselfpartof the samemodernityas Erasmus and Shakespeare.And as the tripartitemodel of historygave way to a new fourtermmodel, Milton's successorsmore often thannot puthim on the earlierside of the divide, even thoughhis most importantwork appearedafterthe Restoration. WilliamLauder'scatalogueof "Datesof theAuthorsQuotedin the Essay, in Comparisonwith the Date of ParadiseLost"in Miltons Use and Imitationof the Moderns is revealing: it contextualizesParadise Lost among works from JohannesQuintianus(1514) throughMilton's immediatepredecessors,placing him at the end of a pageantof Renaissancepoets.16ElizabethCooperputsMilton at the end of her own (very different) list of poets beginning with Surrey, JonathanRichardson,ExplanatoryNotes and Remarkson Miltons Paradise Lost (London, 1734), lxxxvi. 15 "The Secular Masque,"lines 90-91; Prologue to Aureng-Zebe,lines 21-22. Quotations are from The Worksof John Dryden, ed. EdwardNiles Hooker and H. T. Swedenborg,Jr.(21 vols.; Berkeley, 1956). 16 William Lauder,Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns (London, 1750), sig. b2r14
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Buckhurst,and Spenser-a list which stops shy of Dryden,andthereforemakes Milton both the apex and terminusof the tradition."The divine Milton,"she writes, "reconcil'dthe Gracesof them all, and added a Strength,Solidity, and Majestyof his own."7 ThomasGray'sabandonedplan for a history of English poetry is especially revealinghere, for it places Spenserin the "SecondItalian School(ofAriosto,Tasso,&c:)"andlists its otherEnglishpractitioners: "Drayton, Fairfax, Phin: Fletcher, Golding, Phaer, &c.: this school ends in Milton."A "thirdItalian School"is roughlycontemporarybut runsa parallelcourse, comprising"Donne,Crashaw,Cleveland;carriedto its heightby Cowley, & ending perhapsin Sprat."A sharperepochalline is drawnbetweenthese Italianschools and the "School of France, introducedafter the Restoration";Gray's fourth (and final) partthereforecontains "Waller,Dryden,Addison, Prior,& Pope," who representmodernity.8 Furtherevidence for Milton's early placement in the last age is his rapid transformationinto a vernacularclassic, a nationalmonumentsecond only to Shakespeare.Milton's classicization in some respects preceded even Shakespeare's: the transformationbegan only a few years after Paradise Lost appeared.Textualcriticismandhistoriographyareclosely boundtogether,andthe classical editorialtreatmentgiven to Paradise Lost early in its historybespeaks a statusanalogousto the works of antiquity.PatrickHume's 1695 collection of annotationson Tonson'sedition of Paradise Lost marksone of the first serious attemptsto treata vernacularwork publishedafter 1500 like the texts of antiquity.19The poem received the sort of meticulous scholarlytreatment,both textual and interpretive,that had previously been reservedfor the Greekand Roman classics. Tonsonsought to presenta clean text purgedof corruptions,and Humemade it clearthatMilton'sepic could be properlyappreciatedonly when placed in an academiccontext andreadhistorically,even thoughonly threede17ElizabethCooper, TheMuses Library;or, A Series of English Poetry ... Being a
General Collection of All the Old ValuablePoetry Extant (London, 1738), xii. 18The Correspondenceof ThomasGray, ed. PagetToynbeeand LeonardWhibley (3 vols.; Oxford, 1935), III, 1124; to Thomas Warton,15 April 1770. 19Tonsonattachedthe 321-page Annotationson Miltons "ParadiseLost, " signed "P.H.," to the folio Poetical Worksof Mr.John Milton (London, 1695). For Hume, see David Masson, TheLife ofJohn Milton (7 vols.; London, 1859-94), VI, 786; KathleenM. Lynch,Jacob Tonson: Kit-CatPublisher (Knoxville, 1971), 128; HowardErskine-Hill,"On HistoricalCommentary: The Exampleof Milton and Dryden,"PresentingPoetry, ed. HowardErskine-Hilland Richard A. McCabe (Cambridge, 1995), 52-74; and Marcus Walsh, Shakespeare,Milton, and Eighteenth-CenturyLiterary Editing: The Beginnings of InterpretativeScholarship (Cambridge, 1997), 57-62. There are only a few earlierexamples of commentaryon English works, such as E. K.'s notes to The Shepherds Calender, Speight's Chaucer,and Selden's 1613 commentary on the Poly-Olbion.Therewas a traditionof scholarlycommentaryon RenaissanceLatinscholarship:the editorof the 1738 edition of Grotius'sRightsof Warand Peace, I, xxviii, boasts that an edition came out "cumNotis Variorum,by which means our Author,within 50 Years after his Death, obtained an Honour, which was not bestow'd upon the Ancients, till after many Ages."
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cades had passed since its first publication. (The classical treatment of a modem text is more explicit still in Bentley's Paradise Lost, which shows that some eighteenth-century readers went too far in their association of English and Roman classics.) Other scholarly tools make the same point: in 1741, Alexander Cruden published A Verbal Index to Milton s Paradise Lost, something never before accorded to a modem English author, followed by Newton's "Verbal Index" in his 1749 Paradise Lost. Milton's near-contemporaries-Dryden, Waller, Pope-although of comparable importance, did not receive similar treatment until much later: they were great poets, to be sure, but great modern poets, not yet classics. Andrew Beckett's Concordance to Shakespeare appeared in 1787, whereas the first concordance of Pope's works, for instance, appeared in 1875. A nine-volume self-consciously "classicizing" edition of Pope was rushed into print by Warburton in 1751, but more serious editorial treatment had to await Gilbert Wakefield's incomplete 1794 edition and Joseph Warton's nine-volume edition of 1797. Warton's variorum Dryden was left incomplete at his death, to be revised and published by his son in 1811. There was no concordance to Dryden's verse until 1957. Another sign of Milton's classic status is the number of adaptations of his works to a later idiom. Dryden's State of Innocence is the clearest indication of how far apart their two worlds were in spirit if not in time. The play was written by 1674 (though unpublished until 1677), the same year as the twelve-book edition of Paradise Lost.20 But the thoroughly un-Miltonic tone of lines like Dryden's "What ho, Asmoday!" speaks volumes about the difference in the tenor of the two ages. Other adaptations of Milton's works, more or less radical, followed. John Dalton's Comus was published in 1735, "Altered from Milton's mask and now adapted to the stage"; a fourth edition was called for within three years, and no fewer than thirty-three editions were published by the end of the century. W. Howard produced a verse paraphrase of the first book of Paradise Lost in 1738, and Andrew Jackson rewrote the same book two years later in rhyming couplets. A prose paraphrase of the entire epic by George Green Smith, also bearing the title The State of nnocence-in fact a translation of Paradise Lost from Milton's English into French, and back into English-appeared in 1745.21 Smith followed this with A New Version of Paradise Lost; or, Milton
See JamesAndersonWinn, John Dryden and His World(New Haven, 1987), 262. TheState of nnocence. AndFall of Man. Described in Milton s Paradise Lost. Render'd into Prose ... by a Gentlemanof Oxford,translatedby George Smith Green from the French Paradis perdu by Nicolas Francois Dupr6 de Saint-Maur(London, 1745). A second edition appearedten years later. Other early translationsare catalogued in the 1753 edition of the Prose Works,including Thomas Power's Latin translationof Paradise Lost (1691), Michael Bold's Latin version of the first book (1702), Trap's Latin Paradise Lost (1741), William Dobson's Latin translationof the first six books (1750), an anonymousDutch translationfrom Haarlem(1728), a Frenchversion by Dupr6de S. Maur (3 vols.; 1729), an Italianversion by Paolo Rolli (1736), and a plannedbut never completedGreekversion by RichardDawes (1736). 20
21
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Paraphrased in 1756. Some adaptationswere musical: BenjaminStillingfleet turnedParadise Lost into an oratorioin 1760, and WilliamJacksonproduced Lycidas, A Musical Entertainmentin 1767. In 1773 an Edinburghpublisher released James Buchanan'sFirst Six Books of Paradise Lost, Renderedinto GrammaticalConstruction. It is useful in these cases to distinguishadaptationfrom imitation-terms which do not reflect eighteenth-centuryusage, but which add a much-needed degree of precision. Contemporaryworks can be imitatedas easily as classics, as evidenced by the vogue for ballad opera after Gay, or the more significant popularityof sentimentaldomestic fiction afterRichardson.An adaptation,on the otherhand,implies translationfromthe idiom of one age to another,and its definingcharacteristicis the negotiationof the distancebetweenthe two. We see this sort of translationwhen Pope follows Horaceor Donne, when Johnsonreworks Juvenal, or when Cibberand Tate adapt Shakespeare:adaptationis to ages whattranslationis to language.22Such(oftenapparentlyreckless)rewritings seem contraryin spiritto the contemporaryprojectof carefultextualand interpretive scholarship,in which the goal is to preserve an author'swords from subsequentcorruptionsand interpolations,and yet the two phenomenain fact springfroma single source:the sense thatthe worksbelong to a distantage and cannot be approachedas if they were contemporary.Two contrarysolutions offer themselves: antiquarianand scholarlyattentionto the exact words of the originalto bring the audienceto the text, or adaptationto bring the text to the audience.Bothwerefamiliarmeansof dealingwiththetextsof the ancientworld. Adaptation,therefore,as much as scholarlycare,places Milton in the company of the classics. It is not only the editing or the adaptingof Milton's text, however, that shows Milton'srelegationto the last age: eighteenth-centurywritersoften tell us as much. JosephWarton,for instance,"consider[s]the high rankwhich Milton has deservedly obtainedamong our few English classics," and his brotherargues thatMilton "maybe reckonedan old Englishpoet, and thereforerequires At thatillustration,withoutwhich no old Englishpoet can be well illustrated."23 the end of the centuryRobertAndersonchastisesBlair,whose forty-two-volume anthology runs from Milton to Lyttelton,for "includ[ing]none of those who have justly obtainedthe distinction of being denominatedour older classics, except Milton and Cowley."Garrickassociates the two most important"older classics" in his celebrationof Johnson'sachievementin the Dictionary: 22 See
Michael Dobson, The Making of the National Poet. Shakespeare,Adaptation,and Authorship,1660-1769 (Oxford,1992), andJeanI. Marsden,TheRe-ImaginedText:Shakespeare, Adaptation,and Eighteenth-CenturyLiterary Theory(Lexington, 1995). There is no comparable study of the adaptationsof Paradise Lost. 23 Adventurer101 (23 October 1753), cited in Shawcross, Milton: The Critical Heritage vols.; London, 1970-72), II, 226; Milton,Poems uponSeveral Occasions, ed. ThomasWarton (2 (London, 17912), xxiv.
Milton, Johnson, and the English Renaissance
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First Shakspeareand Milton, like gods in the fight, Have put theirwhole dramaand epick to flight.24 Like Garrick,Johnsonplaces Milton in a traditionbegun in Elizabeth'stime: "Miltonwas the first Englishman,"he writes, "who, afterthe revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classick elegance," not grantingexceptions even for "HaddonandAscham, the pride of Elizabeth'sreign."25Likewise his notes to Shakespeare:in following his professed hope of "comparingthe works of Shakespearewith those of the writerswho lived at the same time, immediately preceded, or immediately followed him," Johnson includes Milton among Shakespeare'scontemporaries,as when he observes, "Theold English writers often confound the active and passive adjectives. So Shakespear,and Milton Milton"immediatelyfollowed" afterhim,use inexpressivefrominexpressible."26 writers." and both "old were English Shakespeare, This teaming-upof ShakespeareandMilton is telling, for it revealsthe way many Britons thought about England's two greatest poets. Again and again Milton'sworksaretreatedas if they not only belongedto the same "lastage"but were actually contemporaneouswith the works of the great Elizabethans.We still sometimeshave to remindourselvesthatMilton's epics are far fromElizabethan.Paradise Lost is contemporarywith Dryden'sAnnusMirabilis,chronologically closer to Pope thanto Shakespeare:only forty-five years separatethe ten-bookParadise Lost from Pope's two-cantoRape of the Lock, comparedto poets undergo fifty-ninefor the firstquartoof Lear.27Otherseventeenth-century the same split, the effects of which are still with us: Marvell,Cowley, Crashaw, Traheme,andVaughanareconsignedto the last age, while Denham,Waller,and Pomfretbelong to the next. Mere chronology,then, is clearly not at issue for these eighteenth-centuryreaders.For them Shakespeareand Milton, however distantin time, belong to the same age in spirit. Spirit,though,can be hardto reconcilewith the recalcitrantfacts of history, and few poets were more deeply involved in the recalcitrantfacts of theirtime thanMilton, whose most importantwork is a productof the Restoration.Eighteenth-centurycriticshadno widely acceptedmodel of the relationshipbetween political and culturalhistory-which is not to suggest that later ages, our own included,have had betterluck in this respect. This relationshiphas long posed difficultiesto literaryhistorians,unsureof how to associatepolitics andaesthet24James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, rev. L. F. Powell (6 vols.; Oxford 1934-64), I, 301 (cited hereafteras Life). 25The Life of Milton, in TheLives of the Poets, ed. G. B. Hill (3 vols.; Oxford, 1905), I, 87. 26"Proposals,"Johnson on Shakespeare,ed. ArthurSherbo,vols. VII and VIII of the Yale Edition of The Worksof Samuel Johnson (New Haven, 1968), VII, 56, 207. See also Arthur Sherbo, Samuel Johnson, Editor of Shakespeare(Urbana, 1956), 24. 27See Laura Lunger Knoppers, Historicizing Milton: Spectacle, Power and Poetry in RestorationEngland (Athens, 1994), 4-8.
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ics without drifting into the Scylla of naive ahistoricismor the Charybdisof historicistreductionism;andfor these critics,Miltonconstitutedby farthe most difficult case-study. At the very same time that readers were insisting on historicizingtheirunderstandingof Englishauthors,Miltonwas being removed from his actualhistoricalmomentand transplantedinto the late sixteenthcentury.To place Milton in the company of Shakespeareand Spenser,however, demandsa wide disjunctionbetweenpoliticalandaesthetichistory.Criticsfound it necessaryto considerMilton's works apartfromhis involvementin politics. This is a curious fate for so political a poet-few poets, even those with revolutionarysympathies,figureprominentlyin actualrevolutions-and yet the strangedisjunctionbetween the two halves of his characterin eighteenth-centurywritingsis unmistakable.Muchof it is owing to the widespreaddistastefor Milton'srole in the Civil Wars.A small groupof committedreadersfromToland to Shelley andan increasingnumberaftermid-centuryneverallowedthe radical Miltonto disappearentirely;they laudedMilton'spoliticalcommitment,turning him into the poet of Liberty.Such were pleasedto dwell on his republicansympathiesandmademuchof the continuitiesbetweenhis politics andhis poetics.28 For them, Milton's political involvement(at least when consideredabstractly) was of a piece with his poetic grandeur;his less savory involvementin politics and controversycould be brushedunderthe carpet. But for less radical readersthose less savory aspects remained:after all, Miltonwas an apologistfor regicide.Throughoutmost of the centuryfew critics were committed to such a radically Whiggish brandof literaryand political history.Antipathyon political groundswas common in the decades following his death. William Winstanley,for instance, denigratesMilton in 1687: "His fame is gone out like a Candle in a Snuff, and his Memory will always stink, which mighthave ever lived in honourableRepute,hadnot he been a notorious Traytor,andmost impiously and villainously bely'd thatblessed King Charles the first."29 Yalden,writingin 1698, agrees: These sacredlines with wonderwe peruse, And praisethe flights of a seraphicmuse, Till thy seditiousprose provokesour rage, And soils the beauties of thy brightestpage.30
28 See GeorgeSensabaugh,ThatGrand WhigMilton(Stanford,1952), 3; LawrenceLipking, The Orderingof the Arts in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland (Princeton, 1970), 329; and Joseph Wittreich, The Romantics on Milton. Formal Essays and Critical Asides (Cleveland, 1970), 11-12. 29 Lives of the Most Famous English Poets. or, The Honour of Parnassus (London, 1687), 195. 30 Cited in Anderson, The Worksof the British Poets, VII, 762.
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The attackscontinuedwell into the next century;JohnBell shufflesuncomfortably in introducingMilton'sworks:"'Tisin vain to dissemble,andfarbe it from me to defend, his engaging with a party combined in the destructionof our Churchand Monarchy."3The result was a desire to keep the two sides of the man separate:as Thomas Wartonputs it, "The poet should be distinguished fromthe enthusiast."32 An anonymouscontributorto a universitymagazinesums up the situationpithily: "I blame the rebel, but the bardadmire."33 In the eighteenth-centuryreceptionof Milton his prose works, which best revealhis involvementin the politics of the middleseventeenthcentury,areconspicuous by their absence: the bard completely edged out the rebel. Milton's poetry,ParadiseLost above all, was readfarmoreoften thanwhatYaldencalled his "seditiousprose."Only one of the proseworks achievedanythinglike popularityin the eighteenthcentury,andthata surprisingone: Considerationstouching the LikeliestMeans of RemovingHirelings out of the Churchappearedin 1717, with new editions in 1723, 1732, 1736, 1743, 1770, 1774, 1787, and 1797. The otherpublicationsof Milton's prose between Toland's 1698 Works and 1800 can be enumeratedeasily: The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce appearedin 1715;34 Areopagitica appearedin 1738, as did the Declaration against Spain (doubtless owing to the anti-Spanishsympathiesof the 1730s) and an edition of the prose Works.35 OfEducationwas publishedin Glasgow in 1746, in Londonin 1751, and in Berwick-upon-Tweedin 1753. Anotherprose Worksappearedin 1753,36which, with a 1761 reprintof the 1698 Tolandedition, seems to have satisfiedall late-centurycuriosityaboutthe prose;thereafter, the only works to appearwere Eikonoklastesin 1756 and 1770, A Treatiseof Civil Power in 1790, andA Ready and Easy Wayin 1791. In the same period Paradise Lost appearedin nearly a hundrededitions. In sum the eighteenthcenturytrendis the separationof Milton the poet fromMilton the prose writer, the bardfromthe rebel. 31 John Bell (ed.), The Poets of Great Britain Completefrom Chaucer to Churchill(109 vols.; London, 1777-87), XXVIII, 11. 32 Note to "On Time,"Poems on Several Occasions, 296n (comparexiii). The first edition "The should be distinguishedfrom the puritan." reads, poet 33"UponBentley's Emendationof Milton,"Student;or,TheOxfordand CambridgeMonthly Miscellany, 2 (1751), 58; cited in Shawcross,Milton: The Critical Heritage, II, 198. See also Allen Reddick, The Making of Johnsons Dictionary 1746-1773 (Cambridge, 19962), 129. 34 An Essay upon Divorcement; Writfor the Good of Both Sexes (London, 1715). 35Areopagitica:A speech of Mr John Milton,for the Libertyof Unlicens'd Printing, to the Parliament of England (London, 1738), with other editions in 1772, 1791 ("Dedicatedto the Rt. Hon. Charles James Fox, the friend of truth and liberty"),and 1792; A Manifesto of the Lord Protector ... whereinIs Shewn the Reasonableness of the Cause of this Republic against the Depredations of the Spaniards. Writtenin Latin by John Milton, ... Now Translatedinto English (London, 1738);A CompleteCollection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Worksof John Milton (2 vols.; London, 1738). 36 The Worksof John Milton, Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous (2 vols.; London, 1753).
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Some triedto rationalizethis curiouspartition.Many criticsbelieved mundanemattersof statecraftwere incompatiblewith the poetic spirit:it was hardto imagine England'sgrandestpoet stooping to serve as Cromwell's Latin secretary.ThusJonathanRichardsoncomplainsthatMilton's"Poetrywas Long Suspendedwhilst he was, as He thought,Combatingin the Cause of God, and his ThomasWartonlamentsthat"thevigorous portionof his Country'sLiberty."37 ... in those life, years which imaginationis on the wing, were unworthilyand unprofitablywasted on temporarytopics, on elaboratebut perishabledissertaThis concernonly intensifiedover tions in defenceof innovationandanarchy."38 the course of the eighteenthcentury,as the Renaissance ideal of the courtier poet, effortlesslysynthesizingliteraturewith statecraft(thinkof Sidney's invocationof"Sweet poesy, thathathancientlyhad kings, emperors,senators,great captains... not only to favourpoets, but to be poets"39),gave way to the Romantic conceptionof the solitary,even feckless, genius.At century'send, therefore, Andersonechoes the popularcomplaintthatworldly mattersdistractedMilton fromhis poetical work:"Fromthis period [around1644] to the restoration,our Authorwas so deeply engagedin the controversiesof the times, thathe foundno leisure for polite learning"(Worksof the BritishPoets, V, iv). Even Johnson-who, thoughno courtier,was muchmoreinvolvedin public life thanmanywriters-gives severalextendeddevelopmentsof this incompatibilityof high cultureandpracticalaffairs.The Lifeof Miltonholds that "[w]hile he was obliged to divide his time betweenhis privatestudiesandaffairsof state, his poetical labour must have been often interrupted"(Lives of the Poets, I, 134). He notes more generally that "An Age of War is not often an Age of Learning;the TumultandAnxiety of MilitaryPreparationsseldom leave Attention vacantto the silent Progressof Study,and the placid Conquestsof Investigation."40Athoughthe subjectin Idler 68 is the chaos of the Middle Ages, his opposition of war to Renaissance learning is equally applicable to the Civil Wars: The study of ancient literaturewas interruptedin Europeby the irruption of the northernnations.... Those who lost, and those who gained dominion,hadimmediatedifficultiesto encounterandimmediatemiser37ExplanatoryNotes and Remarks,xiv; cf. Ixxi:"AndNow for Some YearsPoetrymust be Suspended,and all the Delights of the GreekandRomanIdeasExchang'dfor Modem Janglings. ... the Poet is Seen, however Disguis'd by Polemical Accoutrements." 38Poems upon Several Occasions, xi. He extends the principle beyond Milton to others like him, and writes of early Puritanism,"the first fervours of a new sect are always violent, retardedfor some time the progress of ingenious and useful knowledge" (The History of English Poetry [4 vols.; London, 1775-81], II, 457). 39 A Defence of Poetry, ed. J. A. Van Dorsten (Oxford, 1966), 61. 40 Dedication to Kennedy's Chronology,SamuelJohnson s Prefaces and Dedications, ed. Allen T. Hazen (New Haven, 1937), 76.
Milton, Johnson, and the English Renaissance
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ies to redress, and had little leisure, amidst the violence of war, the trepidationof flight,the distressesof forcedmigration,or the tumultsof unsettledconquest,to enquireafterspeculativetruth,to enjoythe amusement of imaginaryadventures,to know the history of formerages, or study the events of any other lives. But no sooner had this chaos of dominion sunk into order,than learningbegan again to flourishin the calm of peace.41 Johnson,though,while he did occasionallygive into his age's habitof treatMilton as anhonoraryElizabethan,cannotbe saidto be guiltyof depoliticizing ing him. On the contraryhe was nearly alone in his age for putting the political Milton at the center of his life of the poet. For this he received little praise. Johnsonhas become unfairlyfamous for his hostility to Milton, and this supposed hostility has earnedhim more virulent criticism than nearly any of his otherrecordedopinions.42The attackswere at theirmost caustic in the decades after the publication of the Life of Milton. Cowper, for instance, asserts that "Johnson'streatmentof Miltonis unmercifulto the last degree,"addingthat"A pensioneris not likely to spare a republican."Pattison,too, labels Johnson"a literarybandit... who conspiredwith one Lauderto stampout Milton's credit" (Lives of the Poets, I, 84, n. 1). Francis Blackbume's Remarkson Johnsons Life of Milton is typical of the vehemence some critics directed at him: "Dr. Johnson'ssee-saw meditations,the shiftywiles of a manbetweentwo fires,who neither dares fight nor run away. ... His strictures on Milton's poetry ... are
taintedthroughoutwith the effects of an inveteratehatredto Milton'spolitics." He sumsup with a suggestedepitaphfor Johnson:"HERELYESTHEGRAND EXEMPLAR OF LITERARY PROSTITVTION."43
As othershave pointed out, though,thereis no evidence of"inveteratehatred"to Milton'spoetry,whateverJohnsonthoughtof his politics. Scholarshave cataloguedechoes of Miltonin Johnson'sown works,44andhis esteemis evident 41 TheIdler and The Adventurer,ed. W. J. Bate, JohnM. Bullitt, and L. F. Powell, vol. II of The YaleEditionof the Worksof SamuelJohnson(New Haven, 1963), 213-14. Note thatBoswell applies the same logic to Johnson himself: "It is somewhat curious, that his literary career appearsto have been almost totally suspendedin the years 1745 and 1746, those years which were marked by a civil war in Great-Britain,when a rash attempt was made to restore the House of Stuartto the throne"(Life, I, 176). 42 On the reception of The Lives of the Poets, including The Life of Milton, see Edward Tomarken,A History of the Commentaryon Selected Writingsof Samuel Johnson (Columbia, S.C., 1994), 119-45, and Wittreich, The Romantics on Milton, esp. 10-11, but a definitive account of Johnson'sopinion of Milton has yet to be written. 43 FrancisBlackbume, Remarkson Johnson s Life of Milton, to which are added Miltons Tractateof Education and Areopagitica (London, 1780), vi, 127-28, 148. 44Prem Nath (in "JohnsonAgonistes and Milton's Samson,"AmericanNotes & Queries, 20 [1982], 69-70), Nalini Jain (in "Echoes of Milton in Johnson'sIrene,"AmericanNotes & Queries, 24 [1986], 134-36), and James Ogden (in "A JohnsonBorrowingfrom Milton,"Notes
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in his insistence thatMilton should have priorityover Pope in having a monument in St. Paul's:"Why,Sir,as Pope was a RomanCatholick,I would not have his to be first. I thinkMilton's rathershould have the precedence.I thinkmore highly of him now than I did at twenty. There is more thinking in him and in Butler,than in any of our poets" (Life, II, 239). Milton's scholarship"places him in the firstrankof writersandcriticks."Most tellingly,Johnsoncalls Paradise Lost "apoem which, consideredwith respectto design, may claim the first place, andwith respectto performancethe second,amongthe productionsof the humanmind"(Lives of the Poets, I, 154, 170). As Paul Fussell observes, This is a remarkableflux of enthusiasmfromJohnson,a man who was constantlyremindinghis friendsthatnothingdamagedan objector person so severely as excessive praise.We shouldbe mindfulof this warm conclusionof the Life ofMilton when we encounterhis earlierscornfor Milton'srepublicanism.45 Johnson did indeed disdain Milton's politics and worried that "they who contemplatedin Milton the scholar and the wit were contented to forget the revilerof his King."46He accuses Milton of"adopt[ing]the puritanicalsavageness of manners,"and writes that"Nothingcan be morejust thanthatrebellion shouldend in slavery:thathe, who hadjustifiedthe murderof his king, for some acts which to him seemed unlawful,shouldnow sell his services andhis flatteries to a tyrant,of whom it was evidentthathe could do nothinglawful"(Livesof the Poets, I, 102, 116). His politicalnotionswere those of an acrimoniousandsurlyrepublican. ... Milton's republicanismwas, I am afraid,foundedin an envious hatredof greatness,and a sullen desire of independence;in petulanceimpatientof controul,andpridedisdainfulof superiority....His predominant desire was to destroyratherthan establish. (Lives of the Poets, I, 156-57) The sentimentshe describeshardlymake the political Milton a suitablecandidate for inclusion in the Dictionary, where Johnson"was desirous that every
& Queries, 39 [1992], 482) have identifiedMiltonic sources and analogues for Johnson'swritCulture,20 (1990), 81-91, considersMilton's ings. BruceRedford,Studiesin Eighteenth-Century influence on Johnsonin "Defying OurMaster:The Appropriationof Milton in Johnson'sPolitical Tracts." 45 Samuel Johnson and the Life of Writing(New York, 1971), 52. 46 Lives of the Poets, I, 140; cf. his admonition,I, 98, "Let not our venerationfor Milton forbidus to look" closely at his work.
Milton, Johnson, and the English Renaissance
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quotationshould be useful," and so he simply ignores him.47In a differentforum,however,Johnsondidnot shrinkfromconfrontingthePuritan.He approaches the controvertistwithoutflinching:Milton"beganto engage in the controversies of the times, and lent his breathto blow the flames of contention"(Lives of the Poets, I, 101). Boswell defendsthisjudgment: Thata man, who veneratedthe Churchand Monarchyas Johnsondid, should speakwith a just abhorrenceof Milton as a politician,or rather as a daringfoe to good polity, was surely to be expected; and to those who censurehim, I would recommendhis commentaryon Milton'scelebratedcomplaint of his situation,when by the lenity of Charlesthe Second,"alenity of which (as Johnsonwell observes)the worldhas had perhapsno other example; he, who had written in justification of the murderof his Sovereign,was safe underan Act of Oblivion."(Life, IV, 41) Boswell writes too that "Hisjust abhorrenceof Milton's political notions was ever strong. But this did not prevent his warm admirationof Milton's great poetical merit, to which he has done illustriousjustice, beyond all who have writtenupon the subject"(Life, I, 227). He did not dismiss the poet out of an antagonismforthe republican.WhereasothersshrunkfromthispoliticalMilton, Johnsonwas unusuallyengaged with him; whereas others sought a poet who transcendedhis historicalmoment,Johnsongroundedhimthoroughlyin thepolitics of the Civil Warsand Restoration. JohnsonapproachesMilton's politics as a moralistand a historian,and his poetry as a moralistand a critic. He recognizes as few of his age did, however, thatthe two constitutedifferentcategories,andthatwhile bothshouldbe present to the reader,neithershoulddominateor substitutefor the other.JeanHagstrum puts it best: Johnsonis not often foundto express-perhaps becausehe did not always find it to be actually true,howevermuchhe may have wantedit to be-that favoriteidea of Renaissancecriticism,the "impossibility,"in Ben Jonson'slanguage, "of any mans being the good Poet, without firstbeing a good Man."48 In the end he was able to take Milton on precisely because Milton was in the processof achievingclassic statusandwas passingbeyondcriticism:the merely
47 A Dictionary of the English Language (2 vols.; London, 1755), sig. B2v. See Reddick, TheMaking of Johnson s Dictionary, 129-30, and RobertDeMaria,"The Politics of Johnson's Dictionary,"PMLA, 104 (1989), 64-74, 70. 48 Samuel Johnsons Literary Criticism(Chicago, 1952), 39.
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contemporarycan be allowed to pass without criticism because it is likely to fade, but the reputationof a classic, particularlyat the time it is being canonized, requiresgreatcare. It was because Miltonwas of the last age thatJohnson was able to criticizehim:nil nisi bonummay be a validprinciplefor the recently dead, but it was neithernecessarynor desirablefor our modem classics, which now had to be treatedwith full historical rigor.Thus Piozzi's defense of her friend'sjudgment: After this it is to be hoped, thata certainclass of men will talk no more of Johnson's malignity.The last apology for Milton is, that he acted accordingto his principles.But Johnsonthoughtthoseprinciplesdetestable; perniciousto the constitutionin Churchand State, destructiveof the peace of society, andhostile to the greatfabricof civil policy, which the wisdom of ages has taughtevery Britonto revere,to love, andcherish. ... Johnsonhas done amplejustice to Milton'spoetry:the Criticism on ParadiseLost is a sublime composition.49 Johnsondefendshimself in the same spirit:"Theeverlastingverdureof Milton's laurels,"he writes, "hasnothingto fear from the blasts of malignity."50 Johnson'sown laurelsthough,had much to fear from such blasts;even today, he is widely criticized as a singularlypoor readerof Milton. One modem critic, for instance,mentions Johnson's"openhostility towardMilton"as if it needs neitherdemonstrationor qualification,finding him a "hardheadedrationalist ... clearlyout of his elementinjudging Milton."5'AnotherMiltonistactuSuch ally confesses to a facetious but "strongurge to punch ... Dr. Johnson."52 partisanship,however, is not the best way to approachthe question:"He thatis not with me is against me" is a poor maxim for the literaryhistoriographer. Ratherthan viewing Johnson'sobiter dicta as the perverseopinions of a splenetic curmudgeon"clearlyout of his element,"we shouldexaminehis criticism
49 Piozzi's
Anecdotes,Johnsonian Miscellanies, ed. G. B. Hill (2 vols.; Oxford, 1987), I,
487. 50 The Rambler,ed. WalterJacksonBate andAlbrechtB. Strauss,vols. III to V of The Yale Edition (New Haven, 1969), IV, 383 (Rambler 140). By Coleridge's day, the transformation was complete and Johnson'scriticism was simply impertinent:"Of Criticismwe may perhaps say, that these divine Poets, Homer, Eschylus, and the two Compeers, Dante, Shakespeare, Spencer,Milton, who deserve to have Critics,Xptrai, are placed above Criticismin the vulgar sense" (Wittreich,The Romanticson Milton, 254). 51 VereenBell, "Johnson'sMilton Criticism in Context,"English Studies, 49 (1968), 12732, 127, 132; but cf. J. R. Brink, "Johnsonand Milton,"SEL, 20 (1980), 493-503, 495. 52 Roy Flannagan,"Bate's SamuelJohnson and Johnson'sLife of Milton: Puckish or Perverse? A Review Article,"Milton Quarterly, 12 (1978), 147-48.
Milton, Johnson, and the English Renaissance
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as symptomaticof the tensionspresentin some of the earliestattemptsto study the historyof English literature,andof the curioustreatmentMiltonreceived at the handsof eighteenth-centuryliteraryhistorians. We cannotunderstand"thelast age"withoutunderstandingthe two contradictory operationswhich were being performedon the literatureof the seventeenth century:historicizationon the one hand, as eighteenth-centuryreaders placed English classics in a bygone era, and universalizationon the other,as some of these classics were held to transcendtheirage. The effect of this latter operationis evident: it wrenches Milton especially, and to a lesser degree the otherwritersof the Renaissance,out of theirage and turnsthem into transcendentfiguresdivorcedfromthepoliticalconditionsunderwhichthey lived. While manycritics(amongthemJohnson,Warton,andlaterMalone)were developing a historicist sense of their literarypast, others were working (often more successfully) to universalizethe greatwritersof the EnglishRenaissance.The apotheosis of Shakespeare,most visible in the ShakespeareJubileeof 1769, is the best example of a favoritepoet wrested from his historicalsituation.Michael Dobson traces the rise of "the timeless and transcendentBard"in Garrick's Jubilee: Now for the firsttime [Shakespeareis] praisedas the "manof all men," directlyinspiredby natureto voice the universaltruthsof humanity,and hymnedthroughoutGarrick'sproceedingsas self-evidentlythe supreme writerin world literature.53 Milton was even morethoroughlybeing tornfromthe seventeenthcentury,in a process thatsplit the manof lettersfromthe manof the world.Thusthe paradox underlyingthe eighteenth-century placementof Miltonin the literaryhistory:his consignmentto the last age was made possible only througha rejectionof the very historicismthat made the category of "the last age" possible in the first place. And as the anthologies,literaryhistories,and surveycoursesmake clear, the resultsof this episode in the historyof literaryhistoryare still with us three centurieslater. RutgersUniversity.
53 TheMaking of the National Poet, 219. See ChristianDeelman, The GreatShakespeare Jubilee (New York, 1964), and Dobson, esp. 214-27.
Christiaan
Huygens's Attitude toward
Animals
Nathaniel Wolloch
The debateon the statusof animalshas interestedpeople since ancienttimes. In the earlymodem erathis debatereachedone of its most historicallyimportant andsedulousstages, drawingthe attentionof some of the most famousmindsin Europe.Curiouslyenough, the historiographyof this debatehas failed to take cognizance of the part played in it by the famous Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629-95), renownedfor his inventionof the pendulumclock, founding of the wave theory of light, and discovery of the true shape of the rings of Saturn,to nameonly a few of his prolificandvariedactivities.'WhileHuygens's contributiondoes not occupy a historicallycentralpartin this debate,which did not usually directly engross his attention,it is possible, based on some of his writingsandactivities,to piece togethera pictureof his generalattitudetoward animals. Such a study, as presentedhere, reveals more than anecdotalimportance, since it both entailsandaffordsan enlighteningdiscussionof the connection between philosophy, science, and the treatmentof animals, a discussion, moreover,which is relevantto the understandingnot only of the early modem debateon animals,but also to the currentdebateof this issue. 1
See Francis Klingender,Animals in Art and Thought to the End of the Middle Ages (London, 1971); George Boas, TheHappy Beast in French Thoughtof the SeventeenthCentury (New York, 1966); Peter Harrison,"TheVirtuesof Animals in Seventeenth-CenturyThought," JHI, 59 (1998), 463-84; Dix Harwood,Lovefor Animals and How it Developed in GreatBritain (New York, 1928); Hester Hastings, Man and Beast in French Thoughtof the Eighteenth Century(Baltimore, 1936); LeonoraCohen Rosenfield,From Beast-Machineto Man-Machine, Animal Soul in French Lettersfrom Descartes to La Mettrie (New York, 1968); and Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World, Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800 (Harmondsworth, 1984). None of these studies mention ChristiaanHuygens's attitudetoward animals. See also A. E. Bell, ChristianHuygens and the Development of Science in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1950), 5-96; H. J. M. Bos, "ChristiaanHuygens-a Biographical Sketch,"Studies on ChristiaanHuygens, Invited Papers from the Symposiumon the Life and Workof ChristiaanHuygens,Amsterdam,22-25 August 1979 (Lisse, 1980), 7-18; and"Huygens, Christiaan,"Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. CharlesCoulston Gillispie (16 vols. in 8; New York, 1981), VI, 597-613. Neither these, nor any other cited studies, with one unconvincing example (see note 13 below), discuss his attitudetoward animals.
415 of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. 2000 byJournal Copyright
416
Nathaniel Wolloch
One of the mostprevalentfeaturesof the developmentof the attitudetoward animalshas been the recurrenceof anthropocentricarguments.Such arguments were exhibitedbothby theriophiles(lovers of animals)andanti-theriophiles.2 A significantinstanceof this is the recurringargumentthatharminganimalsis not bad in itself but ratherbecause it might lead to the harmingor corruptionof humanbeings. While such an approachin effect statesthatthose who arekindto animalswould also be kindto humanbeings, it also implies thatcrueltytoward animalsis excusable if committedto advancegood causes, such as science and medicine.3Such anthropocentricviews ultimately derive from both classical cultureandphilosophy,andespecially the notion,rootedin biblical cosmology, accordingto which all of naturewas given to man for his use by God, i.e., man was given the stewardshipof nature.4 Theriophilicviews which tend to regardanimalsas sentientbeings in their own rightbecame relativelycommon in earlymodem times. The most influential of thesetheriophileswas Michelde Montaigne,knownforhis love andpraise
2 George Boas, Happy Beast, 1-2, 24-25, 47, 49, referredto theriophilymainly as the use of animals as models for human conduct, so that animals per se are usually not of central importance;but in the present discussion I define "theriophily"and "anti-theriophily"not so much as literaryor philosophic genres but ratheras moral attitudestowardanimals, emphasizing either regard or disregard for their well-being. See also James E. Gill, "Theriophilyin Antiquity:A SupplementaryAccount,"JHI, 30 (1969), 401-12; and ArthurO. Lovejoy and George Boas, Primitivismand Related Ideas in Antiquity(Baltimore, 1997), 389-420. 3 See Robin Attfield, The Ethics of EnvironmentalConcern (Oxford, 1983), 37; J. D. Bleich, "Judaismand Animal Experimentation,"Animal Sacrifices, Religious Perspectives on the Use of Animals in Science, ed. Tom Regan (Philadelphia, 1986), 61-114; James Gaffney, "The Relevance of Animal Experimentationto Roman Catholic Ethical Methodology,"ibid., 149-70; Hastings, Man and Beast, 242-43; J. J. Macintosh, "Animals, Morality and Robert Boyle," Dialogue, 35 (1996), 435-72; Andreas-HolgerMaehle, "LiteraryResponses to Animal Experimentationin Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-CenturyBritain,"Medical History, 34 (1990), 27-51; JohnPassmore,"TheTreatmentof Animals,"JHI, 36 (1975), 195-218; Political Theory and Animal Rights, eds. Paul A. B. Clarke and Andrew Linzey (London, 1990), 10; Wallace Shugg, "HumanitarianAttitudes in the Early Animal Experimentsof the Royal Society," Annals of Science, 24 (1968), 227-38; and Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York, 1990), 195-96. For an early example of such a view see Porphyry,On Abstinencefrom Animal Food, tr. Thomas Taylor (London, 1965), 16-17, 139-40. Cf also Kant, Lectures on Ethics, tr. L. Infield (New York, 1963), 239-41; and Steve Naragon, "Kanton Descartes and the Brutes," Kant-Studien,81 (1990), 1-23. 4 See J. J. Finkelstein,TheOx that Gored(Philadelphia,1981), 7, 8, 39, 52; Anita Guerrini, "The Ethics of Animal Experimentationin Seventeenth-CenturyEngland,"JHI, 50 (1989), 391-407, esp. 396; Lynn White Jr., "The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis,"Science, 155 (10 March 1967), 1203-7; and Genesis 1; also Gill, "Theriophilyin Antiquity";Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought;Passmore,"Treatmentof Animals";Gaffney,"Relevanceof Animal Experimentation,"151; Peter Harrison,"AnimalSouls, Metempsychosis,and Theodicy in Seventeenth-CenturyEnglish Thought,"Journal of the History of Philosophy, 31 (1993), 51944, esp. 519-20; and J. M. C. Toynbee,Animals in RomanLife and Art (n.p., 1973), 15-31.
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of animals,5 and among the many theriophiles influenced by his views one of the most important was his disciple Pierre Charron.6 However, the most influential early modem view of animals, which became the main reference-point for the debate on animals, was anti-theriophilic. This was the Cartesian theory of the "beast-machine," which viewed animals as mere automata, devoid of an immortal soul as possessed by human beings; they were regarded as devoid of mind, and their behavior was compared to that of a clock. Descartes himself seems to have been rather agnostic regarding this issue. He did not deny animals some capacity for feeling but claimed that it was more probable they were senseless automata than beings with souls like human beings.7 However, while many theriophiles attacked the beast-machine theory, its anti-theriophilic implications were developed and radicalized by various seventeenth-century Cartesians beyond what Descartes himself probably intended. The most prominent example of this was the leading Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche. The French intellectual Bernard Le Bovier, sieur de Fontenelle, related how he saw Malebranche, a generally kind man, kick a pregnant bitch, and when confronted with his (Fontenelle's) alarm, regarded this act as inconsequential, claiming that she did not feel a thing.8 As cruel as the beast-machine
5 See Montaigne, "On Cruelty"and "An Apology for Raymond Sebond," The Complete Essays, tr. M. A. Screech (Harmondsworth,1991), 472-88 and 489-683. 6 See Pierre Charron,Of Wisdom,tr. anon. (London,before 1612, repr.Amsterdam,1971), 101-12; and Boas, Happy Beast, 56-61. 7 See Descartes's Discourse on Method (1637), V, esp. Discourse on Method and the Meditations,tr.F. E. Sutcliffe (Harmondsworth,1968), 73-76. Descarteswas probablyfamiliar with the comparisonof animalsto clocks made by St. ThomasAquinas, but probablyunfamiliar with the sixteenth-centurymechanisticview of animalspropoundedby the SpaniardG6mez Pereira. See Rosenfield, Beast-Machine to Man-Machine, 18-21, 87; the entry on Pereira in Peter [Pierre]Bayle, TheDictionary Historical and Critical, tr. anon. (5 vols.; London, 1737), IV, 545-54; Javier Bandr6sand Rafael Llavona, "Minds and Machines in Renaissance Spain: G6mez Pereira'sTheory of Animal Behavior,"Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 28 (1992), 158-68; Leonora D. Cohen, "Descartesand Henry More on the Beast-Machine-A Translationof their Correspondencepertainingto Animal Automatism,"Annals of Science, 1 (1936), 48-61; Harwood, Love for Animals, 81-98; Thomas H. Huxley, "On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and its History,"in Collected Essays (1893-1894) (9 vols.; London, 1893-94, repr.Hildesheim, 1970), I, 199-250; Wallace Shugg, "The Cartesian Beast-Machinein English Literature(1663-1750)," JHI, 29 (1968), 279-92; Rosenfield, BeastMachine to Man-Machine; Macintosh, "Animals, Morality and Robert Boyle," 437; John Cottingham,"A Brute to the Brutes? Descartes' Treatmentof Animals," in Rene Descartes, CriticalAssessments, ed. Georges J. D. Moyal (4 vols.; London, 1991), IV, 323-31; and Peter Harrison,"Descarteson Animals," The Philosophical Quarterly,42 (1992), 219-27. 8 See Malebranche,The Search after Truth,and Elucidationsof the Search after Truth,tr. T. M. Lennon and P. J. Olscamp (Columbus, 1980), 98, 114-15, 189-90, 323-24, 351-53, 661; Harrison,"Animal Souls," 521-24; Huxley, "Hypothesisthat Animals are Automata,"218-19; Macintosh,"Animals,Moralityand RobertBoyle," 437-38; Andreas-HolgerMaehle andUlrich Tr6hler,"AnimalExperimentationfrom Antiquityto the End of the EighteenthCentury:Attitudes and Arguments,"Vivisectionin Historical Perspective, ed. Nicolaas A. Rupke (London,
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theory may seem, however, one should remember that it tried to explain away the suffering of animals. It implied that had such suffering been proven to exist, it would have required moral consideration. The views of Spinoza were even more stringent in this respect, since he did not deny that animals felt but nevertheless claimed that they were different from human beings and that human needs and powers justified harming them.9 The beast-machine theory may have also played an indirect role in the growing practice of vivisection. This role should not be overemphasized, since vivisection, which had been relatively common in classical times but uncommon in the Middle Ages, became increasingly popular from the sixteenth century onward, before the advent of the beast-machine theory. Nevertheless, this theory certainly did not help anti-vivisection claims and in certain cases may have even provided vivisectors with arguments against charges of cruelty.10While Descartes probably occasionally performed vivisections, it seems that in this respect he was far exceeded by some of his followers: Nicholas Fontaine, for example, recalled in his memoirs a vivisection laboratory where vivisectors regarded dogs experimented upon as clocks without feeling, and made fun of those who pitied them as if they felt pain.11However, not all vivisectors shared such unequivocal views on animal suffering, and the ability to reconcile recognition of such suffering with the actual practice of vivisection poses important questions regarding the history of the attitude toward animals. Toward the end of his life Huygens worked on his last major work, published posthumously in 1698 and usually referred to as the Cosmotheoros.'2 In 1987), 14-47, esp. 26-27; Passmore, "Treatmentof Animals," 204; and Rosenfield, BeastMachine to Man-Machine,41-43, 69-70, 265-69, which also includes the story aboutthe pregnant bitch. 9 See BaruchSpinoza,Ethics III, LVII,Note, and IV,XXXVII, Note I, in Ethics and On the Correctionof the Understanding,tr.Andrew Boyle (London, 1986), 125, 167; David Berman, "Spinoza's Spiders, Schopenhauer'sDogs," Philosophical Studies, 29 (1982-83), 202-9; and Macintosh, "Animals, Morality and Robert Boyle," 443-44. Huygens despised Spinoza, but probablymainly for social ratherthan intellectualreasons. See Bell, ChristianHuygens, 9. 10Cf. Guerrini,"Ethics of Animal Experimentation,"406-7; Harrison,"Animal Souls," 542-43; Maehle and Tr6hler,"Animal Experimentation,"23-24; Shugg, "HumanitarianAttitudes," 228; and see also Andreas-HolgerMaehle, "The Ethical Discourse on Animal Experimentation 1650-1900," Doctors and Ethics: The Earlier Historical Setting of Professional Ethics, ed. Andrew Wearet al. (Amsterdam,1993), 203-51, and "LiteraryResponses";and G. A. Lindeboom, "Dog and Frog, Physiological Experimentsat Leiden during the Seventeenth Century,"Leiden Universityin the SeventeenthCentury,an Exchange of Learning, ed. Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleerand G. H. M. P. Meyjes (Leiden, 1975), 279-93. n Memoirespourservir a I'histoirede Port-Royal(2 vols. in 1; Utrecht, 1736, repr.Geneva, 1970), II, 52-53; also G. A. Lindeboom,Descartes and Medicine (Amsterdam,1979), 41. 12 The Celestial WorldsDiscover'd: Or, ConjecturesConcerning the Inhabitants,Plants and Productions of the Worldsin the Planets, tr. anon. (London, 1698) [hereafter cited as C.W]. The work was originally written in French, and various editions and translationsof it
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this work Huygens made some cursory claims on animals which were distinctly opposed to the beast-machine theory.13 According to him, there were rational animals with various levels of reasoning. Animals such as dogs, apes, beavers, elephants, and some birds and bees, have "somewhat in them of Reason independent on, and prior to all teaching and practice."'4 Man is therefore not the only rational animal. However, Huygens continues: But still no Body can doubt, but that the Understanding and Reason of Man is to be prefer'd to theirs as being comprehensive of innumerable things, indued with an infinite memory of what's past, and capable of providing against what's to come.15 As regards to what is necessary for preservation, education, providing for himself and his offspring, etc., man is not preeminent over the animals, which perform most of these activities with greater facility than him and have no need for some of them. Man's sense of virtue and justice, friendship, gratitude, and honesty are meant to put a stop to his own wickedness or to secure human beings against mutual assaults and injuries, things in which animals "want no Guide but Nature and Inclination." Therefore if one compares the many cares, disturbances of mind, restless desires and dread of death which result from human reason, with "that easy, quiet, and harmless Life" which animals enjoy, then one is "apt to wish a change," and conclude that animals, especially birds, live with greater pleasure and happiness than man is capable of with all his wisdom.16 In
were published in the eighteenthcentury.See Steven J. Dick, Plurality of Worlds,the Origins of the ExtraterrestrialLife Debate from Democritus to Kant (Cambridge,1982), 129-30, 135; Jean Seidengart,"Les theories cosmologiques de ChristiaanHuygens,"Huygens et la France, table ronde du CentreNational de la Recherche Scientifique,Paris 27-29 mars 1979 (Paris, 1982), 209-22, esp. 211; and ChristiaanHuygens, Oeuvres Completes (22 vols.; The Hague, 1888-1950), XXI, 674-75 [hereaftercited as O.C.]. 13 For an unconvincing attempt,in my opinion, to explain Huygens's and Descartes's differing views on animals as functions mainly of their differentreligious views and Huygens's ideas on determinism, see the remarks by the editors in ibid., XXI, 662, 667. For general discussions of the Cosmotheoros, see Bell, Christian Huygens, 200-202; Dick, Plurality of Worlds,126-35, 186-87; David Knight, "Celestial Worlds Discover'd," The Durham University Journal, 58, new series 27 (1965), 23-29; David M. Knight, "Uniformityand Diversity of Nature in 17th CenturyTreatiseson Pluralityof Worlds,"Organon,4 (1967), 61-68, esp. 6768; GrantMcColley, "The Seventeenth-CenturyDoctrine of a Pluralityof Worlds,"Annals of Science, 1 (1936), 385-430; Milton K. Munitz, "One Universe or Many?,"Roots of Scientific Thought,a CulturalPerspective, ed. Philip P. Wiener and Aaron Noland (New York, 1957), 593-617; Paolo Rossi, "Nobility of Man and Pluralityof Worlds,"tr. ArthurBrickmann,Science, Medicine and Society in the Renaissance, Essays to honor WalterPagel, ed. Allen G. Debus (2 vols.; London, 1972), II, 131-62; and Seidengart,"Theoriescosmologiques." 14 Huygens, C W, 56-57. 15 Ibid., 57. 16
Ibid., 58-59.
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what respect, then, is human reason superiorand makes us preferableto the animals?For Huygens this can mainly be found in the contemplationof the works of God, the study of nature,and the improvementof the sciences which bringknowledge(since knowledgeis necessaryfor contemplation).Despitepresenting this view as a question, Huygens nonetheless implies that such differences may also applyamongvarioushumanbeings, as betweenthose who gaze at the stars and planets with careless supine negligence and those who understand their places and sizes, or between "such a one as admiresperhapsthe nimbleActivity andstrangeMotionsof some Animals,andone thatknows their whole Structure,understandsthe whole FabrickandArchitectureof theirComposition."17About the beast-machinetheory Huygens is unequivocal, stating thatanimals have as great a gusto of Bodily Pleasuresas we, let the new Philosopherssaywhattheywill, who wouldhavethemgo fornothingbutClocks andEnginesof Flesh;a thingwhich Beasts so plainlyconfuteby crying and runningaway from a Stick, and all other Actions, that I wonder how any one could subscribeto so absurdand cruel an Opinion.18 InthesecommentsHuygensexemplifiesveryconventionalandwidespreadviews of a mildly theriophilicoutlook, i.e., one ascribingfeeling and some form of reasonin animalswhile maintaininga basic humansuperiorityto them, exemplified in such things as religion, science etc. His attackon the beast-machine theorywas indeednot a rareinstanceof such views. The questionof Huygens's ambivalentattitudetowardCartesianismis one of the centralissues in modem studiesof his work.Forourpurposeit suffices to say that from an almost profoundyouthfulCartesianism,Huygens laterdeveloped a much more criticalapproach,while neverthelessmaintainingsome vesBut when exactly he formulatedhis opposition to the tiges of Cartesianism.19 beast-machinetheoryandif this happenedindependentlyor underthe influence of othersis unclear.In all probabilityhe became awareof this issue at an early 17Ibid., 60-62. 18
Ibid., 59-60. ChristopherB. Burch, Christiaan Huygens: The Development of a Scientific Research Program in the Foundations of Mechanics (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Pittsburgh,1981; reprint Ann Arbor, 1987), 144-50, 168-81; E. J. Dijksterhuis,The Mechanizationof the World Picture, Pythagoras to Newton, tr. C. Dikshoor (Princeton, 1986), 457-58; Rene Dugas, "Sur le Cartesianismede Huygens,"Revue d'histoire des sciences, 7 (1954), 22-33; Aant Elzinga, "ChristiaanHuygens' Theory of Research,"Seventeenth-CenturyNatural Scientists, ed. Vere Chapell, Essays on Early Modern Philosophersfrom Descartes and Hobbes to Newton and Leibniz(12 vols.; New York, 1992), VII, 147-66, and On a ResearchProgramin Early Modern Physics (Goteborg, 1972), 14, 16-18, 27-34, 36-37, 39-40, 80-85; and Robert S. Westman, "Huygens and the Problemof Cartesianism,"Studies on ChristiaanHuygens, 83-103. 19 See
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age, although the exact nature of his initial opinion in this context is difficult to ascertain. While still a youth Huygens both corresponded with and was influenced by Marin Mersenne, himself an opponent of the beast-machine theory.20 In Paris he met the elderly Pierre Gassendi, who also disagreed with this theory.21 In Paris he occasionally visited the salon of Madelleine de Scudery, another opponent of the beast-machine, where he may have met proponents of the Gassendist theory of animal soul as a flame-like substance.22Another source of influence may have been Leibniz, whom Huygens met for the first time in 1672 in Paris. In a letter from 1684 to his and Spinoza's friend, the German scientist Ehrenfried Walter von Tschimhaus, Leibniz wrote: In Holland they are now disputing, loudly and soundly, whether beasts are machines. People are even amusing themselves by ridiculing the Cartesians for imagining that a dog that is clubbed cries in the same way as a bagpipe which is pressed. As for me, though I grant the Cartesians that all external actions of beasts can be explained mechanically, I nevertheless believe that beasts have some knowledge and that there is something in them, not itself extended, which can be called a soul, or if you prefer, a substantial form....23 Indeed, Leibniz's attitude toward animals was evinced also by Kant's story how after observing a small worm, he would return it to the tree so that it would not be harmed by his action.24As for Tschimhaus, he was Huygens's associate for some time during the 1670s. While he seems not to have aroused Huygens's interest in Spinoza's philosophy, possible discussions of the then popular issue of the beast-machine cannot be ruled out.25Neither can it be ignored that despite
See Bell, ChristianHuygens, 25. In a letter from September1646 to Christiaan'sfather Constantijn,Mersenne expressed disagreementwith the Cartesianassertion that animals are devoid of souls (Huygens, O.C., I, 21). 21 See Gassendi's remarksin his objections to Descartes'sMeditationsin ThePhilosophical Worksof Descartes, tr. ElizabethS. Haldaneand G. R. T. Ross (2 vols.; Cambridge,1967), II, 144-46; also 211-12 (Descartes); Bell, ChristianHuygens, 27-28; Boas, Happy Beast, 91, 132-35; and Rosenfield, Beast-Machine to Man-Machine, 10-11, 13, 25, 110-14, 143, 157, 159, 175-76, 188, 271-72. 22 See ibid., 113, 158-63, 201; Bell, ChristianHuygens, 95; and Boas, Happy Beast, 14142. 23 GottfriedWilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, tr. L. E. Loemker (Dordrecht, 1969), 275-76; and Bell, ChristianHuygens, 69, 80-81, 88-91, 96, 211. 24 See Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 240; and Mary Midgley, Animals and WhyTheyMatter (Athens, Ga., 1984), 46; also Macintosh, "Animals, Morality and Robert Boyle," 436, 443; Rosenfield, Beast-Machineto Man-Machine, 188, 204; MarkKulstad,"Leibniz,Animals, and Apperception,"Studia Leibnitiana, 13 (1981), 25-60; and MurrayMiles, "Leibniz on Apperception and Animal Souls," Dialogue, 33 (1994), 701-24. 25 See Bell, ChristianHuygens, 74-75. 20
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all these influences, Huygens may have developed his oppositionto the beastmachinetheoryindependently.In any case what can be discernedpositively is thatHuygens probablybecame awareof the animaldebateat an early age, and at some point formedan anti-Cartesianandmoderatelytheriophilicphilosophical position on this issue. The questionofHuygens's views on animalsis connectedto his position on the question of the possibility of the existence of otherplanets and worlds, an oft-discussed subject since classical times and particularlypopularduringthe earlymodem era.26Indeed,his condemnationof the beast-machinetheorywas includedin the Cosmotheoros,one of the most significantearly modem works on the subjectof otherpopulatedworlds.27 The popularityof this subjectreceived additionalimpetusin the earlymodern erabecause of the Copernicanrevolution.The geocentricimage of the universe was destroyed,and so was the connectionbetween this andthe anthropocentricoutlook.28Thus the assumptionthattheremight exist othercreaturesin otherworlds, which, moreover,might even be as intelligentas man, if not more The possibility that such creaturesmight exist so, gained added popularity.29 shook the anthropocentricbiblical cosmology. In effect such ideas created a correlationbetween the Copernicanrevolutionin astronomyand in the rest of the naturalworld.30In this contextone mighteven surmisea kindof intermediate anti-anthropocentric "Coperican revolution"in between Copernicushimself andthe KantianmetaphysicalCopernicanrevolution,an intermediaterevolution whichjolted man'sconfidencein his unshakenpositionas the stewardof nature. Such an anti-anthropocentric elementis quiteevidentin Huygens'sCosmotheorosin which he attackedthe religious notion thateverythinghad been created for man only. Denying the possibilitythattheremight exist othercreatures endowed with reason on other worlds was an opinion contraryto the "Holy Writ,"since there such worlds and creatureswere not mentioned,i.e., not denied.31 If one does not probeany further,one mightbe led to assumethatHuygens's andbelief in the possibilityof otherworldsandcreatures anti-anthropocentrism 26
See Knight, "Uniformityand Diversity," McColley, "Seventeenth-CenturyDoctrine"; Munitz, "One Universe or Many?";Rossi, "Nobility of Man";and Dick, Plurality of Worlds. 27See notes 12 and 13 above.
See Dick, Plurality of Worlds,61-63, 119 and passim; Knight, "Uniformityand Diversity," 64, 66; McColley, "Seventeenth-CenturyDoctrine,"406-9, 429; Munitz, "One Universe or Many?,"604-5; and particularlyRossi, "Nobility of Man," 137-39 andpassim. 29 See ArthurO. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (New York, 1960), 108, 115-16, 12325, 130; and also passim on many issues related to the extraterrestrialdebate. 30 See the introductionto Bernardle Bovier de Fontenelle, Conversationson the Plurality of Worlds,tr. H. A. Hargreaves(Berkeley, 1990). 28
31
Huygens, C.W, 6-8.
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further strengthened his anti-Cartesian view of animals and that these two notions were inherently linked in early modem thought. There were indeed other prominent early modem thinkers, such as Giordano Bruno32and Fontenelle,33 who held both theriophilic views and anti-anthropocentric views connected to the belief in the possibility of a plurality of worlds and creatures. However, the seeming contiguity of these two views was far from categorical. The chief evidence for this was that Descartes himself did not rule out the existence of other worlds and creatures, even though he remained agnostic regarding this issue. Such assertions were based mainly on his vortex theory, which was to have an important impact on the seventeenth-century extraterrestrial debate, although he and later Cartesians preferred not to emphasize this aspect of Cartesian cosmology, for theological reasons and because of the already problematic nature of this cosmology. But Descartes nevertheless was at times credited for breaking the Aristotelian world-view. In this respect he was anti-anthropocentric, but only as regards focus on worldly matters, while man must attend to things beyond the physical world. Therefore his anti-anthropocentrism had in this respect no bearing on his views on animals (which were also, one should remember,eventually ratheragnostic), nor did it negate the beast-machine theory.34 Assuming that the belief in other worlds and rational creatures represented only one exemplification of early modem anti-anthropocentrism, the connection between anti-anthropocentrism and theriophilic thought then becomes even less evident. The best example is probably Spinoza, who as observed above, while not maintaining animal automatism, still held a clear anti-theriophilic view. At the same time he opposed anthropocentrism and claimed that man did not hold a special place in nature.35According to him the fostering of reason included comprehension of the fact that man was part of a whole and subject to the same needs governing the rest of nature. But this did not entail morally avoiding the use of nature and the animals for human needs. In this context one should remember that many early modem anti-anthropocentric exclamations probably
32 On Bruno see Evelyn M. Cesaresco, ThePlace of Animals in Human Thought(London, 1909), 353; Dick, Plurality of Worlds,63-69; Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being, 116; McColley, "Seventeenth-CenturyDoctrine,"414; and Rossi, "Nobilityof Man," 133. Huygens was familiar with Bruno's views on this issue (C. W., 3). 33 See Bell, ChristianHuygens, 200; Fontenelle, Conversations;Huygens, C.W.,3; Dick, Pluralityof Worlds,123-26, 129;Rossi, "Nobilityof Man,"146, 156, 158; Seidengart,"Theories cosmologiques,"209-10; and Rosenfield, Beast-Machineto Man-Machine,69-70, 126-27. 34 See Descartes's letterto Chanutfrom 6 June 1647, in Oeuvresde Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery(11 vols.; Paris, 1974), V, 50-58; Dick, Plurality of Worlds,106-41; Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being, 123-25, 188; McColley, "Seventeenth-CenturyDoctrine,"417; and Rossi, "Nobility of Man," 152-54. 35 See Berman,"Spinoza's Spiders, Schopenhauer'sDogs"; Genevieve Lloyd, "Spinoza's EnvironmentalEthics,"Inquiry, 23 (1980), 293-311; and Ame Naess, "EnvironmentalEthics and Spinoza's Ethics and comments on Genevieve Lloyd's Article"idem, 313-25.
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arose more from a need to cause people to be humble and righteous than to induce good treatment of nature and the animals per se (i.e., even anticould occasionallybe anthropocentrically motivated). anthropocentrism Anti-anthropocentrismthus became conducive to but not essential for theriophilicargumentation.It is thereforenot surprisingto find Huygensclaiming thatreasonis a divine element in man, while at the same time implyingthat it is impossiblethateverythinghad been createdfor man's use, even thoughhe argumentsfor a pluralapprovesof this use. He combines anti-anthropocentric views ity of worldsandrationalcreaturestogetherwith distinctlyanthropocentric of man'sutilizationof nature,when he writes: Thatwhich makes me of this Opinion,thatthose Worldsare not without such a Creatureenduedwith Reason, is, that otherwise our Earth would have too much the advantageof them, in being the only partof the Universe thatcould boast of such a Creatureso far above, not only Plants and Trees, but all Animals whatsoever:a Creaturethat has a Divine Somewhat within him, that knows, and understands,and rememberssuchan innumerablenumberof things;thatdeliberates,weighs andjudges of the Truth:A Creatureuponwhose account,andforwhose use, whatsoeverthe Earthbringsforthseems to be provided.36 That "so noble an Animal,"man, converts everythingon earthto his own needs. He makeshouses fromtrees, stones,andmetals,"theBirdsandFishes he sustainshimself with," etc.37We thus also find with Huygens the contiguityof both anti-anthropocentric views and anthropocentricones when it comes to the practical utilization of nature and the animals, although this time from a theriophilicphilosophicalstandpoint.This emphasizesthe factthathe, like many other moderatetheriophiles,still maintaineda basic human superiorityto the animals,philosophical and many times practical.When consideredalongside the views of Descartes,for example, this underlinesthe fact thatthe possibility of the existenceof otherrationalcreaturesin otherworldsdoes not revokeman's privileged and God-given superiorityon earth. As far as most early modem thinkerswere concerned,othercreaturesin far-awayplanets might have been superiorto man, but the terrestrialanimalswere definitely not. The discussion so far has portrayedChristiaanHuygens as an average, if importantandneglected, exampleof moderateearlymodem theriophilicthinking. If this were the whole case he would probablynot deserve more than a fleetingmentionin the historyof earlymodem attitudestowardanimals.But the situationbecomes increasinglycomplicatedand interestingwhen one realizes 36 Huygens, C.W, 37-38; also 7-8, 36-39, and the editors'remarksin Huygens, O.C., XXI, 663-64.
37Huygens, C. W, 38.
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that his theriophilic views notwithstanding, Huygens performed vivisections, i.e. experiments on live animals, mainly with the air-pump, or "pneumatic engine," as it was then referred to at times. The main issue here is not so much early modem vivisection per se but ratherthe concern that at least some of the vivisectors exhibited for the suffering of the animals on which they experimented. Although such expressions were rather incidental and did not usually constitute a major hindrance to the continuance of experiments,38 they are relevant for the understanding of early moder attitudes toward animals. Opposition to vivisection also developed and enjoyed a certain vogue at the end of the seventeenth century, mainly in literary circles and among the owners of domestic pets and in direct opposition to the spread of this practice in medical circles.39 One should remember that the issue of animal suffering was even more potent then, at a time when modem anaesthetics were not available. The French conservative anatomist Jean Riolan II (1580-1657) was one of the propagators of the view that vivisection was scientifically unsound because of anatomical differences between animals, particularly dying animals, and human beings. He regarded vivisectors as butchers and expressed fear that they might be led to human vivisection. Nevertheless he himself, at least in early years, performed vivisections, acknowledging they had some value.40Vivisection was popular all over early modem Europe, including Holland, where experiments were performed privately as well as in universities such as Leiden, where Huygens was a student between 1645 and 1647.41Vivisection formed the cornerstone of the experimental work at the anatomical cabinet of the professor of anatomy from Leiden Johannes van Home (1621-70), where various scientists met, among them Jan Swammerdam (1637-80) and the Dane Nicolaus Steno (1638-86).42 The latter two conducted there vivisections of pregnant bitches, in an effort to study the respiration of the embryo. Steno was not too happy with this and, in a letter from 1661 to his mentor and fellow countryman Thomas Bartholin (1619-80), complained of the abhorrence he had for the pain he caused 38 Maehle, "Ethical Discourse," 205-6; and Maehle and Tr6hler,"Animal Experimentation," 23, 27. 39 See Rosenfield, Beast-Machine to Man-Machine,88-89. 40 See Nikolaus Mani, "JeanRiolan II (1580-1657) and Medical Research,"Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 42 (1974), 121-44; Maehle and Tr6hler,"Animal Experimentation,"2123; and Maehle, "EthicalDiscourse,"206-8; also 204, 210, and "LiteraryResponses,"31, 3435; and Macintosh, "Animals,Morality and RobertBoyle," 470-71. 41 See Lindeboom,"Dog and Frog";Maehle and Tr6hler,"Animal Experimentation," 20, 26; and A. M. Luyendijk-Elshout, "Introduction,"tr. I. Seeger-Wolf, in Frederik Ruysch, Dilucidatio Valvularumin VasisLymphaticiset Lacteis (n.p., 1665, repr.Nieuwkoop, 1964), 744; also Jan C. C. Rupp, "Mattersof Life and Death: The Social and CulturalConditionsof the Rise of Anatomical Theatres,with Special Reference to Seventeenth-CenturyHolland,"History of Science, 28 (1990), 263-87. 42 Luyendijk-Elshout,"Introduction,"34-37, and 22-23.
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vivisected dogs. He exclaimed, regarding the Cartesians, that "I wish they could convince me as thoroughly as they are themselves convinced of the fact that animals have no souls! !"43But he seems to have nonetheless continued, at least for a time, with vivisections.44 The air-pump had been invented in 1647 by the German scientist Otto von Guericke, who conducted, among other experiments, vivisections with it to observe what happened to animals in a void.45The English scientists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke performed vivisections, including experiments with air-pumps. They did not agree with the beast-machine theory, and disliked the suffering caused to the animals, but still continued practicing vivisection.46 This became a common stance among vivisectors from the sixteenth century onward. It is reminiscent of Spinoza's attitude toward animals in that it denies moral consideration of animals not because they do not suffer but in spite of their suffering. It thus seems harsher than the Cartesian attitude, which at least tried to explain away animal suffering. One more important general comment to be made on early moder vivisection is the growing role of secular as opposed to theological reasoning in arguments for and against this practice. Both scientific and moral arguments concering animal suffering differed from ostensibly theological ones regardingman's stewardship of nature etc.47But this point should not be overemphasized, since it was precisely the traditional biblical cosmological outlook that "metamorphosed" and created the conditions for the new, more empirical and scientific attitude toward nature and the animals. The relative decline of the biblical anthropocentric outlook did enable the rise of some benign attitudes toward animals. But while biblical cosmology presented an anthropocentrism that viewed nature as secondary to man and thus did not encourage its empirical study, the emerging early moder cosmology retained a vague but firm notion of this religious anthropocentrism, now coupled with an "empirical anthropocentrism" impelling the physical study of nature.48This scientific drive was of course meant Quoted from ibid., 35-36; see also Guerrini,"Ethicsof Animal Experimentation,"406. 44Lindeboom,Descartes and Medicine, 64; and Maehle, "EthicalDiscourse,"205. 45Otto von Guericke,TheNew (So-Called)MagdeburgExperimentsof Otto von Guericke, tr. MargaretG. F. Ames (Dordrecht,1994), 143; also 77-81, 282-83, 335-41 (on extraterrestrial worlds and creatures). 46 See Guerrini,"Ethics of Animal Experimentation,"395-98, 400-402, 406; Harwood, Lovefor Animals, 98-114, esp. 103, 105-6, 111; Maehle, "LiteraryResponses,"33; and "Ethical Discourse," 205, 208-9; Maehle and Tr6hler,"Animal Experimentation,"20-21; Shugg, "HumanitarianAttitudes";Thomas, Man and the Natural World,174; and RichardD. Ryder, AnimalRevolution,ChangingAttitudestowardsSpeciesism(Oxford, 1989), 57; also Macintosh, "Animals, Morality and Robert Boyle"; Malcolm R. Oster, "The 'Beam of Diuinity': Animal Sufferingin the EarlyThoughtof RobertBoyle," BritishJournalfor the History of Science, 22 (1989), 151-79; and see also the remarksbelow. 47 See Maehle and Tr6hler,"Animal Experimentation,"21-22. 48See Harrison,"Animal Souls," 520. 43
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to serve the advancementof the humanrace. As noted above, even most antiaim anthropocentric philosophicalargumentshadthisultimatelyanthropocentric in mind and, furthermore,oppositionto animalsufferingcould even stem first and foremostfrom concernfor people, ratherthananimals. PeterHarrisonhas emphasizedthe predominanceof theological reasoning in seventeenth-centurydebateson animals,in my view a little too strenuously.49 The questionis not whetherreligious elements remainedculturallyimportant, since in one form or otherthey have remainedso to this very day. The issue is rathertheirrelativeimportancevis-a-vis more secular,empiricalreasoning.In this respect, as Harrisonhimself implies, religious elements in discussions of natureand the animalsremainedimportant,but their importancewas now not exclusive andwas boundup with suchrationalisticviewpoints,togetherforming a new type of anthropocentrism,even strongerthan before. The period circa 1700 was particularlyimportantin this respectas a time when this metamorphosis became increasinglyapparent.The very fact thatthe earlymodem debateon animalshadbeen definedby such new criteriaever since the time of Montaigne was evidence of this impendingchange. Indeed, one may even claim that the persistenceof theologicalreasoningin discussionsof animalsat this time was, if only partially,a dialecticalreactionto the overall decline of religion as the predominant intellectual force in western culture. In any event religious anthropocentrismwas now increasinglytied up with the rise of empiricismand as shown rationalism,creatinga new andeven moreemphaticanthropocentrism, If one vivisection. of than more else the perhaps by growingpopularity anything thus seeks to define the connectionbetweenthe beast-machinetheoryandvivisection, ratherthan speak of an influence of the formeron the latter,it would perhapsbe more to the point to claim that both phenomenaderived from this burgeoningnew formof anthropocentrism. It is againstthis backgroundthatChristiaanHuygens'sactivityas a vivisector shouldbe viewed. Of coursehis main activities were neitherin the realmof biology normedicine, andhis experimentson animalsheld no special scientific importance.But for an understandingof his attitudetoward animals they are crucial.Most of these experimentswere conductedduringthe 1660s and 1670s and involved experimentingwith animals in a void created by an air-pump. Huygensfirstbecame interestedin the air-pumpin 1661 while visiting London. He was interestedin Hooke's design for the instrumentandBoyle's experiments with it. In the following years he made importantcontributionsboth to the deHe also influenced its use by sign and experimentationwith this instrument.50
his remarkshere and in "Virtuesof Animals,"482-83, andpassim. See Alice Stroup,"ChristiaanHuygens & the Development of the Air Pump,"Janus, 68 (1981), 129-58. 49 Ibid., but see 50
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others,for instance,with his demonstrationsbefore membersof the Academie Royale des Sciences in Parisin 1668.51 WhatmakesHuygens'sactivityas a vivisectorinterestingas well as historically significantis that,despitehis theriophilicphilosophicalviews, his descriptions of experimentson animalsareextremelyfactualandincludeno substantial andclearreferenceto the sufferingof the animals.Of courseone may claim that these theriophilicviews were the productof his last years,long afterhis activity as a vivisector.But as we have seen, they mightjust as well have maturedin his mindat any time since his youth.They thusexhibita cognitivedissonancewhen superimposedwith his notes on vivisections. The closest Huygens seems to have come to exhibitingconcernfor a vivisected animalwas when he relatedconservingthe life of a small birdwhich had faintedin the air-pump,by quicklypulling a partof the machine.But even this descriptionis very unemotionalanddoes not seem to exhibitany kindof special concernfor the animal'ssuffering.52Huygens'stone in descriptionsof such experimentsis usually quite dry,and does not disclose the kind of moral qualms that certain other vivisectors expressed. There are several such factual references in his lettersandwritings.In a letterto his brotherLodewijk(30 NovemIt is probber 1661), he wrote of placing sparrowsand mice in an air-pump.53 the on tract in of these a one which he referred to air-pump,as ably experiments he describedan experimentmadeon 29 November 1661, in which a canarywas put in an air-pumpa few times until it died. The languageis unemotional: It [thecanary]did not yet appearvery uncomfortablethe firsttwo times, but then it began to pantand afterthatit leaned its head while blinking its eyes. Thenit revived,for an instantwas completelyalertandflapped its wings; but soon it againbecametranquilandfell unconscious,dead. Each time one saw it swell somewhat.54 Otherreferencesare similarlyunemotional,as when he relates a few days later,in anotherletterto Lodewijk,how he put a small bird in an air-pumpand how it died "justlike the one of which MonsieurBoyle related."55 Boyle's influence is evident in Huygens's letterseveralyears laterto HenryOldenburg,secretaryof the Royal Society in London,wherehe praisesBoyle's experimentson
51 Ibid., 139.
Huygens, letter to Sir RobertMoray (4 Jan. 1662), O.C., IV, 8. Ibid., III, 395. 54 Ibid., XVII, 312: "IIne parutpas encore tres incommode par les deux premierscoups, mais ensuite il commenca a haleter et apres cela il pencha la tete en clignotantdes yeux. Puis il se ranima, fut un instant completementen eveil et battit des ailes; mais bient6t il redevint tranquilleet tomba sans connaissance,mort. A chaquecoup on le voyait s'enfler quelquepeu." 55Ibid., III, 397, letter Dec. 1661). (7 52
53
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respiration and says that further experiments should be made in order to discover the role of air in animal nourishment and how it is transferredto the blood.56 Vivisections done with the air-pump at the Academie Royale des Sciences in 1668 are described in language that makes it unclear as to whether Huygens actually performed them himself, but it is clear that they were at least conducted under his supervision. The descriptive style is again factual and somewhat dry: We placed a live mouse in the recipient, which battling strongly the first time, when we pumped the air, appeared very feeble the second time, and the third, remained spread out without movement. We immediately restored the air to it, but it didn't move, and having been pulled out of the recipient, was found dead. Some time afterwards we conducted a dissection of it, and we remarked nothing extraordinary in its body, only the lung seemed a little withered.57 A similar experiment was conducted before the Academie several weeks later on a fish which didn't die in the air-pump, but was subsequently dissected. Again, the description is unemotional.58 Huygens's assistant Denis Papin published a book on the air-pump which probably described work done by, with or following Huygens.59The descriptions of vivisections there are likewise dry and factual.60 While Huygens performed vivisections mainly with the air-pump, it is not unlikely that he also performed other types of vivisections, or at least that he was not opposed to this practice. In a letter from Paris to Lodewijk in 1664 he relates having assisted in a dissection of one of three dogs which had earlier been subjected to a splenectomy. He does not seem to have performed the experiments but displays no aversion to them.61 It is clear that Huygens's practice of vivisection was not extraordinary in itself, even for someone evidently aware of the animals' capacity for feeling and suffering (assuming that he indeed opposed the beast-machine theory from an early date). But what seems strange is the fact that he expressed no hint of any
56
Ibid., VII, 44, letter (31 Oct. 1670). Ibid., XIX, 207 (experimentof 14 April 1668): "On a mis dans le recipient une souris vivante, laquelle s'estant fort debattuela premierefois, qu'on pompe l'air, parutfort affoiblie la seconde fois, et la troisiesme,demeuraetendueet sans mouvement.On luy redonnaaussytost de l'air, mais elle ne remuapoint, et ayant est6 tiree hors du Recipient, elle fut trouvee morte. Quelque temps apres on en fit la dissection, et on ne remarquarien d'extraordinairedans son corps, si ce n'est que le poumon sembloit estre un peu flestry." 58Ibid., XIX, 211 (experimentof 5 May 1668). 59 See Bell, ChristianHuygens, 215; and Stroup,"ChristiaanHuygens & the Development of the Air Pump," 135. 60 See Huygens, O.C., XIX, 231-33; the book was publishedin 1674. 61 Ibid., V, 60 (letter of 26 April 1664). 57
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sentimentregardingthe sufferinghe causedto animalsin his experiments.This in oppositionto certainotherseventeenth-century vivisectorswho werealso probably skepticalregardingthe veracityof the beast-machinetheory,even thoughit affordeda kindof moralappeasementregardinganimalsuffering.Probablythe most interestingcase in comparisonwith Huygens was RobertBoyle. As J. J. Macintoshhas shown, he too professeddistincttheriophilicviews but also performed vivisections.62However, there are importantdifferencesbetween him andHuygens.Boyle affirmeda muchmoreelaboratetheriophilicphilosophyat an early age, and later performedvivisections on a much larger scale than Huygens.Primafacie this seems to imply thathis case is even more indicative for our discussion than Huygens's. However, there remainsan importantdistinctionbetweenhim andHuygens:Boyle exhibitedclearsigns of awarenessand even concernfor the sufferinghe causedanimals,even if this hadlittleimpacton his experiments.Huygens as we have seen, exhibited almost no such signs of concern.One mightclaim thatthis was simply symptomaticof the fact thatboth discussionsof animalsandvivisection were much less centralto Huygens'sactivity thanto Boyle's andfurthermorethat,unlikeBoyle, Huygensmay not have formed an opposition to the beast-machinetheory before the period when he conductedvivisections. Perhaps,butas we haveseen,thereis neverthelessa good chancethatHuygens may have formedhis opinionson this issue at an earlydate.In any event his lack of concernforthe sufferingof vivisectedanimalswas moreemphaticthanBoyle's. And even thoughhe didnot formulatehis theriophilicopinionson animalswithin a detailedtheoreticalsystem, they were clear and straightforwardenough as to appearinconsistentwith his vivisection activities. It is thereforeprecisely this seeming inconsistencythatmakesa discussionof his views on animalshistoriographicallyimportant. Onecouldof courseclaimthatthe seeminginconsistencieswithinHuygens's attitudetowardanimalsmake his views on this subjectextraordinary,i.e., historicallynon-indicativeof generaldevelopmentsand trends.But this is not the case. The dialecticaljuxtapositionof theriophilicand anti-theriophilicviews is one of the mainstaysof western man's attitudetowardanimals,indeed toward naturein general.The praiseof natureandthe animals,which did not participate in the Original Sin and were implicatedin it only because of man, was from biblical times accompaniedwith the view of man as the stewardand summitof nature.Man was sinful and relegatedwith criticism,but he was also the most perfectcreaturebeneaththe angels.63It is the tension inherentin this dialectical 62 See Macintosh, "Animals, Morality and Robert Boyle," and the sources cited, n. 46 above. 63See Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being, passim.
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dichotomy which may account for much of the intellectual energy diverted throughoutthe ages to questionsregardingman's attitudetowardnaturein general and the animals in particular.In this light it is not surprisingto note that while therearedistinctdifferencesbetweenmosttheriophilicandanti-theriophilic viewpoints,they also in manycases sharea commontheoreticalfoundationwith the notion of anthropocentrism.64 The modem conceptof "sustainabledevelopment,"an obviously anthropocentrically-motivated argumentfor natureconsera is of of current such a vation, thought. good example This dialecticaldichotomictension is particularlyevident in the scientific exploitationof animals,e.g., mainlyin vivisection.Even manyof those opposed to crueltreatmentof animalshave tendedfor centuriesto justify such crueltyif it is meant for a seemingly good cause, i.e., an anthropocentriccause. It thus becomes evident that many views usually consideredas theriophilicare also Indeedthis seems to havebeen the rulein the majority basicallyanthropocentric. of cases in the past and also in our own age. Seen in this light, expressions of concernfor animalsufferingby vivisectors could be viewed as signs of embarrassmentin the face of this dialecticaltension. Conversely,lack of such expressions by at least some of the othervivisectors could be viewed as simply a less tortuousacceptanceof this tension. What makes ChristiaanHuygens's attitudetoward animals interestingin this context is precisely such an apparentlack of conflict between his views as an opposer of the "absurdand cruel"Cartesianbeast-machinetheory and his activity as a vivisector seemingly oblivious to animal suffering. One may of coursesurmisethathe did have qualmsregardingvivisection,butdecisive proof of this seems to be lacking.Huygens thus seems initiallyto be portrayedas the exceptionratherthanthe rule,historicallyspeaking.However,as shouldby now be apparent,this is not the case. The scruplesand/orrecognitionof animalsufferingby othervivisectorshadin most cases only a mild influenceon theiractual experimentalactivity.It is precisely the matter-of-factreferencesto animalexperimentationevinced by Huygenswhich seem to have exemplifiedthe historically predominantattitudetowardthe exploitationof naturein generaland animals in particular.Natureand the animalsmay have been praisedin laudatory philosophical and artisticterms, but when it came to their actualphysical exploitation,the translationof theoreticalargumentsinto realitywas customarily forsaken. It is not that Huygens was oblivious to animal sufferingbut ratherthat he probablyregardedsuch sufferingas worthy of moral considerationonly when such considerationdid not contesthuman,anthropocentricneeds, such as scientific experiments.In this respecteven if he would have expressedregretat caus64 Exceptionalto this are certaincases of extremetheriophily,but these are relativelyrare. See Boas, Happy Beast, 1-2 and passim.
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ing animalsuffering,it probablywould not have mademuchdifferencefromthe practicalpoint of view of continuingto performvivisections. His awarenessof the feelings of animalsostensiblyexpressedin a differentcontextsimply accentuates this fact even more. Huygens's attitudetoward animals, while at first sight ambiguousand philosophically inconsistent,is thus perfectly consistent from the historicalperspective.Thereforein the end, his singularityin certain respects notwithstanding,he was an illustrativerepresentativeof the general westernhistoricalattitudetowardanimals. Haifa, Israel.
When
The
Ideas
Moral
Matter:
Philosophy of
Fontenelle
GregoryMatthewAdkins Introduction There has been a recent trend in the historiographyof seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuryintellectualcultureto analyzethatculturefroma sociological perspective. This perspective, a necessary corrective to a pure history of ideas, takes knowledge as a socially constructedphenomenonand thus subject to sociological analysis. The point of the sociology of knowledge, however, is not to re-hash and bolster old extemalist argumentsbut to do away with the whole debate over whether ideas or social conditions are more importantin intellectualhistory and the history of science. A focus on sociology does not mean that ideas do not matter.This becomes apparentwhen analyzingthe ethics of early modem intellectuals. For example, Anne Goldgar's recent work, Impolite Learning: Conduct and Communityin the Republicof Letters, 1680-1750 (1995), gives much attentionto the sociology of the seventeenth-andeighteenth-centuryRepublicof Letters-but at the cost of relegatingthe role of ideas to the sidelines. According to Goldgar,if one wants to understandearlymodem intellectualsas a community,includingtheirethics and sense of morality,one should focus on forms of sociabilityratherthanthe ideas andphilosophiesthey put forthin theirwritings. An aristocraticethic dominatedearlymodem scholarship,she argues,and even took precedenceover knowledge claims: "[i]n strivingto make its inner workings acceptableto the outside communitythe Republic of Letterschose, like the aristocracy,to empty its internalrelationshipsof content,choosing insteadto concentrateon form....[A]rgumentswere oftenjudged on the politeness with which they were presented,ratherthan on their intrinsicmerit."'Men of 'Anne Goldgar,ImpoliteLearning. Conductand Communityin the Republic of Letters, 1680-1750 (New Haven, 1995), 239-40.
433 Copyright2000 by Journalof the Historyof Ideas,Inc.
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letters,althoughoften of humble origin, cultivatednobility by emulatingaristocratic modes of decorum and noble interests in status and reputation.One way they promotedthese ideas was througha literarygenre adoptedfrom classical antiquity,the eloge (eulogy), which presentedexemplary modes of behaviorby praisingthe lives of the "heroes"of the Republicof Letters.Interestingly, the years on which Goldgar focuses her analysis almost precisely encompass the period of Bernardle Bouyer de Fontenelle's matureintellectual production.Yet Fontenelle (1657-1757), widely hailed during his lifetime as having perfectedthe artof the eloge, plays no role in her argument. From 1699 to 1740 Fontenelle, as secretaire perpetuel of the Academie Royale des Sciences, composed some sixty-nine eloges in honor of recently deceased membersof the academy and of other notable savants. Even a brief glance at Fontenelle's eulogies reveals an intimate link between philosophy andmorality.A more carefulexaminationof them in the context of his life and works shows thatthis link was logically commensuratewith his genuinelyheld notions of humannature,happiness,reason,and the good. In fact the relationship in the eulogies between notions of nobility and the virtues properto the savant or philosopher is highly intellectualized. Fontenelle was not as concerned with status and reputationor with self-fashioning as one might think.2 We can only assimilatehis ethics to those of the courtaristocracyif we ignore what he actuallywrote. Throughhis eulogies andotherwritings,Fontenelle'sthoughtson philosophy andmoralityhave had a lasting impacton westernculture.He presentedan image of what would come to characterizethe proper,objective, modem scientist andthinker.3In orderto understandthe eloge as an institutionin the Republic of Letters(and by extension the early moder intellectualethic) it is therefore importantto examine Fontenelle'smoralphilosophymore carefully.It is a philosophyexpressedin his eulogies but understoodclearly only in the context of his life and works. On the Eloges As noted above, one way to contextualizethe institutionof the eloge is to place it withina Republicof Lettersconcernedwith adoptingthe mannersof the nobility:the eloges become a way of instructingsavantsto be poll andhonnete. Yet they make no sense at all unless seen as partof the neoclassical tradition, 2Commentatorshave noted this of thinkersin Fontenelle's
age in general. See for example AnthonyLevi, FrenchMoralists: The Theoryof the Passions, 1585-1649 (Oxford, 1964). 3 See, for example, Fontenelle's eloge for de Lemery: "C'est une louange qui appartient assez g6enralementa cette espece particuliereet peu nombreusede gens que le commerce des sciences eloigne de celui des hommes." Oeuvres Completes, ed. G.-B. Depping (Paris, 1818; repr.Geneva,1968), II, 193 (cited as "OC").
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which does not always mesh nicely with the above interpretation.By the time of Fontenelle, neoclassicism was a predominantfashion in art, architecture, drama,and literature.Although fashionablesince the ItalianRenaissancehad "arrived"in Francein the fifteenthcentury,the promotionof neoclassicalmodes became a veritable state programduringthe reign of Louis XIV. By the later seventeenthcenturythe monarchyhad mobilized the arts as never before for the display of the gloire of the Sun King. The monarchy actively promoted classical models as expressive of the orderand harmonyit wanted to symbolize. The eloges were partof this neoclassical enterprise.It is thereforeno accident thatthe elegiac traditionfound its way into the Academie Royale des Sciences-one of the many academies MinisterColbertestablishedto reflect the glory of the absolutemonarchyand of Louis XIV.4 InScienceandImmortalityCharlesPaulexploresthe institutionof the eloges in theAcademieRoyaledes Sciences,examiningtheirbeginningwith Fontenelle and their evolution throughhis three successors as secretaire perpetuel: J.J. Dortous de Mairan,J.P.Grandjeande Fouchy, and the Marquisde Condorcet. Paul also points out the connectionsbetween philosophyor science andmorality made in the eloges. As Paul demonstrates,the panegyricaltraditionof classical antiquitywas primarilya rhetoricalandoratoricalpracticewith mimetic,ethicalintent,aimed at representingthe moralbehaviorof dead heroes so that it could be emulated by the living. Therefore,even though eulogies told of the lives of heroes, they were not biographicalin the critical sense as we might understandit today. Furthermore,the eulogist was limited to a stock of topoi, or class of topical arguments,which could illustratethe ethicalintentof his rhetoric.For instance, he might employ a type of mock humilityin the formalexordiumof the eulogy in order to convince his audience it should listen for the virtues of "X."5In other words panegyricturnedaway or "troped"from "realistic"discourse (in the sense of following formalrules of logic) and foundrefuge in certaintropes, or moods, or figures of speech. The purposeof the panegyricwas to be useful to the present,not to be a truerepresentationof the past;its auditorsunderstood this and acceptedit, while still enjoying the "truth"of the rhetoricitself. Likemanyof his contemporarymenof letters,Fontenellewouldhave learned the classical traditionof panegyric and accepted topoi as part of his study of rhetoricat his Jesuitcollege.6As a result,Paul implies, Fontenelle'snotions of
4 See PeterBurke, TheFabrication of Louis XIV(New Haven, 1992). 5 Charles Paul, Science and Immortality:The Eloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1699-1791) (Berkeley, 1980), 5-8; also VolkerKapp, "Les Qualites scientifique et le prestige social des sciences dansles eloges academiquesde Fontenelle,"in Fontenelle,Actes du colloque tenu a Rouen du 6 au 10 octobre 1987, ed. Alain Niderst (Paris, 1989), 435-40. 6 See Alain Niderst, Fontenelle (Paris, 1991), 14-15.
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how and what virtuesto praise derived directly from the classical rhetoricians Plutarch,Cicero, Quintillian,and the rest. As much as Fontenellewas steeped in the classical tradition,however, he was acutely awareof the differencesbetween his time andantiquity.In accordancewith whathe thoughtwas appropriate for his own day, he had no qualms aboutdivergingfrom the classical panegyricaltraditionand strikinga betterbalancebetween a biographicaland ethical purpose for the eloge. His eulogies often went into great detail on the life and works of each savant. Nevertheless, he always kept sight of the ultimate goal: to idealize the moralityof the savantshe eulogized. Arguing that we should not overvalue his "modernity," Paul links Fontenelle'smoralphilosophyto those virtuesappropriateto the classical panegyrical tradition,especially those expressed in Plutarch'spopularLives of IllustriousMen. In otherwords the virtuesthat Plutarchpraises in the heroes of antiquityare the same ones that Fontenellepraises in the "Plutarchianheroes" of eighteenth-century intellectualculture.Justlike Plutarch'sCoriolanus,Marcus Cato, and Setorius, Fontenelle's savants embodied stoic fortitude;and like Pericles, Solon, and Lycurgus,they possessed an overwhelmingsense of duty. They expressed "temperanceand equanimity"and "courageand resolution." Furthermore,they were endowed with the pastoral,Arcadianvirtues of "simplicity, humility,honesty,want of ambition,poverty,austerity,and frugality."7 There is nothing particularlyaristocratic(in the sense of a desire for glory) aboutthese virtues-sometimes they arequitethe opposite.Fontenelle'seloges most clearlycelebratean uncultured,Edenicgoodness, associatedwith his own mythic notions of the shepherd's life, a life uncorruptedby civilization and commercewith humanity.8 For instance,the affable and modest Vincenzio Viviani "hadan innocence andsimplicityof mannersthatone finds ordinarilyin those who have less commercewith men thanwith books."9Guillaumede Amontonshad a "simplicity,a frankness,anda candorthata minimumof commercewith men can conserve."'0 Philosophy somehow engenderedan Arcadianfreedomfrom the corruptionof modem, secularlife. In so doing it enabledmen to overcomethe violentpassions thatgovernedthe lives of most, and achieve a truetranquillityof soul. Indeed, the mannersof Pierre-Sylvainde Regis were "suchas the study of philosophy can form, when it does not find too much resistance from the natureof the man.""As for Emfroi Walterde Tschimhaus,"the true philosophy had pen7Paul, Science and Immortality,89-93. 8 See OC, III, 51-69, "Discourssur la naturede l'eglogue." 9 OC, I, 62: "I1 avait cette innocence et cette simplicite de moeurs que l'on conserve
ordinairement,quandon a moins de commerceavec les hommes qu'avec les livres." 10OC, I, 81: "unesimplicite,une franchiseet une candeur,que le peu de commerceavec les hommes pouvait conserver." " OC, I, 95: "Les moeurs de Regis etaient telles que 1'etudede la philosophie les peut former,quandelle ne trouvepas trop de resistancedu c6ot de la nature."
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etratedinto his heart,andhad establishedtherethatdelicious tranquillitywhich is the greatestbutthe least soughtof all goods."'2Likewise,GuillaumeHomberg had achieved"thattranquillityof soul,"so thathe was "freeof the tumultof the passions." In fact "A sound and peaceful philosophy had disposed him to accept without troublethe differentevents of his life, and it renderedhim incapable of those agitationsto which we are so subjected."13 Even those with whom Fontenelle did not agree were worthy of tranquillity if they devoted their lives to philosophy. Isaac Newton, whose physics Fontenelle strongly opposed, possessed the virtues of modesty and humility, "augmentedby the wise simplicity of his life."'4The tranquilgeometerPierre de Varignonhad a characterwhich "was as simple as his superiorityof mind was able to ask."Indeed,Fontenellewas very clearthatit was philosophyitself which induced receptive men to the good: "I have already given this same praise to so many persons in this academy that one might believe this merit pertainsmore to our science than to our savants."' Those who practicedphilosophy were by thatvery act elect, andof the elect those who attaineda life of perfect contemplativevirtue achieved sainthood.Of Jean-Baptistedu Hamel, his predecessoras secretaireperpetuel,Fontenellefoundhimself (rhetorically) at a loss for words. He could not express the virtues of the man "becausethis would be the panegyricof a saint."Nevertheless,he quicklyrecoveredhis composure and remarked,"One saw easily that his humility was not mere acting, but a sentimentfoundedon science itself."'6 Fontenelleexpressedwhathe idealizedas the innatevirtuesof savantswith a literarygrace hardlyrevealed in the excerpts I have translatedhere. What is more, a unified vision of the intellectualvirtuesrunsthroughouthis eloges, as I have tried to demonstrate.Paul links Fontenelle's virtues to the Plutarchian ideals necessitated by the topoi of the panegyrical tradition,but I think we should take this analysis somewhatfurther.Fontenelle'snotion of the intellectual virtues as articulatedin the eloges is not merely bound up in Plutarchian tropes,andthe pastoralaspectof the virtuesrequiresmore attention.We should be carefulnot to over-contextualizeFontenelle'sideas,thusfreezingthemwithin 1, 132: "la vraie philosophie avait p6entr6jusqu'a son coeur, et y avait 6tabli cette delicieuse tranquillite,qui est le plus grandet le moins recherch6de tous les biens." 13 OC, I, 201: "Une philosophie saine et paisible le disposait a recevoir sans trouble les diff6rensevenemens de la vie, et le rendaitincapablede ces agitationsdont on a, quandon veut, tant de sujets.A cette tranquillit6d'ame tiennentnecessairementla probiteet la droiture:on est hors du tumultedes passions." 14OC, I, 402: "augment6eencore par la sage simplicite de sa vie." 15OC, I, 337: "Son caractereetait aussi simple que sa superiorit6d'esprit pouvait le demander.J'ai deja donn6cette meme louange a tant de personnesde cette acad6mie,qu'on peut croire que le merite en appartientplut6t a nos sciences qu'a nos savans." 16 OC, I, 88-89: "il faudraitmaintenantle repr6senter comme homme, et peindreses moeurs: mais ce seraitle pan6gyriqued'un saint.... On voyait ais6mentque son humilit6etait, non pas un discours,mais un sentimentfonde sur sa science meme." 12 OC,
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their own history and preventingthem from saying anything.For Fontenelle the true savant exists in the realm of truth,having overcome, not denied, the woes of earthlyexistence by perfectinghis own humannature.There is a personal psychology at work here, in combinationwith a clear understandingof the Platonic-Aristotelianphilosophicaltraditionanda seriousengagementwith a Stoicism greatlyrevived in sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuryFrance.17 On HumanNature Fontenelle was not a systematic philosopher;he worked out no unified philosophy of ethics, epistemology, or metaphysics.He was a litterateur,and what he wrote was mostly literature.This does not mean he did not have a philosophy,or thathe was incapableof engaging in the philosophicalissues of his day. It was no doubt precisely his ability to discuss philosophy in a clear, engaging, literarystyle that earnedhim the position of secretaireperpetuel in the Academie Royale des Sciences. Who betterto write the historyof the academy than one of the foremostwritersof the day? Fontenelle developed his notions of human natureat a fairly young age (beginningin his midtwenties),andtheyremainedsurprisinglyconstantthroughout his life. In short,his philosophy of humannatureis pessimistic, but it is a mitigatedpessimism. One historiancleverly names this philosophy"naturalistic fatalism,"but let us not be led by philosophicjargonto inferthatFontenelle came to his conclusions in pure, contemplativeisolation from life. In works such as Nouveaux dialogues des morts, "Discours sur la patience," "Du Bonheur,"and in his discussions of poetry, I think we can see him wrestling with and working throughpersonal questions:Why am I a failure?Why am I unhappy?What is the meaning of my life? His philosophy is embedded in a particularseventeenth-centuryChristian,literatecontextandis heavily engaged with neo-Stoicism, but in the end he is asking and answering real, personal questions about his life. We can speculate that his philosophy, or the disaffected angst only partiallysubmergedbeneathit, had somethingto do with his formativeyears, when he was Bernardle rate-Berard the failure. Fontenelle's father,FranCois,was a lawyer at the Parlementof Rouen, and so it seemed practicallypreordainedthatyoung Bernardwould follow him into the vocation. Fontenellestudiedlaw andrhetoricat the Jesuitcollege in Rouen, The revival of Stoicism in France owes much to Guillaume du Vair's La Philosophic morale des Stoiques (1641). See Levi, French Moralists; also Charles Taylor,Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge,Mass., 1989), 159; GerhardOestreich, Neo-Stoicism and the Early Modern State (Cambridge,1983); RobertEvans, Jonson, Lipsius, and the Politics of Renaissance Stoicism (Wakefield, 1992); MargaretOsler (ed.), Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity:Epicurean and Stoic Themes in European Thought(Cambridge, 1991). 17
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andby 1674, at seventeenyearsof age, he was acceptedinto the bar. He pleaded his first case thatyear-and lost. Of the possible mitigatingcircumstanceswe have no idea. Accordingto some interpretations,Fontenellehad never wanted to be a lawyer anyway and did not get along with his father(who was reputed to be little intelligent and of "boorishhumor").According to other stories, the courtwas eitherstruckby Fontenelle'seloquenceor,on the contrary,his speech faltered(which seems more likely).18At any rateFontenellerenouncedthe bar afterjust this one case. Not surprisingly,he soon foundhimself out of his father's house, and on the roadto Paris-apparently to try his luck as a man of letters. He did not have the means to remainin Parison a permanentbasis until the late 1680s, but from 1675 on he spent as much time there as possible. FortunatelyforFontenelle,his mother'sbrotherswerethe famousComeilles: Pierre,dramatistand authorof such works as Le Cid, andThomas,editorof the literaryjournal, Mercuregalant. In Paris Fontenelle rubbedelbows with the literaryelite, the libertines,and the erudits,and he was an especial favoriteof the precieuses, the hostesses of the salons. More importantly,Fontenelle had the Mercuregalant as a literaryoutlet. Normally authorshad to pay to have theirworks publishedin the Mercure.Fontenelle,of course, did not. Throughout the 1670s and 80s his poetry and literarypieces appearedregularlyin the journal.This is not to say he had achieved success on his own merits. In 1676 he submitteda piece for the poetryprize at the Academie Francaise-and lost, once again. (Consequently,the Academy became a particularobsession with him:he triedand failed fourtimes to be admitted,before finally being accepted in 1691. Of course, by this time his uncle Thomas was the Chancellorof the Academy.)Perhapsworse, his firstattemptat a tragedy,I 'Aspar(1680), flopped miserably,andRacinehimself heapedcriticismupon it. Humiliated,Fontenelle burnedthe manuscript,and the last of his optimism,and retreatedto Rouen.'9 It was thereforean ironynot lost on Fontenellethathe finally achievedreal literaryrecognitionfor a work writtenin self-imposed exile back in Rouen, a workwhich revealeda deep, satiricalpessimismaboutthe humancondition,the Nouveauxdialogues des morts(1683). Modeled on the originalsecond-century Dialogues of the Dead, Fontenelletook the role of a new Lucian.Throughthe mouthsof the famousdead,Fontenellesatirizedthatwhich most maddenedand tormentedhim-all truthwith malice in it, all the subtledemonismsof life and thought.Whenhe proclaimedthathumanswere selfish andstupidandgoverned by their passions, he was speaking of himself, too. It was his ambitions,his passions,andhis stupidity,which hadled him to abandonthe practiceof law and set him on a course for seeming failureas a man of letters.Therefore,men were
18
See Niderst,Fontenelle, 13-19.
19OC, I, vi; Niderst,Fontenelle, 50-52.
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fools if they thoughtreason could dominatethe passions.20Perhapsthis was what he had learnedfrom his one case as a lawyer:the courtswere where one was supposedto overcome the passions with reasonedarguments,and yet his own human nature,his fear and lack of self-confidence, had caused him to stammerand falter-and fail. Humans,he saw, are essentially passionateanimals, and it was upon this fundamentalpremise of human nature(the exact opposite of Aristotle's) that Fontenelle built his ethics, using Aristotle's own logic. In the guise of Anacreon, the Dionysian lyric poet, he thereforemocked Aristotle'sdictum"Manis manby reasonalone."RebuffingAristotle'spatronizing banterconcerninghis interestin wine and song, Anacreonreplies, "It is more difficultto drinkand sing as I have sung and I have drunkthanto philosophize as you have philosophized.For to sing and drinkas I, it would be necessary to have cleared your soul of violent passions, no longer to aspire to that which does not dependon us, to be disposed to take each day as it comes."21 Fontenellesaw thatit was passion, especially aspiration,thatled to unhappiness, at least his own. If one could follow the advice of the Stoics and maintain a stoic apathytowardthe differentevents of life, then one could achieve happiness.But nothingcould be more difficult;even the metaphysicalphilosophizing of Aristotle pales in comparison.This is because man is man by passion, with perhapsa smatteringof reasonin passion's service. In fact even as he admiredthe Stoic admonitionto disavow the desires, Fontenellewas not sure such a disavowal could be possible or for the good: It is the passions which make and unmakeall. If reasondominatedthe earth, nothing would happen. They say that pilots fear passive seas, wherethey arenot able to sail, most of all andthatthey wantwind, even at the riskof a tempest.The passionsarefor men as the winds which are necessaryto puteverythingin motion,even if they often cause storms.22
See Levi, TheFrench Moralists, NannerlKeohane,Philosophy and the State in France. The Renaissance to the Enlightenment(Princeton, 1980), and Albert O. Hirschman,The Passions and the Interests:Political Argumentsfor the CapitalismbeJoreits Triumph(Princeton, 1977). 21 OC, II, 179: "Vouspr6tendezrailler;maisje vous soutiens qu'il est plus difficile de boire et de chantercommej'ai chant6et commej 'ai bu, quede philosophercommevous avez philosophe. Pourchanteret pourboire comme moi, il faudraitavoir degage son ame des passions violentes, n'aspirerplus a ce qui ne dependpas de nous, s'etre dispose a prendretoujoursle temps comme il viendrait." 22 OC, II, 215: "Ce sont les passions qui font et qui d6fonttout. Si la raison dominaitsur la terre,il ne s'y passeraitrien. On dit que les pilotes craignentau dernierpoint ces merspacifiques ou l'on ne peut naviguer,et qu'ils veulent du vent, au hasardd'avoir des tempetes.Les passions sont chez les hommes des vents qui sont necessairespourmettretout en mouvement,quoiqu'ils causent souvent des orages." 20
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In fact Fontenelle begins to sound almost Nietzschean in his claim that the apotheosisof reasonmight kill life: [Nature]has put men on the world to live, andto live means not knowing what we do most of the time. When we discover the small importance of what we do and what concerns us, we steal from natureher secret: then we become too wise and no longer want to act, and this naturedoes not find good.23 In other words humans must have the capacity to live irrationally.We must believe thatwhat we do has meaningor thatthings are as they seem even if our reasontells us otherwise-else we risk a crisis of being thatwould freeze us in our tracks. By definingman as a creatureof passion (thusrejectingthe Cartesianview of man as a thinkingthing and the Aristotelianview of man as a rationalcreature),Fontenelleabsolvedhimself of his failures.He was boundto fail because he was bound to desire and to aspire.Indeed, in his view passion becomes the motor of history,the cause of human actions, both evil and good: "All great deeds which men were compelled to do were done without reason. The order which nature seeks is always enforced...."24To deny one's essential nature, then, is to act unnaturally-in Stoic terminology,not to be in accordancewith nature, and thereforenot to be virtuous. In Stoicism, with which Fontenelle was certainlyin dialoguehere, happiness(or at least Stoic indifference,or apathy) results only from being in accordwith nature.Not coincidentally,happiness is the second key element underlyingFontenelle's ethics. Like Aristotle, Fontenelleunderstandshappinessas the greatesthumangood, and virtuousor good behavioras necessarily in accordancewith happiness. In redefininghuman nature,however, Fontenelle had dug himself into a hole. If to act in accordancewith naturemeant surrenderingourselves to the passions,thenwe areboundforeverto desirethings"notup to us"-and thusto be cursedto unhappiness.It is for this reason,I think,thatthe Dialogues never arriveat a trulypositive closure.Fontenellewould eventuallyfindhis way out of this dilemmaby reworkingAristotle'sethics in light of his own view of human nature.This would, as it had for Aristotle,make philosophythatactivitywhich 23 OC, II, 224: "Elle a mis les hommes au monde pour y vivre; et vivre, c'est ne savoir ce fait la plupartdu temps. Quandnous decouvronsle peu d'importancede ce qui nous l'on que occupe et de ce qui nous touche, nous arrachonsa la natureson secret:on devienttropsage, et on ne veut plus agir;voila ce que la naturene trouvepas bon." 24 OC, II, 242-43: "toutes les grandes actions qui doivent etre faites pas les hommes se trouventfaites: enfin, l'ordreque la naturea voulu etablirdans l'univers va toujoursson train." Marsak'stranslation.See LeonardMarsak,Bernardde Fontenelle: The Idea of Science in the French Enlightenment(Philadelphia,1959), 9.
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induces virtue and happiness. But in 1683 Fontenelle had not yet built this intellectualbridge, and his pessimism dominated.Whathope is therefor man, he thought,doomedto unhappinessand kept in ignoranceby the very natureof his being? In the guise of Montaigne,Fontenellelaughsat Socrateshimself for believing men might have ever improvedtheir nature:"Men of all centuries have the same penchants,over which reason has no power at all. Thus, everywhere where there are men, there are follies, and they are the same follies."2 Fontenelle was perhapsnever so harshon humannaturein the Dialogues thanwhen he spoke throughMoliere.WhenParacelsusasks him to whatuse he has put his study of humanfolly, Moliere quips, "I assemble in a certainplace the greatestnumberof people that I am able, and there I make them see that they are all sots."Amazed, Paracelsusasks how Molierecan possibly persuade them of such a thing, to which Moliere replies, Nothing is easier. One proves their folly to them without employing any greatfeats of eloquence, nor any well-consideredreasoning.What they do is so ridiculousthat it is necessary only to do as much before them, and you will soon see them burstout laughing.26 Thus,by theirvery naturehumansareproneto folly andfoolish behavior.In all his satire,however, Fontenelle reveals his great debt to Moliere. If anywhere, this is where he explains the point of the Dialogues-a point that is in its essence comediea la Moliere:"Inorderto laughat the world, it is necessaryto be in some fashionoutside of it, and comedy drawsyou from it: it gives you all of it as a spectacle,as if you had no partin it at all."27The Dialogues are cathartic; that is their charm, and probablywhy they sold so well. In explaining what humansareandlaughingat theiridiocy, Fontenellehadperhapsto some degree put himself beyond humanity,and thus he could feel he had escaped his own troublesfor a while. Even if the Dialogues ultimatelyoffered no answers,the laughterwas good medicine. Being a series of satiricalvignettes and not a sustainedargument,the Dialogues say manythings on differentsubjectsandare likely not meantto be read 25
OC, II, 190-91: "Les hommes de tous les siecles ont les memes penchans,sur lesquels la raison n'a aucunpouvoir.Ainsi, partoutou il y a des hommes, il y a des sottises, et les memes sottises." 26 OC, II, 246: "J'assemblaisdans un certain lieu le plus grand nombre de gens que je pouvais, et la je leur faisais voir qu'ils 6taient tous des sots.... Rien n'est plus facile. On leur prouve leurs sottises, sans employer de grands tours d'eloquence, ni des raisonnemensbien m6dites. Ce qu'ils font est si ridicule, qu'il ne faut qu'en faire autantdevant eux, et vous les voyez aussit6tcreverde rire." 27 OC, II, 247: "Pourrire des choses du monde, il faut en quelque facon en etre dehors, et la com6die vous en tire: elle vous donne tout en spectacle, comme si vous n'y aviez point de part."
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in such a unified manneras I have done. Doing so means riskingan interpretation thatperhapscould be questionedwith evidence internalto the text, since I In any case am necessarilypicking and choosing what best fits my argument.28 the tone of the Dialogues seems to me too harsh,too shrill at times, merely to be a disconnectedliteraryeffort in the libertine,skepticaltraditionof Moliere, or Cyrano de Bergerac, or even Montaigne.29Also, I mentioned above that Fontenellerecognizedthe irony of the Dialogues' success-that is the literary success of a work in which he explores andrails againstthe reasonsfor his own failure as a man of letters. Probablywith an ironic grin (the one we see in Rigaud'sportraitof him, for instance),Fontenelle himself anonymouslypublished a critique of the Dialogues the year after they appeared-entitled the Jugementde Pluton. It was a finaljoke on humanityas a whole, this time from the lips of the god of the underworldhimself. On Philosophy,Happiness,and Virtue AlthoughFontenelle'sphilosophyof humannaturebegan to solidify in the catharticoutpouringof 1683, no ethic had yet emerged. Nor could it. In the Dialogues the moral orderof the cosmos is thrownon its head. Good is bad, andbad is good: to be in accordancewith nature(i.e., to be a good human)is to be a passionateanimal,butthatprecludeshappiness.Accordingto theAristotelian tradition,happiness is a disposition of the soul in accordancewith goodness. Thus, if one is not happy,one is thereforenot virtuous-or not disposed towardthe good. This confused situationmirroredFontenelle'sinnerdisaffection. It is in his attemptto find happinessthat an ethic of intellectualnobility explicitly opposed to the honor-ethicof the courtnobility emerges. After the Dialogues des Morts Fontenelle's luck slowly began to change. He seemed to learnthat, despite his love of poetry and drama,his real literary gift was for satire,comedy, and philosophy.He was at his best when seriously consideringphilosophyin a satirical,comedictone.Not long aftertheDialogues, he publishedthe work that would bring him fame into the twentiethcentury: Entretienssur la pluralite des mondes (1686). Certainlyinfluencedby Cyrano de Bergerac'ssatirical1'Histoirecomiquedes etats et empiresde la lune (1657) and I'Histoire comique des etats et empires du soleil (1662), Fontenelle earnestly consideredthe possibilityof life on otherplanets-but alwayswith an eye to satiricalcommentaryon science andphilosophy itself. Cast in the form of a dialogue with a young marquise,Fontenelle commentedwryly in the preface,
28 LeonardMarsak,Bernardde Fontenelle, 8-12, offers a somewhatmorepositive interpretation of the Dialogues. 29 See Niderst,Fontenelle a la Recherchede lui-meme(Paris, 1972).
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Despite his newfound success, Fontenelle's view of human nature had not changed:humansare governedby theirpassions, and men would much rather chase afterbeautifulwomen than truthitself (Fontenellehad a reputationas a womanizer,so here againhe is laughingat himself). Philosophy,where it exists at all, must thereforebe a result of our passions and our ignorance:"All philosophy ... is based on two things only: curiosityand poor eyesight; if you had better eyesight you could see [the universe] perfectly..., and if you were less curiousyou wouldn't care aboutknowing,which amountsto the same thing."30 In generalthe Conversationson the Plurality of Worldsdemonstratesthe persistence of Fontenelle'snotions of humannatureandthe fact thatthey were not merely an isolated and internaldevelopmentof the Dialogues.3' We see that the Dialogues end rathersourly, with Fontenelle finding catharsisin laughter,but at the cost of having defined happiness(truehappiness, pleasureis anothermatter)out of the natureof man. Thatis, happinessbecame a state beyond mortalgrasp.To be in accordancewith nature,as Stoicism requires,means acknowledgingthat we are passionatecreatures,but by that acknowledgmentwe realize we cannot (as the Stoics suggest) "despise what is not up to us"-in fact we cannothelp but desire it. Thus, to be as we are means being cursedto unhappiness.This Fontenellefound insupportable.An initially unpublishedessay entitled"DuBonheur"can be read,therefore,as Fontenelle's attemptto climb out of the hole he had dug for himself. How could he retainhis view of humannature-a view he saw so self-evident everywherehe looked, especially when he looked inward-and yet salvage some hope of happinessin life? On Happiness ("Du Bonheur")is not an entirely clear piece. Fontenelle does not seem to be sure at times what he wants to do with it (whetherit should be a theoreticalanalysis or a practicalguide) or how he wants to define happiness (as a state of being, or a way of experiencingpleasure),but it comes togethernicely at the end as a thought-provokingsermon.Perhapsthis is why he
30Fontenelle,Conversationson thePluralityof Worlds,tr.H.A. Hargreaves(Berkeley,1990), 7, 11. 31 See Geoffrey Sutton,Sciencefor a Polite Society: Gender,Culture,and the Demonstration of Enlightenment(Boulder,1995), especially chapter5, "A PrettyNovel of Physics, in which cogito, ergo sum meets I'etat c'est moi," 143-87; see also S.J. Dick, Plurality of Worlds:The Origins of the ExtraterrestrialDebatefrom Democritusto Kant (Cambridge,1982).
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did not publish the essay immediately, even though it was written fairly early, most likely sometime in the late 1680s or around 1690-91.32 This work marks a further break from and at the same time a confirmation of some Stoic principles. Concerning Stoicism, Fontenelle repeated what he had argued in more depth in a 1687 essay "Discours sur la Patience" -namely that he rejected what he saw as the Stoic and Cartesian belief in a duality of mind and body. Humans are passionate animals, and one cannot imagine that their reason or their minds are separate from their bodies. Fontenelle therefore also rejected the Stoic notion that humans could disavow desire or ignore the evils that plagued them, by claiming these evils had no power to affect a human's true being (his mind): "When a Stoic, pressed by the sadness of a violent malady, cries out: I will not avow however that you are an evil; the effort that he would make to disavow it, is this not actually the strongest and sincerest avowal that can be made?"33Yet Fontenelle continued to believe, as the Stoics, that humans could to a degree control their judgments on the world, and this enabled them to establish some control over their passions. "Du Bonheur" defines happiness as a state of being, "a situation such that one desires it to last with changing."34Thus it is not the same thing as pleasure, which is merely an agreeable sensation that quickly passes. Nor is it simply caused by pleasures, since some people may experience many pleasures and never find happiness, while others live plain lives and are happy. True happiness is a state of psychological "immobility"; the only concern of he or she who achieves this state is to conserve it. The Stoics, explains Fontenelle, would say one can achieve this state by eliminating desires, by not wanting things to be other than they are. This is folly, Fontenelle argues, for it requires us to maintain "the ridiculous and useless vanity that we are invulnerable."35That is, it requires us to maintain the vanity that
32 Thereareno clear indicationsI have seen of when Fontenellewrote the essay. It was only
published in 1724 in a collection of diverse works all writtenmore than twenty years before. I suggest he wrote it in the 80s, or at most the early 90s, based on its congruencewith severalother works from the late 80s. The issues the essay raises, and especially the languageit uses link it to a 1687 essay, "Discourssur la Patience"(for which Fontenelle won the Academie Fran9aise's prize for eloquence) as well as to his 1687 essay on the natureof the Eglogue (a poem in which shepherdsconverse). The appearanceof"Du Bonheur"in 1724 along with other early essays seems a ratherself-indulgentafterthought-perhaps the act of a famous and elderly writer(he was in his late sixties) publishinghis memoirs for the benefit of his public. 33 OC, II, 370: "Quandce Stoicien, press6 par la douleurd'une maladie violente, s'6criait, en s'adressanta elle: Je n'avoueraipourtantpas que tu sois un mal; cet effortqu'il faisaitpourne le pas avouer,ce d&saveumeme apparent,n'&tait-cepas un aveu et le plus fort et le plus sinc&re qui pft jamais etre?" 34 OC, II, 378: "On entend ici par le mot de bonheurun &tat,une situationtelle qu'on en desiratla dur6esans changement." 35 OC, II, 379: "la ridicule et inutile vanit6 de nous croireinvuln6rables."
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we are essentially thinkingthings who only happento have bodies underour complete control.If happinessexists at all, and it is not the resultof an elimination of nor a total abandonmentto the passions, then necessarily it must find itself in a moderationof the passions. Here Fontenellebegins to approachthe elitist, even aristocratic,notions (in anAristoteliansense) we find in his eloges: most people are of such a characterand disposition that they will never be happy,but thereare some few "calm and moderate"people "who accept more willingly agreeableideas and impressions:these people can work usefully to make themselves happy."36 They are ultimatelythe good, virtuous,and philosophic people, and thus by extension a sort of intellectualnobility, although perhapsmore in the priestly thanthe knightly sense. In orderto moderatethe passions and approachhappiness one must first cleanse the soul "andchase away all evil fantasies."37 Thatis, throughcontemplation it is possible to distinguishbetween what we imagine to be misfortune or what we imaginedeserves our desires andpassions, which, however,are not real at all, and what truly deserves our attention.Fontenelle's prose sounds somewhatmuddledat this point. Essentially,however,he is arguingthatpeople often imagine things to be worse than they are, or they fail to recognize the good they have, always desiringwhat areperceivedas greaterandbettergoods: "they do not deign to stop and taste those [goods] that they have; often they abandonthem in orderto runafterthose they do not have."38In otherwords all thatwhich we could desire to make us happy,the "smallgoods," are cheap and readilyavailable;butmany,optingfor immoderation,allow desireforperceived greatergoods to governthem.The implicitassumptionhere is thatthe object of all desire is the good, and it is the properperceptionof what is truly good that brings happiness,not merely the fleeting pleasuresof the false-goods. Here Fontenelle makes an explicit break with courtly life and its aristocraticmorality,denying it is a truegood, a properobject of desire. If we examine the perceived greatergoods, he argues, the objects of our violent desires, we often find they melt away underthe illumination: Why this statusthat I pursue?Is it necessary?It is if it is necessaryto be elevatedabove othermen. But why is this necessary?It is to receive respect and homage from others. But what do I get from this respect and homage? Men will flatterme very obviously. But how will they flatterme, when I owe the flatteryonly to my status,andnot to myself?
36 OC, II, 380: "I1en reste quelques-unes,doux et moderes,et qui admettentplus volontiers les idees ou les impressionsagr6ables:ceux-1apeuventtravaillerutilementa se rendreheureux." 37OC, II, 380: "chassetous les maux imaginaires." 38 OC, II, 384: "on ne daigne pas s'arretera goiter ceux que l'on poss&de;souvent on les abandonnepour courirapresceux que l'on n'a pas."
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... Often our idea of happiness is much too complex. How many things, for example, would be necessary in order to make a courtier happy?The creditof the ministers,the favor of the King, considerable establishments[i.e., estates] for him and his children, luck at games, faithfulmistresseswho flatterhis vanity;finallyeverythingwhich could representto him an imaginationunrestrainedand insatiable?3 It is a matterof calculation,says Fontenelle:how much do we value those pleasuresonly gainedthroughimmoderatedesires, andhow do we weigh them againstthe pain we must endurein orderto obtainthem, and againsttheirinstability in time?How arethey worthit when the simplepleasures,"tranquillityof life, association,hunting,reading,etc.... will always be pleasurable,and cost nothing? Immoderatemen might find these simple pleasures insipid, ... but what they call insipid, I call tranquillity... what idea do they have of the human conditionwhen they complain of being only tranquil?It is the most delicious state that I can imagine."40 An ethic is emerginghere,basedon a particularconceptionof humannature andman'sproperorientationtowardthe good; and it is set preciselyagainstthe honor-ethicof the court.The good is not the achievementof being throughrecognition in court society-according to whatever criteriathat society establishes as necessary for recognition,be it politesse and honneteteor something else-but is individualistic:it is whateverallows one to be well andwhole within one's self. The objectof ourdesiresandpassions shouldbe thatwhich bringsus the innertranquillityof being ourselvesas sovereignindividuals.The influence here of Montaigneis clear.Fontenelle advocates a retreatinto the self, as did Montaigne.He chooses the mode of being and advocatesthe kind of reflection Montaigneinaugurated-indeed,a separatebut similarline of thoughtaboutthe Even Fontenelle'srealization modem self thanthe one Descartesarticulated.41 39 OC, II, 385, 386: "Pourquoicette dignit6 que je poursuism'est-elle si necessaire?C'est qu'il faut etre elev6 au-dessus des autres. Et pourquoile faut-il? C'est pour recevoir leurs respects et les hommages. Et que me ferontces hommages et ces respects?Ils me flatteronttressensiblement.Et commentme flatteront-ils,puisqueje ne les devraiqu'a ma dignite, et non pas a moi-meme?... Souvent le bonheurdont on se fait l'idee, est trop compose et trop complique. Combiende choses, parexample,seraientnecessairespourcelui d'un courtisan?du cr6ditaupres ministres, la faveur du Roi, des etablissemensconsid6rablespour lui et pour ses enfants, de la fortuneaujeu, des maitressesfideles et qui flatassentsa vanite;enfintoutce quepeutlui repr6senter une imaginationeffrenee et insatiable"(italics added). 40 OC, II, 385-86: "I1en fautreveniraux plaisirs simples, tels que la tranquillitede la vie, la soci6et, la chasse, la lecture, etc.... Les gens accoutumesaux mouvemens violens de passions, trouverontsans doute fort insipide tout le bonheurque peuventproduireles plaisirs simples. Ce qu'ils appellent insipidite, je l'appelle tranquillite... Mais quelle idee a-t-on de la condition humaine,quandon se plaint de n'etre que tranquille?et l'etat le plus delicieux que l'on puisse imaginer." 41 See NannerlKeohane, Philosophyand theStatein France, 83-116, andTaylor,TheSources the 177-84. Self, of
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that it is moderationthat is the key to finding the good and achieving inner tranquillityechoes Montaigne,for example in his essay "On moderation."42 Fontenelle was quite awarehe was articulatingan ethical position in "Du Bonheur"-the notion of happiness has rested on ethical foundationsat least since Aristotle.As the essay drawsto a close, Fontenellewrites grandly,"The greatestsecretto happinessis to be well with one's self. Naturallyall the troublesome accidents which come from outside ourselves throw us back into ourselves. It is good to have an agreeableretreat,but the self is only able to be so if it is preparedby the hand of virtue."43 Virtuein this ethic, however, is naturally founded on notions of a sovereign self. We must not be ashamedof our self when we retreatthere for reflection and contemplation-it is not an issue of sociability. Virtue is conducive neither to riches nor elevation, Fontenelle writes,butbrings"aninfalliblecompensation:interiorsatisfaction."One therefore "finds in one's own reason and integritythe greatestdepths of happiness for which othershope in the caprice of chance."44 The ironic strandof Fontenelle's position is that even as he argued for withdrawalinto the self and rejectionof courtly life, he achieved worldly success and high regardin the Frenchabsolutiststate. In fact Fontenelle'slife and philosophyreadas an allegory of the ancientChristiandilemmaof how to live in the world andyet not be touchedor corruptedby it. Perhapsthis is the influence of his Jesuit educators.Like the mendicantorders,the Jesuitswalked the line betweenthe sacredandthe secular:they were in the secularworldto spread the gospel and the truth,but (ideally) they eschewed materialpossessions and worldly ambitionslike the regularclergy. Thus consideredincorruptible,they earnedthe esteem of rulers,who gave them administrativepositions in government. Likewise, Fontenelle's rejectionof courtly life earnedhim the favor of the Frenchstate. Was he too consideredincorruptible? I think it is becoming clear that Fontenelle'sattemptto achieve happiness within a particularnotion of humannatureinvolved the articulationof an individualistic ethic with its own type of moralityand virtues.And what are these
42 Montaigne,"OnModeration,"TheCompleteEssays, tr.M.A. Screech(New York, 1991), 222-23: "I have seen one of our greatnoblemen harmthe reputationof his religion by showing himself religious beyond any example of men of his rank ... I like natureswhich are temperate andmoderate.Even when an immoderatezeal for the good does not offend me, it still stunsme." 43 OC, II, 387: "Leplus grandsecretpourle bonheur,c'est d'etrebien avec soi. Naturellement tous les accidens f'acheuxqui viennent du dehors, nous rejettentvers nous-memes, et il est bon d'y avoirune retraiteagreable;mais elle ne peut l'etre si elle n'a ete prepareeparles mains de la
vertu."
44OC, II, 387: "Maisune recompenseinfaillible pour elle, c'est la satisfactioninterieure... On trouvedans sa propreraisonet dans sa droitureun plus grandfonds de bonheurque les autres n'en attendentdes caprices du hasard."
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virtues? They are moderation,simplicity, humility,and a focus on the sovereign self and its own tranquillity-in other words, exactly those virtues Fontenellepraises savantsfor exhibiting in his eloges. It is philosophy itself that induces these virtues, leading throughcontemplation to a proper recognition of the good. Fontenelle's notion of the good may consist in a modem, individualisticorientationinward, toward the self, but the role he gives philosophy drawson an ancienttraditionperhapsinaugurated by Plato and articulatedmost clearly in Aristotle's Ethics. In fact "Du Bonheur"follows many of the argumentsof the NichomacheanEthics with strikingsimilarity.The significantdifferenceis in the definition of humannature. A brief digressionon Aristotle'sNichomacheanEthics revealsthe parallels and divergences of Aristotle's and Fontenelle's moralphilosophies, and demonstrateswhy philosophyplays a centralrole in inducingvirtuefor Fontenelle. In the Ethics Aristotledefines the telos of humanlife as happinessitself: "what is the highest of all practicalgoods? Well, so faras the name goes thereis pretty general agreement.'It is happiness' "(I.iv). Like Fontenelle,Aristotle argues that happinessis not the same thing as pleasure. It is "an activity [or disposition] of the soul in accordancewith virtue,"by which he means the "best and most perfect kind" of virtue. Note that "virtue"is a translationof the Greek arete (excellence), which denotes the abstractnoun for agathos, or "good."45 So happiness consists in acting or being in accordancewith goodness. Both AristotleandFontenellerejectthe Platonicnotionthatthereis a universalGood. Aristotlearguesmerelythatthereis a "Goodfor man"(meaningall men) which is the ultimateobject of humanlife. Fontenelle might say there is a "good for me" and a "good for you," althoughthis is not clear.Aristotle links this human good to his notion of humannature:man is a rationalanimal(butremember,he means somethingentirelydifferentfrom a Cartesian"thinkingthing").Therefore, to be in accordancewith virtue, or goodness, is to be perfectly rational. Fontenelle of course rejects this notion of human nature,but his logic is the same as Aristotle's. For Fontenelleman is a passionateanimal,and so to be in accordancewith virtue,or goodness, is to be perfectlypassionate,thatis, not to give in to wild, violent, uncontrollablepassions but to be properlypassionate toward,or desirousof, what is trulygood, and thereforeconducive to tranquillity and happiness. Thus,forAristotle,the averagegood man is he (andforAristotlethe sexism is explicit) who bases his actionson reason.Here he meansreasonin the practical, calculativesense of choosingwell in the everydayactivitiesof life. The man of perfect goodness and thereforeof the highest moral character,however, is 45 JonathanBarnes,"Introduction" in the Ethics ofAristotle,tr.J.A.K.Thomson(New York, 1976), 36.
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more thanthis. In book VI, the "IntellectualVirtues,"Aristotlearguesthatthere aretwo distinctpartsto the rationalhalf of our souls:the "calculative"discussed above, and a higher"scientific"part(VI.i.). The calculativepartdeliberateson thatwhich is variable,but the scientificpartcontemplatesthe invariable,thatis, the Truthwith a capitalT. Thus, the "bestand most perfect"kind of virtue,accordingto which the soul must be disposedto achieve the highest happiness,is scientificcontemplation,orphilosophy(X.vii.). Becausephilosophyis the apprehension of "thehighest thingsthatcan be known,"its aim is nothingotherthan contemplationfor its own sake. Hence it "entailspleasuresthataremarvelousin purityandpermanence,"much like Fontenelle's"simplepleasures"(X.vii.). We mustrememberherethatAristotleconceives of this higherformof reasonnot as a procedurefor use in seekingknowledgeof Truthbut as the perceptionof Truth itself.Youcannotbe reasonablein theAristoteliansense andstill be wrongabout how things really are. Thus, contemplationof Truthhas no goal otherthanthe pleasureof purecontemplation.The best andmost virtuousman is the happiest manbecause manbecausehe is perfectlywise. Moreover,he is a "self-sufficient" he needs no others to confirm his virtuosity:"the wise man can practicecontemplationby himself, and the more wise he is, the more he can do it" (X.vii.). For Fontenellephilosophyas a contemplativeactivity plays the same role, but he works it out in accordancewith his own diametricallyopposed view of human nature,and a differentnotion of knowledge. In an unpublishedfragment on humanreasonhe rejectsthe notion of universals,arguingthatthey are merely linguistic constructs.He kept a basically representationalist,empiricist view of human reason: knowledge of the particularsof the world was possible.46Thus, for Fontenelleit is throughthe contemplativesearchfor the particulartruths(and thus the particulargoods) of the world that the philosopher finds the virtueto directhis naturalhumandesires towardthose objects proper for assuringhis happiness.We arealways impassionedby desire,butphilosophy induces us to desire those simple, permanentgoods that bring tranquillityandthe virtuesof the sovereignself. As he says in his eloge to Homberg,"Whoever has the leisure to think discovers nothingbetterthanto be virtuous."47 Conclusion and a Few Wordson Shepherds Ergo, for Fontenellethe most virtuousof men in his age, those heroes most worthy of eulogies, were savants and philosophers.Far from promotingany 46 See OC, II, 399-406. And see Marsak,Bernardde Fontenelle;J.-R. Carre,La Philosophie de Fontenelle,ou le sourirede la raison (Paris,1932;repr.Geneva, 1970);P.Flourens,Fontenelle, ou de la philosophie modernerelativementaux sciences physiques (Paris, 1847; repr.Geneva, 1971); F. Gregoire,Fontenelle: lunephilosophie desabusee (Nancy, 1947). 47 OC, I, 201: "quiconquea le loisir de penser, ne voit rien de mieux a faire que d'etre vertueux."
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sort of mimicry of the court nobility, Fontenelle all but invites the courtly to adopt the noble ethic of the learned if they want to discover true happiness, tranquillity,and the good life. If we take the eloge as instructionon moralbehavior and Fontenelle's eloges as the greatestexamples of them in his period, then we cannot ignore the ideas that underliethe virtues they propound.Any analysis of the eloges that includes no examinationof Fontenelle's ideas on human nature,happiness, and reason, therefore,will be deficient. In the end ideas do matter.Indeed, the intellectual origins of Fontenelle's ethics reveal more aboutthe concernsof earlymoder savantsthanan analysisof sociability and civility. True,there is often a gap between moral ideals and actualbehavior, but an examinationof sociability that does not take ideas into account assumes that there is no conscious ethical dimensionto civil behavior. In the debateover the role of the passions in humanlife Fontenelle stands at the bridgebetween the seventeenth-centurynotion thatthe passions must be constrainedto ensurehappinessandharmony,andthe eighteenth-centuryrehabilitationof the passions as the motor of humansociety.48Despite his idea that thepassionsmustbe properlydirectedby reasonto ensurehappiness,Fontenelle presagedthe likes of Hume and Holbachby giving the passions primacyin the humanpsyche. It is in the difficulty of resolving the tension between passion and reason that Fontenelle rejected both the courtly and the classical ethics, and turned,as many of his contemporarieswould, to the pastoralideal as the model of humanexistence. In his musings on pastoralpoetry,for example, we can see Fontenellebeginning to work out his ethics before they came together more clearly in "DuBonheur."Alreadythe crucialideas-tranquillity, simplicity, andthe rejectionof courtlylife-are there.If readin light of his 1687 essay "Discours sur la naturede l'eglogue," one sees that human happiness as defined in "Du Bonheur"consists of Fontenelle'snotions of the simple, tranquil purityof the shepherd'slife. The virtuesof the philosopherare not those of the courtnobility,but of the simple shepherd. Fontenelle'spastoralismwas not a randomturnin the developmentof his moralphilosophybut a logical componentof his steadfastreversalof Aristotelian formulae. For Aristotle the concomitantto "man the rationalanimal"is "manthe political animal."Humanscannotperfect theirnatureas rationalbeings outside of thepolis. For Fontenelle,however, man is a passionateanimal, andhe can thereforeonly perfecthis natureif not corruptedby thepolis, thatis, by civilization.His ambitions,his immoderatedesiresandpassionshadbrought Fontenelleunhappiness,but the pastorallife, he wrote, "admitsno ambitionat all, nor those things which agitate the hearttoo violently; the idle [shepherd] thereforehas cause to be content."This is because "thecondition of the shep-
48See Hirshman,ThePassions and the Interests,20-27.
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herd is the most ancient of all conditions" and filled with "tranquillity and idleness."49For Fontenelle shepherds are the essence of humanity, uncorrupted by the burdens of civilization, politeness, hierarchy, and courtly life: "They live in their own way in great opulence; they have no one above them, that is to say, they are the kings of their own flocks; and I do not doubt that a certain joy which follows such abundance and freedom inclines them to song and poetry."50 Indeed, this is why "paintings of the pastoral life always have that inexpressible pleasantness, and [why] they soothe us more than the pompous descriptions of a superb court."51To attain happiness, goodness, and virtue, then, we must throw off the burdens of civilization, and return mentally to a state of simple, Arcadian purity. As we see in Fontenelle's eloges, it is through contemplation, through philosophy, that he hopes humans can achieve this "most delicious" state of tranquillity. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
49 OC, III, 57: "Elle n'admetpoint l'ambition,ni tout ce qui agite le coeur tropviolemment; la paressea done lieu d'etre contente."OC, III,52: "la conditionde bergerest la plus anciennede toutes les conditions." 50 OC, III, 52: "Ils vivaient a leur manieredans une grandeopulence, ils n'avaientpersonne au-dessus de leur tete, ils etaient pour ainsi dire les rois de leurs troupeaux;et je ne doute pas qu'unecertainejoie qui suit l'abondanceet la liberte,ne les portatencoreau chantet a la poesie." 51 OC, III, 57: "les peinturesde la vie pastoraleaient toujoursje ne sais quoi de si riant,et qu'elles nous flattentplus que de pompeuses descriptionsd'une cour superbe."
Liberty,
Authority, Burke's
Idea
and
Trust
of
in
Empire
RichardBourke
When EdmundBurke first embarkedupon a parliamentarycareer,British political life was in the process of adaptingto a series of criticalreorientations in both the dynamics of party affiliation and the directionof imperialpolicy. During the period of the Seven Years' War,a reconstitutedmilitia became a focus for patrioticenthusiasm,uniting national sentimentagainst France and effectively eradicatingthe remnantsof Jacobiterhetoricand aspiration.Traditional oppositionbetween Tory and Whig became irrelevant,while Courtand Countryjointly came to the supportof the Pitt-Newcastleministry.However, in due coursethe Old Corpsdisintegratedas GeorgeIII succeededto the throne with the promise of an end to factional strife and the beginning of a patriotic alliance in government.But while competing ideologies and interests on the domesticpolitical scene were undergoingcomprehensiverealignment,the pursuit of a blue-water policy in tandem with strategic continental campaigns broughtBritain's struggle against France into North America, the Caribbean, and India. Tradecontinuedto expand into Asia and WestAfrica, but the principles of commercial advantagewere continually broughtinto open conflict with the exigencies of war.The division of power in Europebecame embroiled in a substantialredivision of empire, and by 1763 Britishterritorialexpansion had reachedits zenith. WhenBurkewas appointedprivatesecretaryto the Marquisof Rockingham, with the nationaldebt standingat an all time high and the demandsof imperial defense unlikely to diminish,the politics of empire called for urgentattention fromall sectionsof the politicalestablishment.Inparticularthe Rockinghamites, adoptinga postureof aloofness from venality and petty interest,were obliged to advancepolicies for imperialgovernmenton the solid basis of political principle.1 Coming into parliamentas a member for Wendover in the wake of 1The task of formulatingthe position fell, of course, to EdmundBurkeand is set out in his famous plea for "men,not measures"in "Thoughtson the PresentDiscontents"(1770), in Paul Langfordet al. (eds.), The Writingsand Speeches of EdmundBurke (Oxford, 1981- ), II, 241-
453 of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. 2000byJournal Copyright
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Grenville's StampAct, at a time when the East IndiaCompanywas assuming control of the revenue in Bengal, Burke set about formulatinga doctrine of imperialsovereigntywhich would be serviceableto the partyeitherin power or in oppositionand which would be adequateto the complex realityof detached and extensive empire.The immediatereceptionof that inquiry,both in Britain and on the Continent,into the fraughtworld of post-Revolutionarypolitical debatehas had the long-termeffect of distortingthe orderof emphasisin terms of which his careeras a whole ought properlyto be understood. The vigorouselaboration,in oppositionto the Jacobinexperimentin France, of the conditionsunderwhich moderategovernmentcould be exercisedwithin the context of an absolutesovereigntywas expressedin termswhich had originally been invoked as partof a sustainedattemptto reconcile civility with empire. As we shall see, that attemptinvolved a process of delicate coordination by means of which the interests of freedom would be brought into harmony with the demandsof public power. In that sense the effort to make libertyand authoritymutuallyresponsible can be said to constitutethe core ambitionof Burke's political rhetoric.In this context responsibilitydefines the optimally beneficial relation between governmentand people on the one hand and national sovereignty and the extended empire on the other.This article outlines the practicaland theoreticalexplorationof those relationswithin the frame of Burke's interventionin the world of eighteenth-centurypolitical discourse. Burke was of course well placed in 1765 to evolve a theory of imperial governmentthatwas at once ideologically compelling andpolitically viable. In his capacityas secretaryto WilliamGerardHamiltonin the early 1760s he had already examined the corruptionof legitimate empire as representedby the introductionof penal legislation into Irelandafter 1694. The TractsRelating to Popery Laws set out to convict the IrishParliamentin Dublin of flagrantmisrule. A subordinatelegislaturewithin the empire is chargedwith having employed its coerciveauthorityin defianceof the principlesof equityandcommon utility. The Popery Laws, Burke tells us, representthe doctrine of Hobbes in operation:a particularinterestandnot the generaladvantagewas madethe foundationof public right.Thatinterestcoincidedwith the interestof the Protestant establishmentin Ireland.The very constitutionof the countryhad, in Burke's view, been madeto serve its purposes.Withnecessity as its permanentpretext,a measuresinto ordinary penalconstitutionsucceededin convertingextraordinary 323. The "men"involved are described as men "of principle":"When bad men combine, the good must associate" (315). It is relevant to the argumentthat follows that the political bond between them is explicitly characterizedin terms of the Ciceronianideal of friendship:"Certain it is, the best patriots in the greatest commonwealths have always commended and promoted such connexions. Idem sentire de republica,was with them a principalgroundof friendship, and attachment.... The Romans carried this principle a great way" (316) (Cicero, De Amicitia, 10).
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maximsof state.An avowedlyfactionalinterestbecamethe occasionfora radical subversion of all public benefit: the security of the established religion was pleaded againstthe security of the Catholic landed interest,a partialgood set againstthe generalgood, and fundamentalequity,the "Motherof Justice,"suspended.2
Underthese circumstances,in which a dependentKingdomexempts itself from the civilized protocols of the British constitution,arbitrarywill is put in the place of imperialjustice, and a delinquentsystem of law is madethe enemy of a people. This enmity,however, is not deducedby Burkein accordancewith theological principles:arbitrarygovernmentmay be without divine sanction, but it is also unlikely to securematerialsupportin the form of popularconsent. Consentin this sense is not foundedon naturalrightbut on customaryopinion, and its offense is likely to issue in a breach of trust manifested in the open hostility of the governedto theirgovernment.Sovereigntyin this situationcan only be maintainedas an instrumentof conquest.It was this intuitionwhich led Burkeon the floor of the House of Commonsin February1766 to denounceas folly the militaryenforcementof the StampAct. The unhamperedexecution of sovereign authority,Burkeasserted,shouldbe viewed as a weapon ratherthan a benefit which, if pursuedto extremes, would amountto little more than an invitation"to open the Theatreof Civil war."3Sovereignty,Burkeunderstood, was absolute in principle.This fact, however, did not in any sense modify the imprudenceof trying to make its action boundless and irresponsible.Political reality in the NorthAmericancolonies dictatedthat,while authoritywas theoretically unaccountable,it had in practice to accommodate"the opinion of a free land."4 So in the earlymonthsof 1766 Burkewas strugglingto presentempireand civility as partnersin politics. On the farside of civility lay the starkalternatives of war or military government.However, maintainingthe virtue of civilized politics was a matterfor practicalreason, a matterof accommodatingthe purposes of governmentto the opinionof the ruled.While NorthAmericanopinion was inclinedtowardfreedom,authoritywas obligedto moderateits actionin the face of an establishedtaste for liberty.This process of compromiseconstituted for Burke the most precariousyet essential ingredientof political judgment: "The most anxious work for the understandingof men is to govern a large Empireupon a plan of freedom."5 2 EdmundBurke, "TractsRelatingto PoperyLaws" (1764), in Writingsand Speeches, IX, 454-59. Burke's"Motherof Justice"referenceis to Philo, in De SpecialibusLegibus,VIII, 151. 3 EdmundBurke, "Speech on StampAct Disturbances"(Jan.-Feb., 1766), in Writingsand Speeches, II, 45. 4 EdmundBurke, "RyderDiaries,"in ibid., II, 50: "An Englishmanmust be subordinateto England,buthe mustbe governedaccordingto the opinionof a free land.Withoutsubordination, it would not be one Empire.Withoutfreedom,it would not be the British Empire." 5 EdmundBurke, "RyderDiaries,"in ibid., II, 50.
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In his draftspeech on the RockinghamAdministration'sDeclaratoryResolution of 1766, Burke presentedthe task of governmentas one of puttingthe sovereign right of the imperialparliamentinto action within the prudentially delimitedconfines of a prescriptiveconstitutionestablishedon the principleof libertyanda seriesof geographicallyremotedependenciesjealous of theirprivileges: This speculative Idea of a right [being] deduced from the unlimited Nature of the supreme legislative authority,[is] very clear and very undeniable,but, when explained and proved and admitted[it is] little to the purpose.The Practical,executive, exertionof this Right may be impracticable,may be inequitableand may be contraryto the Genius and Spiriteven of the Constitutionwhich gives this right at least contraryto the principles of Liberty.This PracticalIdea of the Constitution of the British Empireto be deduced from the general and relative Situation of its parts[...] It must be governed upon the principles of Freedom.6
The "speculativeIdea of right"is obliged to exert itself in the context of practical possibility,and the appraisalof possibility must be refinedwith reference to the circumstantialcharacterof transatlanticempire. Thiscircumstantialcharacter,"thegeneralandrelativeSituationof its parts," was an amalgamationof two inheritedrealities, namely, the reality of geographicalextent and the realityof historicalprecedent.The resultingsituation compriseda set of political relationsstretchingwestwardfrom Westminsterinto Wales, into Irelandand on to Virginia-which had not been the productof rationallypurposefulhumaningenuity and which consequentlyshould not be digested into a rationallyregulatedimperialconstitution.A subordinationof parts-of Kingdoms, colonies, and corporationsand, to the east of the realm, of charteredrights and factories-such a subordinationat once implied sovereignty and discounteduniformity.The empire thereforewas not, as Governor Pownall had argued,coterminouswith the realm.Neitherwas it to be comprehendedas "ONEGRAND MARINEDOMINION"governedby a "grandcommercialinterest."Between the starkalternativesof an "American"and a "British union,"each activatedby the spiritof commerce, lay the preferableoption of "informal"empireanimatedby the sentimentsof fealty and trust.7
6
EdmundBurke,MS. At Sheffield, BK 6. 126, in ibid., II, 47. For Thomas Pownall's analysis see TheAdministrationof the Colonies (London, 1765, 1768). On the colonies in relationto the realm see xiv. For Burke's marginalcomments to the 1768 edition of the Administration,see the BritishLibrarycopy at C.60.i.9. 7
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By March 1775, after the TownsendDuties, the Boston Port Bill and the MassachusettsBay RegulationBill had all taken their toll, Burkewas still insisting upon the compatibilityof imperialsupremacywith diversified subjection. He was still at pains to presentthe empire as an entireyet miscellaneous collection of territories,a body of many parts.In such an assemblage government had more the characterof a benefactionthana command:obligation implied the reciprocalties of subordinationand privilege. Only on such a model would it be possible to "governa large empireupon a plan of freedom"since only undersuch conditionscould powerbe moderatedwhile libertyat the same time was tamed.Between the extent of territorieswhich constitutedthe British neitherthe equalempireandthe sovereignauthorityof the Crown-in-Parliament ity of Confederationnor the servitude of Universal Monarchyobtained, and obedience as a result was liberal, loyalty unforcedand allegiance for that reason more durable: Perhaps,Sir, I am mistakenin my idea of an empire, as distinguished from a single state or kingdom.But my idea of it is this; thatan empire is the aggregateof many states underone common head;whetherthis head be a Monarch,or a presidingrepublick.It does, in such constitutions, frequentlyhappen(and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening)that the subordinate partshave many local privileges and immunities.Between these privileges and the supremecommon authoritythe line may be extremely fine. Of course disputes, often too, very bitter disputes, and much ill blood will arise. But though every privilege is an exemption (in the case) from the ordinaryexercise of the supremeauthority,it is no denial of it. The claim of a privilege seems rather,ex vi termini,to imply a superiorpower.8 It is of course a fact that imperiumcould be renderedin the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries as "sovereignty"or "empire,"but here the point being urged is that "an empire"-the British-is to be understoodnot as a uniform exercise of sovereign authoritybut as a diversifiedstructureof subordination. Generoussubordinationentaileda liberalexchange of benefits which maturedover time into habit. But the disturbanceof this habitualexpectationof favorsgiven andreceived suggestedto Burkea somewhathasty departurefrom the dependablestrategyof moderation.It impliedthe abandonmentof imperial magnanimity;yet it was preciselya gestureof politicalgenerosityfor which the
EdmundBurke, "Speech on Conciliationwith the Colonies" (1775), in The Worksof the RightHonourableEdmundBurke(16 vols.; London, 1826-27), III, 69-70. 8
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restless spirit of freedom in NorthAmerica called.9The retreatfrom moderation was a recipe for war, and a war of conquestin the thirteencolonies carried the inevitableconsequenceof a subversionof libertyat home.10In the event the pursuitof war saw the colonies throughto separationratherthanconquest,and separationwas followed in the course of time by the transformationof newly independentstates into a sovereign federation.Upon assuming office as PaymasterGeneralin the second RockinghamAdministrationof 1782, Burkecould argue that his own predictions had at last become fact. The employment by successive Britishgovernmentssince 1766 of punitivemeasuresinsteadof prudent managementand of a militarycampaigninsteadof an imperialpolicy had ensuredthat colonial grievanceswould embody themselves into a faction and thatfaction would become imperiumin imperiothroughforce of arms.And so from the mid-1770s up to 1783 Burke's rhetoricalenergies were continually deployed againstthe descent of dissidence into faction and faction into war. Two years after the "Theatreof Civil war"had been opened between the colonies and their mothercountry,factional animosity in Irelandappearedto Burketo have moved thatbit closer to militaryconfrontation.The IrishVolunteers, a predominantlyProtestantmilitia which had originally formed for defense againstthe threatof a Frenchinvasion,were in a stateof advancedpreparationas CatholicRelief passed throughthe IrishParliamentin the summerof 1778. Within fifteen months, as they set their sights on the relaxationof Irish traderestrictions,theirnumbershad swollen to about25,000. Indeedthroughout this period up to 1783 the Volunteerstried with notable successes to force the pace of events, and threatenedthe subordinationof politics to arms.Burke inevitablybecame apprehensivelest the same spirit of persecutionwhich had appearedin Irelandduringthe Whiteboydisturbancesof the early 1760s should come to dominate their proceedings." This foreboding is scarcely surprising given the natureof Burke'soriginalunderstandingof Irishdiscontents.Where the law is used as a means of disqualification,where the constitutionof a country is founded on such fundamentalprinciplesof exclusion, organizedsociety degeneratesinto organizedantagonism. Accordingly,Henry Flood, Henry Grattan,and the Volunteers-agitating for reform,independence,and free trade-alternated in Burke'sperceptionas potentialharbingersof hostilityand division. In a dividedpolity such as Ireland 9 Burke, ibid., III, 126: "Magnanimityin politicks is not seldom the truestwisdom; and a great empireand little minds go ill together." 10 Burke, "An Address to the King" (1777), in Works,IX, 192 : "Sir, your throne cannot standon the principlesof unconditionalsubmissionand passive obedience [...] an acquiescence procuredby foreign mercenarytroops, and securedby standingarmies.These may possibly be the foundationof otherthrones:they must be the subversionof yours." " On Burke'sresponseto the IrishVolunteerssee ConorCruiseO'Brien, TheGreatMelody: A ThematicBiographyof EdmundBurke(London, 1992), 178ff.
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devolutionwithin the empireand the reformof representationcould not coherently be advancedwhile Catholic emancipationwas being denied. The campaigns for legislative independenceand for Parliamentaryreform could only be countenancedby Burke on condition that Catholicrelief was in place. Devolving authorityto be exercised within the terms of an unreformedconstitution entailed giving encouragementto proscriptionand licence to oppression. For Burke equity and utility were less likely to be promotedby the cabalistic politics of his native land thanby the sober measuresof which "his betterand his adoptedcountry"was at least capable.12A political Union between Britain andIrelandappearedfor this reasonto be a morepreferableoptionthanseparation.13
But the prospectof Union came closer in November 1783 as the National Conventionof the Irish Volunteersseemed likely to press for a reform of the franchise.Informedopinion within the Fox-NorthAdministrationsaw the further enfranchisementof Protestantismas calculated to promote the cause of full Irish independence.In the end the Conventionwas a fiasco and crisis was averted. Nonetheless, the critical development of affairs in Ireland,coupled withthe humiliatingfactof Americansecession,gave a particularedge to Burke's defense of Fox's East IndiaBill in 1783: "if we are not able to contrive some methodof governingIndiawell, which will not of necessity become the means of governing GreatBritain ill, a groundis laid for their eternalseparation."'4 Fox's Bill was designed, from Burke's point of view, to destroy what had all the appearancesof a commercialtyrannyin south-eastAsia. Its purposein other words was to convertthe managementof Indianaffairsfrom a commercialto a judicial administrationwhile at the same time renderingpolitically accountable the trust of governmentwhich Parliamenthad vested in the East India Company.The failureto carryout this task, Burke contended,will lead India, as Americahad been led, into rebellion.When failuredid come with the defeat of the Bill, the Fox-North coalition was swept from power, and Burke embarkedupon his impeachmentof WarrenHastings. Burke's Speech which finally opened the impeachmentearly in 1788 has all the characteristicsof a Ciceronian oration on the corruptionof imperial justice, with Hastings cast in the role of the latter'snotoriousVerres.On the first day of the proceedings Burke returnedto a familiar complaint: "in all
12 Reportedby HenryGrattanJr.in his Memoirsof the Life and Timesof the Rt. Hon. Henry Grattan(London, 1839-46), II, 36. 13For Burkeon the possibility of political union with Ireland,see his letterto Samuel Span, 23 April 1778, in The Correspondenceof EdmundBurke,ed. Thomas Copelandet al. (10 vols.; London, 1958-78), III, 434. 14 "Speechon Fox's IndiaBill" (1783), in Writingsand Speeches, V, 383.
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other Countries,a political body that acts as a Commonwealthis first settled, and trade follows as a necessary consequence of the protection obtained by political power."In India, however, this order had been drasticallyreversed: "Theconstitutionof the Companybegan in commerceand ended in Empire."15 But while the Companyunited in one body the distinctobjectives of authority andtrade,it was also noticeablyfree of all political restraints.Animatedboth at home and abroadby a pervasiveesprit du corps, the Companywas in the very natureof things incapableof bringingitself to book.'6 The existence of a commercialbureaucracyclaiming chargeover both the administrationof justice and the managementof the revenue was to Burke a perversionof all settled proceduresof civilized government.It conflatedjudicial with executive power, and it equated the public benefits of government with the privateadvantagesof commerce.But when this perversionwas established on the foundationsof a corporatespirit,it was also inevitablyopposedto self-correction: the English Nation in India is nothing but a seminaryfor the succession of Officers. They are a Nation of placemen.They are a Republic, a Commonwealthwithout a people. They are a State made up wholly of magistrates.The consequenceof which is thatthere is no people to control, to watch, to balance against the power of office. There is no correctiveupon it whatever.The consequenceof which is that,being a Kingdomof Magistrates,the Esprit du corps is strongin it-the spirit of the body by which they consider themselves as having a common interest,and a common interestseparatedboth from the Countrythat sent them out and from the Countryin which they are....'7 A commercial monopoly had transformeditself into a political monopoly in which the functionof governmenthadbeen effectively subverted:concernwith the public welfare had been replacedby the pursuitof commercialutility, and privateadvantagein turnsaw to it that the judicial and political organs of administrationwere inadequatelydistinguished. As a political monopoly,the East IndiaCompanyhad been liberatedfrom the constraintsof bothpublicopinionandpoliticalsupervision.In consequence, its dutieswere deemedto extendno furtherthanits will. Burke,as we have seen, perfectlyappreciatedthatsovereigntywas notjuridicallyaccountable.But here a charteredCompanywhich as a matterof definitionhad no ultimateclaim to sovereign right behaved as if it had much more. It had made of its chartered 15"Speechon Openingof Impeachment"(15-19 Feb. 1788), in Writingsand Speeches, VI, 283. 16 17
Ibid., VI, 286. Ibid., VI, 285-86.
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privileges an arbitrarygovernment.Beginning in commerceand ending in empire, empireitself had been exemptedfrom scrutiny."Supremepower in every Countryis not legally and in any ordinaryway subjectto a penal prosecution for any of its action."'8But the power vested in a crown liberty was not supremedejure. Neither,in any case, was sovereignauthorityordinarilyinclined to indulge itself in the limitless executive action of which the East IndiaCompany had shown itself to be capable.It is, Burkeconcluded,"fromconfounding the unaccountablecharacterinherentto the Supremepowerwith arbitrarypower thatall this confusionof ideashas arisen."19 Absolutesovereigntydidnot amount to political despotismbut a subordinategovernmentreleasedfrom all the practical contingencieswhich usually moderatethe exercise of authorityapproximated to precisely this condition. A subordinatecorporationwithinthe realmhad grownto exercise the powers of governmentwithin the empire. In the process its legal subordination became pragmaticallyinconsequentialas its activities extended beyond the bounds of effective political control. Its initiatives,it seemed clear,had begun to elude the authorityof Parliament.But at the same time, seen from the perspective of Bombay or Calcutta,the Company'sown authorityenjoyed virtually complete freedom of action. Its liberty became in this sense absolute. It had been absolved of the customaryrestrictionswhich opinion imposed upon government.After all, the Company had come to conduct its affairs on the model of a "Commonwealthwithouta people."However,a governmentwhich disdains all society with the governed-which suspends all relationsof benefaction and contract-tacitly commits itself to a declarationof war.20Back in 1783 Burke'scomplaintagainstthe conductof Companyofficers had centered on theirpostureof corporateisolation:"Youngmen (boys almost)governthere, without society, without sympathywith the native."21Political society clearly entailed for Burke a definite political division of labor.The point, however, is thatif this division is not to degenerateinto conflict, governmentmust in some sense be conformableto society, it must be compatiblewith the mannersof a people: "Every age has its own manners,and its politicks is dependentupon them."22
In the final analysis,Burketook mannersto be the foundationof moralsand moralsto be the foundationof laws. In these terms,while practicalreasondictates thatrulersare obliged to live upon the opinion of the ruled,simple induction shows that mannersact as the arbitersof opinion. This causal trajectory 18
"Speechon Openingof Impeachment,"op. cit., VI, 351.
19 Ibid., VI, 352. 20
Ibid., VI, 469-70. "Speechon Fox's IndiaBill" in Writingsand Speeches, V, 402. 22 Thoughtson the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), in Writingsand Speeches, II, 21
258.
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accountsfor the affective realityof allegiance. It brings into relief Burke'sunderstandingof the significance of obligation as a bond of trust ratherthan a system of abstractrights, an affair of sentiment and of interestratherthan a rationalizedsystem of juridicalrelations.As a resultthe terms of subjectionto political authoritycannot be intellectually anatomizedinto a mathematically precise calculus of duties. Indeed,moral and political action in general ought properlyto be understoodas the productof purposefulaccommodationrather thanmetaphysicalstipulation.What,as Burkeasked in the 1757 Prefaceto his Vindicationof NaturalSociety, "wouldbecome of the Worldif the Practiceof all moralDuties, andthe Foundationsof Society, restedupon having theirReasons made clear and demonstrativeto every Individual?"23 Were virtue to depend exclusively upon rational calculation, behavioral norms would be deprived of any motivating principles. Similarly, if society relied for its cohesiveness upon a disinterestedestimateof its utility,the motive to enterinto society with otherswould effectively disappear.Finally,where the judgment of this utility is made a matterof individualright and this right an inalienable gift of nature, social liberties degenerateinto the rights of war.24 Naturalliberty is made a legitimate plea against artificial authorityand civil society collapses into a scene of internecinestruggle between the competing aspirationsof disembodiedand putativelyrationalwills. In this context, however, rationalityactually functions as an alibi for passion shorn of those solid interestsand attachmentswhich might renderit dependableand amenableto society. Practicalreason is undone by the impulse towardintellectualingenuity, judgment is inhabitedby pride: "a Mind which has no Restraintfrom a Sense of its own Weakness,of its subordinateRankin the Creation,and of the extremeDangerof lettingthe Imaginationloose upon some Subjects,may very plausibly attackevery thing the most excellent and venerable."2 Once theoreticalreason directs its energies towardthe world of practical business with abstracttruthas the criterionof success, the inevitableresult is a politics of destruction.Intelligencecomes to operatewithoutreferenceto cases, judgment is no longer subordinateto circumstance,and speculationmakes its appearanceas the enemy of moralsentimentin society. For Burkethe endeavor to impose the empire of reason upon the life of habit ends with the derangement of social aptitudeslike opinion andinterestby the vagariesof passion and inclination.It promotesa moralcultureof dissidence which inhibitsthe action of deferencein society.At the sametime it promotesa politicsof disestablishment
23 A Vindicationof Natural Society (1756, 1757), in Pre-RevolutionarvWritings,ed. Ian Harris(Cambridge,1993), 11. 24 On the distinction between social freedom and the rights of war, see Burke's letter of November 1789 to Charles-Jean-Francois Depont in Correspondence,IV,42-48. 25Ibid., 10-11.
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which explodes all reverence for authority.It gives license to a kind of lethal disputatiousnessin human affairs, and by this license custom is replaced by experimentwhile appetiteeliminates the social virtues of humanityand magnanimity.Ultimately,the currencyof honor,andthereforethe objectsof emulation, are distortedand debased. Throughoutthe 1790s Burke took the doctrine of naturalright to be the chief productof this speculativestyle in politics. The doctrineitself, however, bore all the hallmarksof a somewhatolder enthusiasm."It is," as Burkeput it in 1792, "thenew fanaticalReligion, now in the heat of its first ferment,of the Rights of Man, which rejects all Establishments,all discipline, all Ecclesiastical, and in truthall Civil order,which will triumph,and will lay prostrateyour Church;which will destroyyour distinctions,and which will put your properties to auction,and disperseyou over the earth."26 For him, as for David Hume and Josiah Tuckerbefore him, the fanaticism of disestablishmenthad originally takenroot amongstthe sectariesof the EnglishCivil Warwhen conscience gave way to prideunderthe pretenseof piety while mannerswere corruptedby the engrossingpresumptuousnessof enthusiasm. As Humepresentedthe case in his Historyof England,"Thesaint,resigned over to superiorguidance, was at full liberty to gratify all his appetites, disguised under the appearanceof pious zeal."27It was this act of complacent resignation,Hume went on, which in due course "eludedand loosened all the ties of morality,andgave entirescope, andeven sanction,to the selfishness and ambition,which naturallyadhereto the humanmind."Ecstaticworship,without the exterioraid of ceremony and pomp, occupied the individualwith his own inwardness.Devotion began to approximatethe condition of self-devotion: "pious zeal," as Hume had put it, was in reality a ruse by which naked ambition could be more amply exerted. Since the spiritualpilgrimage of the enthusiastin religionborrowednothingfromthe senses, he abandonedthe general intercourseof society for an innercommunionwith the Divinity.Religious life grew to neglect-and ultimately to excoriate-the use of ornamentand hierarchyin the conduct of its affairs with the result that the individualwas consecratedat the expense of all church establishments.The moral life, deprivedof the externalsupportsof socially and institutionallymoderatedemulation, degeneratedinto the conditionof spiritualpride. Schismaticcombinationwas understoodby Hume to constituteone prevalent anddestructiveexampleof partiesformedon the basis of"principle":associationwas determinedless by positive interestor affectionthanby the abstract
"Letterto RichardBurke,Esq." (19 February,1792), in Writingsand Speeches, IX, 647. History of England,From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688 (6 vols.; London, 1778), V, 493-94. 26
27 David Hume, The
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tenets of doctrine.28Originallyformedout of theological disputes,such parties fast became animatedby the spirit of persecution,and their developmentinto factionsensuredthe subversionof law andthe suppressionof humaneconduct. But the dangersimplicit in inspirationalsects were duplicatedby those inherent in "partiesfrom principle"in general.This category was taken to include partiesformedon the basis of speculativeprinciplesof government.One such principle,Hume had argued,took the form of the doctrineof legitimateresistance. But when this doctrinefound expression in forms of political combination its inevitabletendency was to unhinge all reverencefor civil authorityas such: If ever, on any occasion, it were laudable to conceal truth from the populace; it must be confessed, that the doctrineof resistanceaffords such an example; and that all speculativereasonersought to observe, with regardto this principle,the same cautioussilence, which the laws, in every species of government,have ever prescribedto themselves. Governmentis instituted,in orderto restrainthe fury and injustice of the people; and being always foundedupon opinion, not on force, it is dangerousto weaken, by these speculations,the reverence,which the multitudeowe to authority,and to instructthem beforehand,that the case can ever happen,when they may be free from their duty of allegiance. Or should it be found impossible to restrainthe licence of human disquisitions,it mustbe acknowledged,thatthe doctrineof obedience ought alone to be inculcated,and thatexceptions, which are rare, ought seldom or never be mentioned in popularreasonings and discourses.Nor is thereany danger,thatmankind,by this prudentreserve, should universally degenerateinto a state of abject servitude.When the exception really occurs, even though it be not previouslyexpected and descantedon, it must, from its very nature,be so obvious and undisputed,as to remove all doubt,andoverpowerthe restraint,however great,imposed by teachingthe generaldoctrineof obedience.29
28David
Hume,"OfPartiesin General"(1741), in Essays Moral,Political, and Literary,ed. F. Miller Eugene (Indianapolis,1985, 1987), 60. See also his "Of the Partiesof GreatBritain" the Coalitionof Parties"(1758), in ibid.,64-72 and493-501 respectively.Hume's and "Of (1741), points arerelatedto, but must nonethelessbe carefullydistinguishedfrom,Burke'sdiscussion of partyin the Thoughtson the PresentDiscontents of 1770 (see above, note 1). Burke'sargument relates to the very different era of Whig politics after the succession of George III. Party for Hume is used here to imply faction. In Burkeit is meantto connote an alliance in defense of the constitution. 29 David Hume, TheHistory of England, V, 544.
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Burke was familiarwith this passage from Hume's History duringthe American crisis.30However it was not until afterthe Revolutionin Francethathe felt compelled to press Hume's claims with his own characteristicvigor. By March 1790, duringa debatein the Commonson Fox's Motion for the Repeal of the Test and CorporationActs, Burkehad alreadyconcludedthatthe principles of naturalright, in the hands of Robinson, Palmer, Priestley, and Price, werejeopardizingthe safety of the churchand consequentlythreatening the security of society in general.3'With the publicationof Price's Discourse On theLove of our Country,the principlesof naturalrightwere being put in the service of the doctrineof resistance. But resistance,Burke argued,following Hume, is an exception in politics ratherthana principleof action.It is a case of necessity which compels in the midst of extraordinaryprovocationbut is not lightly chosen: "The speculative line of demarcation,where obedience ought to end, and resistancemust begin, is faint, and obscure, and not easily definable."32The attempt to subject the public duties of authorityto a series of ascertainabledefinitionsis a presumptionin favor of rationalismin politics: it is, as we have seen, to providegovernmentwith a basis in reasonwhen its only viable foundationlies in establisheduse andpractice.But wherepoliticaljudgment is forced to abandonprudencefor purereason,the affective ligamentsof political society are dissolved. While the parodicattackson Rousseauand Bolingbrokein the Vindication had alreadyaffordedBurke an opportunityto display his distaste for speculative political reasoning,a succession of events-the Americancrisis from the mid-1760s, the debateson the Acts of Uniformityin 1772, andagitationfor the Reform of Representationin the early 1780s-all compelled him to renew the assault.But in the 1790s the attackupon theoreticalabstractionacquireda new urgency in the face of a body of revolutionarydoctrinewhose chief practical purposeseemed to Burketo consist in the utterdestructionof civilized politics in ancien regime Europe. It was thereforethroughouthis final years, with a revolutionin politics progressingin Franceandrevolutionarywar advancingin Europe,thatBurkereturnedto considerthe intricateand involved dynamicsof liberty, authority,and practicalreason with particularattentiveness.Government in the handsof the NationalAssembly hadbeen deprivedof the authority of precedent;society was decomposedinto the elementaryconditionof natural liberty;and sovereignty,operatingbeyond the pale of social and political restraint,assumed all the characteristicsof despotic command. But already in 1790 the course of events since the previousyear amplifiedfor Burkethe fatal consequencesof sacrificingprudenceto moral and political sophistry: Burke had implicitly made the point as early as 1772. See his "Speech on the Acts of Uniformity"(1772), in Works,X, 17. 31 See The ParliamentaryHistory of England (London, 1816), XXVIII, cols. 434-41. 32 Reflectionson the Revolutionin France (1790), in Writingsand Speeches, VIII, 81. 30
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The effect of libertyto individualsis thatthey do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations which may be soon turnedinto complaints.Prudencewould dictatethis in the case of separate,insulatedprivatemen, but liberty,when men act in bodies, is power. Consideratepeople, before they declare themselves, will observe the use which is made ofpower....33 It was in the contextof this commitmentto observethe use to which powerwas actually being put in Francethat Burke set out once more to emphasize how practicalreason endeavors to maximize the opportunitiesfor human benefit with referenceto circumstancesdirectlytransmittedfrom the past. Thejudgmentof opportunity,however,entails a process of judicious compromise between desirable ends and available means. It is, in other words, a case of preferencesin relationto possibilities and thereforea matterof risk.As Burke confided to Depont in November 1789, "whereverthe sacrifice of any subordinatepoint of Morality,or of honour,or even common liberalsentiment and feeling is called for, one ought to be tolerablysure, thatthe object is worth The element of it. Nothing is good, but in proportion,and with reference."34 risk resides in the estimationof value in "proportion"and with "reference"to practicalreality.But the greatesthazardin politics derives from the failure to appreciatethe hazardousnatureof practicalreason itself: the danger,that is, which proceeds fromthe perpetualtemptationto abandonthe robustlessons of experiencefor delusive plausibilitiesmasqueradingas certainties-to subordinate political to theoreticalreason,to reducepolitics to a science of first principles. As we have seen, the philosophical ambition to establish government upon a prioriprinciples is a recipe for dissolving the ties composing any system of subordinationregulatedby the operationof custom and fidelity. Once the bonds of civil society have been broken,the individualis free to consult his private interest.By this consultationappetiteunderthe semblance of reason, becomes the arbiterof political conduct.Governmentis dissolved, the rightto sovereigntyis put to a contest of arms,and society revertsto the originalrights of nature.Trustas a mode of public agency is broken,trustas a social passion is destroyed.35 In this way the passions of original,uncovenantedman are takenby Burke to be incapableof agreementwith the social and political virtues of trust,loyalty, and allegiance.Recourseto the speculativerightsof uncivil nature,where each is judge in his own case and actorin his own cause, involves revertingto a 33Ibid., VIII, 59. Charles-Jean-Francois Depont, November 1789, in Correspondence,VI, 47. 35 For the distinctionbetween trustas a human passion and a modalityof humanaction, see John Dunn, "Trustand Political Agency" in InterpretingPolitical Responsibility(Cambridge, 1990), 26-44. 34 Letterto
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belligerentcontest of wills at the expense of social dependenceand emulation. Justiceis supersededby vengeance, respectby self-regard,andsocial esteem is replacedby the impulseto self-aggrandizement.One no longerregardsoneself in the eyes of anotherand, in consequence,society fragmentsinto the competing ambitionsof self-seeking individuals.RevolutionaryFrancehad in effect committeditself to a process of radicaldisinheritance.Its leveling projecthad alreadydisownedthe legacy whichthe feudalsentimentof fealtyhadbequeathed to the civilized mannersand political conductof modem Europe: When the old feudal and chivalrousspiritof Fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjectsfrom the precautionsof tyranny,shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipatedby preventivemurderand preventiveconfiscation, and thatlong roll of grim and bloody maxims which formthe political code of all power not standingon its own honorandthe honorof those who areto obey it. Kings will be tyrantsfrompolicy when subjectsare rebels from principle.36 Fidelity was heading for extinction,and with its demise all known instruments of social negotiationand accommodationwould collapse in the face of an unyielding competitionof powers. On this scheme of things, revolutionarysociety is an altogethermore brutal affair than the military societies of early Europeanhistory described by Burke in his Abridgementof English History. Here we are told that originally, amongstthe Germantribes,the chief was styled Senior,Lord,and the like terms,which markedout a superiorityin age, and merit;the followers were called Ambacti, Comites, Lewds, Vassals,andotherterms,markingsubmissionanddependence. This was the very first origin of civil, or rathermilitary government amongstthe ancientpeople of Europe;andit arosefromthe connexion, thatnecessarilywas createdbetween the person,who gave the arms,or knightedthe young man, and him, thatreceived them....37 Governmentamong the "ancientpeople of Europe"is presentedhere as the naturalproductof dependencyand clientage:a primitiveversion of the duty of allegiance is instilled among the comites by the subordinationof rankfounded upon a free contractof submission.This subordination,Burkegoes on the emphasize, was made possible by "two principlesin our nature":by ambitionon Reflections in Writingsand Speeches, VIII, 129. 37An Abridgementof English History in Works,X, 330.
36
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the one hand, and admirationon the other,both of which together enable inAlready in the Philosophical equalityto prosperon the basis of dependence.38 Enquiry,ambition and admiration-here called "imitation"-had made their appearance,togetherwith sympathy,as the "threeprincipallinks in the chain" of society. By ambition,men seek to "signalize"themselves before a company of admirersin the spirit of triumphand glory.Admirationin turnbecomes an incentive to imitation:"This forms our manners,our opinions, our lives. It is one of the strongestlinks of society; it is a species of mutualcompliancewhich all men yield to each other, without constraintto themselves, and which is extremely flatteringto all."39 Customaryallegiance to Saxon authorityis only the most basic exemplification of this fundamentalprincipleof humantransactionby which the aspiring honor the great.Amongst the extended territorialmonarchiesof moder Europethe same principleof honor,softenedby circumstancewith the passage of time, reconciled human ambition to secular authoritywithoutjealousy or resentment.We have seen how in Irelandand India, and in relationswith the Americancolonies, as Burkewas laterto understandeach case, the principleof honorhad evidently been eithercorruptedor destroyed.In Francethe destruction of honor was carriedone stage further.A revolution in governmentwas accompaniedby a revolution in manners.Taste and politeness would perish, respectwould be disenchanted,and all formsof reverencewould consequently disappear.Having undone society, the revolutionwould at the same time deprive men andwomen of the means to reconstructit. Political authorityas such would not be eliminated by a dissolution of government-"power, of some kind or other,will survive the shock in which mannersand opinions perish."40 However, sovereignty would grow despotic in proportionas society was disbanded. Honor succeeds, where reason fails, in civilizing libertywhile at the same time moderatingauthority.By its action society andjustice flourishin the midst of inequality.Envy is curtailed,arroganceis softened, and equality submitsto deference.Originalrightsand libertiesgive way to mutualbenefits and securities. But while abstractrights are inimical to society, aristocracyis essential to its support.The distinctionof orders,Burke maintained,replicatesthe necessaryinequalityof social esteem while the trappingsof superiorrankunderwrite the currencyof honor:the securityof landedwealth guaranteesindependence while independencefacilitatesgood will; good will acts as the preconditionof Ibid., X, 331. For a comparisonof Adam Smith with Burke on this theme, see Donald Winch,Riches and Poverty:An IntellectualHistor, of Political Economyin Britain, 1750-1834 (Cambridge,1996), ch. 7. 39 A Philosophical Enquiryinto the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublimeand Beautiful, ed. JamesT. Boulton (Oxford, 1987), 49. 40 Reflectionsin Writingsand Speeches, VIII, 129. 38
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virtue and virtue sustains the credit of honor. Necessity, in other words, is a weak aid to virtue much as exigency impoverishesbenevolence. This chain of argumenthad of course received its classic formulationin Cicero'sLaeliusDe Amicitia.Herewe learn,as Burkehimself was explicitly to arguein 1769 and again in 1770, that"honestconnection,"or friendship,is the surest defense against domestic or imperialcrisis.41When an establishedconstitutionis threatenedwith extreme innovation,"good men" unite for the defense of ancestralpoliticalpractice.42 But this worthycombinationis only available to optimi viri free to engage the virtue of magnanimity.This freedom, however, is conditionedby that species of self-masterywhich flourishesin the absenceof need:"friendshipspringsfromnature[natura]ratherthanfromneed [indigentia]."43 Independencefrom need is significantto the extent that it excuses generosity from the constraintsof a precise and calculablerenderingof accounts:"Foras men of ourclass aregenerous[benefici]andliberal[liberales], not for the purpose of demandingrepayment-for we do not put our favors [beneficium] out at interest, but are by nature given to acts of kindness [liberalitatem]-so we believe that friendshipis desirable,not because we are influencedby hope of gain, but because its entireprofit is in the love itself."44 Whereasindigence is in some sense an enemy to liberality,the materialcapacity for self-possession guaranteesthe prosperityof good will: "to the extent that a man relies upon himself and is so fortifiedby virtue and wisdom thathe is dependentupon no one and considers all his possessions to be within himself, in that degree is he most conspicuous for seeking and cherishingfriendships."45 The crucialpoint, however, is that good will is not simply an expendable ornamentgraftedonto polished society. It is, in fact, a prerequisiteto civil order in general: "if you should take the bond of goodwill [benevolentiae coniunctionem]out of the universe no house or city would stand,nor even the tillage of the fields abide."46In Burke's eyes the refinementof benevolence was a result of the progress of manners under the sustained tutelage of the "spirit of a gentleman": for this reason, "Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus."47But without an inauguralbond of goodwill, no such refinement 41 Observationson a Late State of the Nation (1769) in Writingsand Speeches, II, 215. On "thenecessity of honest combination"see Burke's Thoughtson the Cause of the PresentDiscontents (1770) in Writingsand Speeches, II, 320. 42 Cicero, Laelius De Amicitia, esp. XI-XIII. 43 Cicero, De Amicitia,VIII, 27.
44Ibid., IX, 31. 45 Ibid., IX, 30. 46
Ibid., VII, 23. On the "spiritof a gentleman"see EdmundBurke,Reflectionsin Writingsand Speeches, VIII, 130. On the maxim "All we good men always take the partof the highborn"(Cicero, Pro Sestio, IX, 21) see ibid., VIII, 188. 47
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RichardBourke
and no such gentility would have occasion to exert themselves. Neither,however, would the most basic exchange of good offices on the basis of mutual need find room to express itself. Elementaryduties and obligationswould lose theirmeaning as life revertedto a bellicose strugglefor supremacy.Society, in otherwords, requiresbenevolence if purerelationsof utility arenot to degenerate into a lethal roundof turbulenceand strife. On this scheme of things,relationsof contractandrelationsof beneficence have at least this much in common: without the prior existence of some coniunctionembenevolentiae,neitherformof action is socially viable. Forthis reasonBurkecould arguethatwhile the strictobligationsofjustice were sharply distinguishablefrom the imperfectobligationsof beneficence,justice was still in the final analysisto be understoodas a publicly sanctionedform of benefaction: "civil society ... is an institutionof beneficence; and the law itself is only beneficence acting as a rule."48Withoutbenevolence operatingas an active principlein society,justice would become indistinguishablefrom avarice,and utilitarianexchange would thereby collapse into ferocity and rapacity.Since benevolence is refined by the spirit of nobility, Burke could presumethat the compatibilityof commercial interest with civilized mannerswas ensured by the embodimentof that spirit in the artificialinstitutionsof society. This embodimenttook the form of primogeniturewhich fixed hereditarydistinctionto the solid reality of extensive property. It was thereforethroughthe dynamic interactionof property,virtue, and emulationthat the perpetuationof society itself was secured. While Mackintosh could point in the VindiciaeGallicae to the "importantinfluence of commerce in liberalizingthe modem world,"49Burke had alreadyconcluded that commerce could only thrive underthe protectionof a cultureof liberal sentiment and learningwhich was necessarily antecedentto it.50As we have seen, that cultureappearedto derive its sustenancefrom the supportwhich property affordedto gentility and which religion bestowed upon morality.Withoutthe assistanceof gentility,commercewould perishwith the violation of justice. In other words deference mellows the ambitions of liberty as generosity offers security to justice. Withoutthe easy compliance which admirationyields to ambition,propertybecomes prey to envy and injustice;without the reciprocal accommodationby which ambitionrelies upon admiration,authoritydeclines into perfect despotism.In this way libertyand authoritycould be seen to ameliorateone another,with trustacting as the vital and enablingmediumbetween either extremeof humanagency. 48 Reflections in Writingsand Speeches, VIII, 109. On the distinctionbetweenjustice and beneficence see Burke'streatmentof the topic in his Thoughtsand Details on Scarcity(1795) in Writingsand Speeches, IX, 119-45. Gallicce(Dublin, 1791), 62. 49 James Mackintosh,Vindicice 50 Reflectionsin Writingsand Speeches, VIII, 130.
Burkes Idea of Empire
471
Whatappliedto the preservationof society as such appliedwith equalforce to the multiple relationsof subordinationand privilege by which the political society of dominionsanddependenciesconstitutiveof the BritishEmpirewere maintained.The terms of Britain's sovereignty over itself were not identical with the terms of its exercise over the empire as a whole, and the empire as a whole was not subjected to a uniform system of judicial regulation and restraint.Instead,subjectionwas various, informal,and contingent.But its very contingencywas its consummateadvantage:dependency,on thataccount,hung upon trust,and trustwas sustainedby the affective bonds of emulation.In the final analysis what permittedthe successful exercise of imperialsovereignty was good faith. But it was precisely good faith which had been breachedby a tyrannical selfishness in the managementof Americanaffairs,it was good faithwhich had been renderedimpossibleby the operationof commercialbureaucracyin India and which had been degradedby the conductof the colonial "garrison"in Ireland. Extensive empire, like nationalsovereignty,can be regardedas civilized to the extent that it securesjustice throughthe governmentof laws, not men. However, a governmentof laws requiresthe solvent of fidelity which, undera free constitution,is maintainedby an equitablereciprocationof prerogatives andprivileges. Wereauthorityto become intrusivelyhegemonic, libertywould lose faith; where liberty lost faith, authoritywas compelled to resort to the crudeinstrumentsof political coercion. Thereforewhile sovereigntyevidently implied the existence of a right whose legal authoritywas absolute, the exercise of that right could not prudentlybe absolved of the imperfectobligation which prescribedthe contrivanceof political subordinationfor the benefit of the public interestat large. Queen Mary and WestfieldCollege, Universityof London.
Sainte-Beuve between
Renaissance
and
Enlightenment Paul Nelles
For a period of eight years in the 1840s Charles-Augustin de Sainte-Beuve held a post of conservateur at the Bibliotheque Mazarine.' Each day he traversed the gallery of hommes illustres which decorated the reading room. This held busts of major figures from history and literature. In one of his portraits litteraires from these years Sainte-Beuve pretended to derive inspiration from this legion of intellectual heroes. Among the busts stood one of Gabriel Naude, Mazarin's first librarian in the 1640s. Sainte-Beuve dreamt, he wrote at the time, of placing Naude's bust beside that of Charron, or even better, between those of Montaigne and Bayle. Through Naude, Sainte-Beuve avowed to discover the genius loci of the Bibliotheque Mazarine. Yet whatever local reasons there were for the presence of Naude's bust at the Mazarine, Sainte-Beuve set out in this essay to find a place for Naude among the pantheon of French thinkers on his own merits. Such playfulness with a biographical conceit of both the literary and visual arts belied serious purpose. If it fuelled Sainte-Beuve's claim to have found in the seventeenth-century thinker "un sceptique moraliste sous masque d'erudit,"2 it was also expressive of a critical campaign devoted to the revision of a received tradition of French thought and learning. Sainte-Beuve The following abbreviations of Sainte-Beuve's works will be used: PL = Portraits litteraires (3 vols.; Paris, 1863-64); CL = Causeries de lundi (15 vols.; Paris, 1862); PC = Portraits contemporains(5 vols.; Paris, 1876). Several of the essays cited below, including those on Naud6 and Bayle, are present in the Pleiade edition of Sainte-Beuve, Oeuvres de Sainte-Beuve,ed. Maxime Leroy (2 vols; Paris, 1956-60). In the absence of a criticaledition of the entire corpus of Sainte-Beuve's writings and given the vagaries of the nineteenth-century Gamier editions, Jean Bonnerot, Bibliographie de l'oeuvre de Sainte-Beuve (2 vols.; Paris, 1937), is an essential point of reference. See CharlesRoth, "Sainte-Beuvebiblioth6caireet la Bibliothequede Lausanne,"Etudesde Lettres,2nd ser., 1 (1958), 5-9; G. Michaut,Sainte-Beuve avant les Lundis (Paris, 1903); A. G. Lehman, "Sainte-Beuveand the Historical Movement," in The French Mind: Studies in Honour of Gustave Rudler, ed. Will Moore et al. (Oxford, 1952), 256-72; A. G. Lehman,Sainte-Beuve:A Portraitof the Critic 1804-1842 (Oxford, 1962); Ruth E. Mulhauser,Sainte-Beuveand Greco-RomanAntiquity(Cleveland, 1969). 2 Sainte-Beuve, "GabrielNaud6" (1843) in PL, II, 469. 1
473 of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. 2000byJournal Copyright
Paul Nelles
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juxtaposeda seventeenth-centurytraditionof"literary"skepticismindependent of formalphilosophywith an Enlightenmentinheritancehe was eagerto disown. Centralto this taskwas a disciplinaryturnaway fromphilosophicalinquiryand the historyof philosophyto literaryhistory.This in turnentaileda full embrace of the shadowy inhabitantsof the marginsof pre-Enlightenmentthoughtfrom the late Renaissanceto Bayle. Sainte-Beuve'sdiscovery of seventeenth-centuryprecursors,as he clearly regardedthem, was first sketchedin a series of articles in the Revue des Deux Mondesin the 1830s and 1840s. Naudewas thus somewhatmorethana random sightingin Sainte-Beuve'scriticalgalaxy.Togetherwith Bayle anda handfulof otherfiguresNaude occupieda key positionwithinthe constellationof thinkers Sainte-Beuvechartedin plottinga course for the practiceof literaryhistoryand criticismin the middleyearsof the nineteenthcentury.The contextof the developmentof Sainte-Beuve'senterpriseilluminatesan intriguingaspectof the historiographyof skepticismin moder intellectualhistory.While functioningin partto legitimize literaryhistory as a discipline, the circumstancesof SainteBeuve's undertakingare rootedin wider contemporarycurrentsof historiography andthe philosophyof history.Thereis, then, a crucialdisjuncturebetween the traditionSainte-Beuveset out to describeandthatestablishedin the twentieth centuryunderthe rubricof libertinage.Sainte-Beuvedid not seek to establish seventeenth-century originsforEnlightenmentfreethought.Rather,he turned to the seventeenthcenturyin an effort to exhume a traditionof criticism and literaryskepticismwith which, on his account,the Enlightenmenthad openly broken.3 Sainte-Beuve'sinterestin Naude, Bayle, and other figures derived from a need to differentiatethe orientationandmethodof literaryhistoryfromcontemporarymechanismsfor assessing the significance of France'sintellectualand culturalheritage.For all concernedthis was a heritageunquestioninglyviewed throughthe prismof the political events of 1789 andtheiraftermath.According to Sainte-Beuve,la critique emerged in the seventeenthcenturywith thinkers such as Charron,Naude, and Bayle. From his standpoint,the significance of such figuresinheredentirelyin theirpre-Enlightenmentstatus.They vividly illustratehow the Enlightenmenthaddeviatedfroma well-establishedtraditionof la critique.The degree to which they served as a foil to the Enlightenmentbecomes evident when contrastedwith Sainte-Beuve'scharacterizationof mainstreamEnlightenmentfigures.
Ren6 Pintard,Le Libertinage erudit dans la premiere moitie du XVIIe siecle (Paris, 1943); also P. 0. Kristeller,"The Myth of RenaissanceAtheism and the FrenchTraditionof Free Thought,"Journal of the History of Philosophy, 6 (1968), 233-43; A.C. Kors, Atheismin France, 1650-1729, I, The OrthodoxSources of Disbelief (Princeton, 1990). 3
Sainte-Beuve
475
For Sainte-Beuveandhis contemporariesliteraturewas not yet restrictedto a narrowcanon of poetry, drama,and prose fiction. The domain of literature was still surveyedwith an encyclopediceye. For Sainte-Beuveperhapsphilosophy alone, particularlymodem philosophy,was excluded fromthe world of literature,and it was certainlynot accepted on its own terms. Literatureencompassed most forms of writtenexpression includingmoral essays, letters,journals, biography,history,andliteraryhistoryitself. It was thusthatSainte-Beuve consideredfigures such as Naude and Bayle to belong to the literaryheritageof the seventeenthcentury.Both men were biographers,writingwhat now passes for intellectualbiography,and both were more historiansof philosophy than philosophersthemselves. Literarybiographyas practicedby Sainte-Beuvewas an attemptto identify the genie of an author-the particular,characteristicand originalgenius of the writer.Thoughhighly individualistic,genie was firmly distinguishedfrom esprit. Genie was interiorand unreflective;it was the authenticpersona of the authorcaughtin the letters,journals,and ephemeralwritings Sainte-Beuvefavored over traditionalliterarymonumentsas sources.Yet genie was not a psychological entity.It was ratherregardedas the instinctiveexpressionof the esprit of a mythicgeniefrancais or,betterstill, genie gaulois. On Sainte-Beuve's articulation,genie founddistinctexpressionin each epoque, varyingaccording to time, place, andenvironment.Thegenie of the seventeenthcenturywas to be foundin its literature,which embodiedthegeniefrancais as did no otherformof expressionof thatcentury.By the same token, no otherperiodof literaturewas as closely calibratedwith the genie of its century.The alliance of critiquewith literaryhistorywas thus no merepredilectionbut a historiographicalnecessity. It offeredthe only meansby which thegenie of the seventeenthcenturycould be adequatelychronicled. In a lecture delivered to the studentsof the Ecole Normale Superieurein 1858, "De la Traditionen litterature,"Sainte-Beuve summarizedhis attitudes towardscriticism and literaryhistory.He effectively delimited the moral and historicalpurposeof the evaluationof Frenchintellectualtraditionrepresented by his career.The social and political overtones latent in his famous essay of 1850, "Qu'est-cequ'unclassique?"aremorefully manifestin the 1858 address. In the laterwork he developedmore fully the consequencesof his earlierrejection of formalist criteria-"there's no recipe for writing a classic," he had quipped4-in defining a classic work of literature.He made two points bearing on the presentproblem. The first lies in his statementthat traditionwas to be foundnot only in literaturebut also in laws, institutions,habits,andcustoms as well as, slightly more obliquely,"nos origines."This might well appearto be at odds with Sainte-Beuve'sindividualistic,particularistbiographicalmethod of 4 Sainte-Beuve, "Qu'est-ce qu'un classique?"in CL, III, 49.
Paul Nelles
476
literaryhistory.But genie has little to do with conscious thoughtor philosophical doctrine:the individualmind is ratherconsideredas a vehicle, albeit one endowedwith formidableideationalandcreativepowers,forthegenie du siecle. An authorwas consideredto be more a captive of his own biographicalspectacle thana willing actorwithin it. Sainte-Beuve'sphilosophyof historyconsideredthe individualthe embodiment of the esprit or genie du siecle ratherthanan individuatedconsciousness exercising rationalthought,the traditionalmodel for histories of philosophy. Thereis consequentlylittle evocation of intentionalityin Sainte-Beuve;rather, the author'sown perspectiveis constantlyeffaced throughrecurringappealto historicalnecessity. The habitualnarrativeuse of the historicalpast, particularly noticeable when describingcontemporariesand recent events, enhances these characteristics.Sainte-Beuve'sappealto laws, customs, institutions,and above all to origins confirms his conception of the purposeof literaryhistory. His turnto biographyin no way representeda turnaway fromhistoricalunderstandingto personalpsychology but was an attemptto comprehendthe grand forces of historywhich constantlythreatenedto sweep up the individual.Literature,laws, andinstitutionsall embodytradition,definedas "uncertainprincipe de raisonet de culturequi a penetrea la longue,pourle modifier,dansle caractere meme de cette nationgauloise."5Further,a nationaltradition,in literatureas in institutions,was alteredonly at greatperil. The second point of relevancehere made in the 1858 essay bears on a historical presentismfounded upon a desire to apprehendthe past in its totality. "Pourmaintenirla tradition,il ne suffit point toutefois de la bien rattachera ses monumentsles plus eleves et les plus augustes;il convient de la verifier,de la controlersans cesse surles points les plus rapproches,de la rajeunirmeme, et de la tenir dans un rapportperpetuelavec ce qui est vivant."6In general SainteBeuve did not believe thatthe past servedas an instrumentfor understandingthe present. It was more the case that contemporaryexperience provided a new vantagepoint from which to regardthe past.7The ideological power of history thuslies in the choice of monuments.The purposeof the comparisonof tradition with moder culturewas to createa dialoguebetween past andpresentwith the potentialto reshapeboth. In accordwith contemporarycurrentsofhistoriographicalthought,SainteBeuve's conceptionof historywas overwhelminglyidealist. For Sainte-Beuve and otherhistoriansand philosophersof history such as Cousin, Jouffroy,and Tocqueville the Revolutionservedas incontrovertibleproofof the force of ideas in history.The crux of historiographicaltension lies in the legitimacy of the 5 Sainte-Beuve,"De la Traditionen litteratureet dans quel sens il la faut entendre.Legon d'ouverturea 1'Ecole Normale"(1858) in CL, XV, 358. 6
Ibid., 373.
7 See Mulhauser,op cit., 101.
Sainte-Beuve
477
ideas andevents which hadbroughtaboutthe predicamentof Frenchsociety in the firsthalf of the nineteenthcenturyandwhichhadoverthrownthe traditionslegal, political, andintellectual-of the Ancien Regime. Sainte-Beuvenot only rejectedthe ideas which had broughtaboutthe downfall of the Ancien Regime but also soughtto establisha criticalmechanismindependentof Enlightenment thought. "De la Tradition"constitutesone of the rareexceptionswhere Sainte-Beuve addressedinterpretiveissues directly.Forthe most parthis methodologicalpreoccupations must be sought in medias res, in the critical evaluations of the journalarticleslaterpublishedcollectively as the Portraitslitteraires,andin the cut and thrustof his book reviews. The relativepaucity of methodologicalreflection, of course,is partandparcelof Sainte-Beuve'santi-systematicconception of authenticcriticism.In his writingsfromthe 1830s and 1840s he soughtto uncover a critical "tradition"from which the Enlightenmentcould be seen to have deviated and to which contemporaryinquirycould return.It took him to literaryhistory,to the seventeenthcentury,in which la critique had its origin, andto Naude andBayle in particular.Yet Sainte-Beuvedid not simply abandon nineteenth-for seventeenth-centuryforms of inquiry.He undertookan evaluation of the criticalthoughtnot only of his greatseventeenth-centuryheroes but also of Enlightenmentfiguresandof his immediatepredecessorsandcontemporaries.Sainte-Beuve'shistoricaland criticalsynthesisof this traditionwas crucial for establishinga criticaldialoguewith the historyof Frenchthoughtwhich, unlike Enlightenmentpractice,brookedno rupturewith tradition. Sainte-Beuve'sportrait of Bayle was published in the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1835, predatingthe Naude essay by several years. When his sketch of Naude appearedin the samejournalin 1843, one year before his election to theAcademiefrancaise,a slightlymorecomprehensivepiece on Naudeby Charles Labitte,to which Sainte-Beuvewas muchindebted,hadalreadyappearedin the Revue in 1836.8Historyand literaryhistorywere consistentfeaturesof the Revue des Deux Mondesin these years,with regularcontributorsincludingCharles Nisard andAugustinThierry.The Bayle essay, subtitled"Du Genie critiqueet de Bayle," was the first in an occasional series by Sainte-Beuve devoted to "Ecrivainscritiqueset historienslitterairesde la France."It has long been recognized as an importantturningpoint in Sainte-Beuve's efforts to define his metier.9In the essay on Bayle, Sainte-Beuve wrote that he had appropriated Bayle's methodin orderto apply it to Bayle himself. Bayle himself claimed to have derivedhis methodfromPellisson, which accordingto Sainte-Beuvecon8 Charles Labitte,"Ecrivainsprecurseursdu siecle de Louis XIV. I. GabrielNaude,"Revue des Deux Mondes, ser. 4, VII (July-September1836), 447-77. 9 See Jules Levallois, Sainte-Beuve (Paris, 1872), 75-80; Albert Sorel, "Sainte-Beuve," Revue Bleue, 41 (1904), 801.
Paul Nelles
478
sisted of having "toujoursplus cherche,en lisant un livre, 1'espritet le genie de l'auteurque le sujet meme qu'on y traitait."'0This expresses in nuce SainteBeuve's single-mindedpursuitof thegenie of Bayle, Naude,andothersthroughout his career.In the later essay on Naude, Sainte-Beuve followed a slightly differenttackin evoking Bayle, suggestingthathis own essay mightserve as the article on Naude absent from Bayle's Dictionnaire. But he also appealed to Naude's method,statingthatthe essay was an exercise in the kind of historical retrievalpracticedby Naudehimself, who haddone so muchto save othersfrom oblivion. Thereis no mentionof Naudein the 1835 essay on Bayle, andindeedSainteBeuve might well have been unawareof Naude at the time of writing.By contrast,the Naude essay bristleswith referencesto Bayle, who was "le plus direct heritier"of Naude's esprit. The lightnesswith which both wore theirlearning illustratedNicole's dictumthatpedantrywas a mentalhabitandnot necessarily the professional vice of erudition.'2Reiteratingthe commonplacethat everything is to be found in Bayle but needs to be taken out of Bayle in orderto be grasped,he opined:"Combience mot est-il plus vrai de Naude encore, lequel n'a ni point de vue apparentni relief saisissable,et qui etouffe son idee comme a For modem students dessein sous une masse de citations et de digressions.""3 to Montaigne, reference with thisfamiliartrajectoryfromNaudeto Bayle, nodding Charron,andLa MotheLe Vayer,representsthe well-wornaxis of the libertinage model of seventeenth-centuryliteraryskepticism.For Sainte-Beuve,however, this trajectorywas neitherlibertin,nor did it lead to the Enlightenment. Sainte-Beuve'ssketchof Naudeis only fully comprehensiblewhen it is seen that the earlieressay on Bayle provided a template for its execution. Viewed fromthis standpoint,most of Sainte-Beuve'sinsightsintoNaude canbe directly traced to his efforts to delineate the main features of the concept of le genie critiquein the Bayle essay. In both essays Sainte-Beuvesuggestedthatle genie critiqueis a moder phenomenon,unknownbeforethe sixteenthcentury.14While in that centuryit had exhibited a faint pulse, it only really came to life in the seventeenth.Montaigne,thoughhe possessed manyof the attributesofun genie critique,was preventedfrom allowing his criticalgenius to come to fruitionby an exceeding concern for style; at the otherend of the spectrumthe same was said of Voltaire.One of the defining characteristicsof le genie critique is a complete absence of art, style, and, perhapsmost importantly,of philosophy. "Hatons-nousd'expliquernotrepensee,"he wrote.15 10 Sainte-Beuve, "Du genie critiqueet de Bayle" (1835) in PL, I, 373. I "Naude,"op cit., 512. 12
Ibid., 475. 13Ibid., 469. 14"Bayle,"op. cit., 364; "Naude,"op. cit., 471. 15 Ibid., 376.
Sainte-Beuve
479
The most significanttraitsharedby Bayle andNaude was theirskepticism. While Bayle's skepticism(barelytouchedupon in the 1835 essay) was engenderedby religious controversy,Naude's skepticismhadbeen causedby the credulity and lack of methodwhich had generallyobtainedin the sciences during Naude's lifetime. Method itself he whimsically defined as "cet autrebon gout qui est particulieraux sciences."16 Naude belonged to "cetterace de sceptiques et academiquesd'alors,"a race which includedMontaigne,Charron,and Huet as well as Bayle, "donton ne sait s'ils sontplus doctes ou plus penseurs,etudiant tout, doutantde tout entre eux, que Descartes est venu miner en etablissant d'autoriteune philosophiespiritualiste."'7 Thoughfleeting,the comparisonwith Descartesconstitutedan importantstep in establishingan independentstrainof literaryskepticismdistinctfrom the formalphilosophicaldevelopmentsof the seventeenthcentury. Lack of a formal philosophical orientationwas thereforeessential to the skepticismof NaudeandBayle. If Naudehadever dreamtof a system,it was not philosophical but followed sixteenth-centuryantiquarianlines. While he had moments of enthusiasm,as when he became enrapturedwith Campanella,"il retombavite a 1'etatde lecteurcontemplatifet critique."'8His one truepassion, the library,was carefully controlledby the constancy of the affect: "IIreve la bibliothequepubliqueet universelleavec la memepersistanceet la meme chaleur que Diderot a pu mettre a l'Encyclopedie."'9With Bayle, though obliged to make some concessions to his "grandrole philosophique,"Sainte-Beuvecounteredthatthe philosophicalinterpretationto which Bayle's work had been subjected in the eighteenthcenturyhad been somewhatforced. Moreover,Bayle's philosophywas dominatedby his genie critique,andso it was not philosophyin the modem sense afterall. Contrastingthis with both a romanticgenie createur and the genie philosophique,which constantlyveered towardssystem, SainteBeuve describedthe genie critique in terms which effectively summarizethe salientpoints of both essays: [I]l prend tout en consideration,fait tout valoir, et se laisse d'abord aller,sauf a revenirbientot.Toutespritqui a en soi une partd'artou de systeme n'admetvolontiersque ce qui est analoguea son point de vue, a sa predilection.Le genie critiquen'a riende tropdigne, ni de prude,ni de preoccupe,aucunquant a soi.20
16
"Naude," op. cit., 471.
17Ibid., 472-73. 18
Ibid., 472. 19 Ibid., 483, 486. 20 "Bayle," op. cit., 371.
Paul Nelles
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One of the most strikingaspects of Sainte-Beuve'shandlingof Naude and Bayle is the degreeto which he portrayedboth as living in the seventeenthcenturyatone remove,abstainingfromthecentury'smajorintellectualevents.Though born with the century itself, Naude was, he implied, neither a Racine nor a Descartes: "il n'avait aucun de ces caracteresqui etaient propres au siecle nouveau; il ne se souciait en rien de l'expression litteraire,il ne s'en doutait meme pas." His spiritwas more of the Renaissance,thoughhe lacked the general credulitywhich markedthe epoque.2'In what remainsa preciouslyappropriateepithethe was rather"le bibliothecairedu XVIesiecle."22 Bayle by contrastwas bothbehindandaheadof his century.His prose style frequentlysmackedof the sixteenthcentury,while the little regardhe exhibited towardformalconstraintson thoughtand expressionmarkedhim as a man of the eighteenth.This mentaldistancefrom contemporaryFrenchthoughtfound geographicalconfirmation:"De Toulousea Geneve, de Geneve a Sedan,de Sedan a Rotterdam,Bayle contoure, en quelque sorte, la Francedu pur XVIIe siecle sans y entrer."23 Naude and Bayle were seen to occupy strategicpositions within the developmentof la critique,the one on the cusp of the Renaissance, the otheron the precipiceof the Enlightenment.Thoughla critiquehad its genesis in the seventeenthcentury,it was a genesis occasioned by an intellectual distancefromthe dominantfeaturesof the centuryitself. The plight of anachronismwas intrinsicto Sainte-Beuve'sphilosophy of history.A good deal of Sainte-Beuve'sfascinationwith figures such as Naude andBayle (andwe shouldincludeHuetin this regardas well) stemmedfromthe fact that he viewed them as living anachronisms.Far from a moral failing, in Sainte-Beuve'sphilosophy of history this instead indicateda certainfreedom over historicalcircumstances.It serves as a much moreprofoundsignal of their independenceof historicalforces thanany ex professo assertionof intellectual independencecould ever provide. Further,it confirmed that the gift of genie critiquewas innate;whenjoined with literaryhistory,it offereda transcendental escape from contemporaryhistorical reality. For Sainte-Beuve this meant an escapefromthe Revolution,the Enlightenmentwhichhadengenderedit, andthe political andculturalinstabilitywhich followed. Of equalimportancewas the universalismof Naude andBayle. An inclination towardsall formsof knowledge, an insatiablecuriosity,a certainjournalistic spiritanimatedboth thinkers.Sainte-Beuvecharacterizedthis as one of the prime faculties of le genie critique-"cette faculte plus diverse, mobile, empressee,pratique."Such universalismhad its corollaryin an irenic disposition. This was exhibitedin Bayle's religious tolerance,in his confession thathe
21
"Naude," op. cit., 472. Ibid., 487. 23 "Bayle," op. cit., 373.
22
481
Sainte-Beuve
had always "uneoreille pourl'accuse,"cited by Sainte-Beuvein both essays.24 Naude was "ouvert,equitable, accueillant";in mattersof controversyhe lisMoretened to both "le pour et le contre, afin d'entendretoutes les parties."25 to a the such measured disinterestedness over, permitted genie critique transform itself in orderbetter to understandan authoror a text. Bayle constantly changed roles, now playing the recent convert, now an old Roman Catholic, "heureuxde cacherson nom et de voir sa pensee faireroutenouvelle en croisant l'ancienne!"26Naude was taken to have professed that "pourbien traiterun sujet, il faut se transmuerdedans."27 In later essays Sainte-Beuve embroideredupon this fabric of la critique, gatheringCharron,La Mothele Vayer,andHuetwithinits folds. He quotedboth Naude and Bayle on Charron:Naude regardedhim the equal of Montaigne, while Bayle admiredhim for never attemptingto weaken the objectionsto his own point of view.28Above all Charronhad adopteda skepticalmethod, continuallyinsistingon the weakness of the humanmind:it was all doubt,balance, and suspendedjudgmentwith Charron.Contraryto appearances,skepticismin philosophydidnot leadCharronto adoptskepticalreligiousviews; Sainte-Beuve characterizedCharron'stechniqueas a fideistic house-cleaning.29He did however acknowledgethe generalreputationof religious incredulityenjoyedby his cluster of esprits critiques. It was in a review of a new edition of Pascal that Sainte-Beuve came closest to evoking the spirit of libertinage. He placed Montaigne,Charron,La Mothe-le-Vayer,andNaudein the campof seventeenthcenturyincredulestargetedby Pascal. Yet the very contrastwith the high religious stakes wagered by Pascal led him to argue that the moral and religious sentimentsof"ces hommesde douteet d'erudition,ou bienles libertinssimplement gens d'espritet du monde"did not merit serious regard,given thatthey themselves were so unmovedby theiralleged irreligion.Sainte-Beuvewas unableto The fact detect in any one of them a sense of profoundreligious inquietude.30 that they took their libertinismso lightly indicatedthat their faint libertinage had nothingto do with theirtruegenie. The sense of a seventeenth-centurytraditionofla critiqueis conveyed most vividly by the case of Huet. Sainte-Beuveevoked Huet'suniversalcuriosity,his passion to embrace all forms of knowledge. As he had with Naude, SainteBeuve stressedthat Huet was a child of the Renaissance,participatinglittle in the greatintellectualcurrentsof his own time: 24
Ibid., 367; "Naude,"op. cit., 486.
25
"Naude," op. cit., 486.
26
"Bayle,"op. cit., 371.
27
"Naude," op. cit., 494.
28 Sainte-Beuve, "Charron"(1854) 29
in CL, XI, 242.
Ibid., 243.,
30 Sainte-Beuve, "Pascal"(1859)
in CL, V, 526.
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II continue d'etre pour les Jesuites, de les priser et de les estimer, de croirea leuravenir,comme si Pascaln'avaitpas tonne;il continued'etre pour la philosophie des sages d'avant Descartes, pour la philosophie sceptiquedes GabrielNaude,des LaMothele Vayer,des Charron,comme si ce grandrevolutionnaireet ce grandennemide la tradition,Descartes, n'avait point parupour tout changer.31 This was the greatesttestimonyof the esprit critique:to have stood firm in the amidst face of the Cartesianonslaught,to have servedas counter-revolutionary the flurry of what Sainte-Beuve and his contemporariesregardedas the first philosophicalrevolutionin France,and to have remainedfaithfulto an older, more legitimatetraditionof criticalthought. The final result of Sainte-Beuve'screationof a traditionof literaryskepticism fromMontaigneto Bayle was the provisionof a pre-Enlightenment genealmethod Saintecritical In his own of la of the ogy critique. excavating origins Beuve sought to place it within an identifiableFrench tradition.His abiding concernwas to do so in such a way thatthis traditionemergedhistoricallyprior to the Enlightenment.This renderedla critique historicallyand intellectually independentof the greatintellectualmovementsandpoliticaleventsof the eighteenthcentury.Fromthe vantagepoint afforded,Enlightenmentdevelopments could be seen to have been generallyaberrant.Forthe most partla critiquehad spiralledinto decline in the eighteenthcentury.Butjust as Montaignewas partially admittedinto Sainte-Beuve'scriticalcircle in the sixteenthcentury,so too was roommadefor Diderotin the eighteenth.Sainte-BeuveregardedDiderotas havingplacedhis handuponthe very soul of criticism.WithBayle criticismhad been "exacte,curieuseet fine,"buteven in Bayle andothersit lackedlife, fecundity,andperspicuity.WhiletheEncyclopediehadbeen Diderot's"oeuvresociale et principale,"his particulargenie lies in havingbeen "le createurde la critique For Sainte-Beuvethis meantthe abilityto disemue, empresseeet eloquente."32 cover what was good, even great,in an authoror work of art,to seize upon this single aspectandmakeit almostthe sole objectof criticalattention.In Diderot's case Sainte-Beuvelookednotto theEncyclopediebutto the Salons.HereDiderot exhibited "cette faculte de demi-metamorphose,"which Sainte-Beuvehad alreadydetectedin Bayle andNaude,"quiest lejeu et le triomphede la critique,et qui consiste a se mettrea la place de l'auteuret au point de vue du sujet qu'on examine,a lire toutecritselon I 'espritqui I 'a dicte."Diderotpresentedto reader and subjectalike "nonpas une lecon, mais une fete."33
Sainte-Beuve, "Huet"(1850) in CL, II, 178. Sainte-Beuve, "Diderot"(1851) in CL, III, 299-300. 33 Ibid., 301. '
32
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Sainte-Beuve'sdiscussion of Diderot,however, constitutesvery much the exception to his view of Enlightenmentthinkers.In an early essay he weighed the strengthsand weaknesses of majorEnlightenmentfigures againstthe measureof Diderot.In orderto individualizeitself successfully in a particulargenie, he wrote, the philosophical faculty of the centuryneeded a head more patient and serious than Voltaire's,a mind less strict than Condillac's, an individual more copious and effervescent than Buffon, fuller and more decisive than d'Alembert.A muchmoreenthusiasticfeeling for the sciences, industry,andthe artsthanRousseauexhibitedwas required.Diderotalone, he concluded,had all of these characteristics.34 In this essay, which precededthe Bayle essay by some fouryears,it is possible to glimpse an earlyportraitof thegenie critique.Diderot was open to all possibilities, transformingthem practicallyby chance and according to a spontaneousand diffuse power. Diderotwas comparedto a vast, boiling pot where all that went in either melted or fermented.He was able to marshalanundisciplinedcampofphilosophes,petitioningone andthenanother; there is but the slightest trace of his own personality or quant-a-soi.35
Sainte-Beuve'sgeneral attitudetowardsthe Enlightenmentwas forgedby underlyingpolitical motivations.Rousseau and Voltairecame in for repeated attack.36Thoughhe recognized in the authorof the Confessions"le pere de la litteratureintime et de la peintured'interieur,"the end result was spoiled by Rousseau'smisanthropicpride and cynical tone.37Condorcet,however,whose directparticipationin the Revolutioneventually(andjustly, in Sainte-Beuve's view) claimed his life, unleashedthe full force of Sainte-Beuve'shostility toward the entire century.His review of the 1847 edition of Condorcet'sworks openedbluntly:"Cetteeditionde Condorcetque le publicne demandaitpas...."38 Theculminationof the eighteenthcentury,in whichhe directlyimplicatedDiderot andthe Encyclopedie,was to be foundin the Enlightenmentandthe Revolution. Both foundtheirapogee in the figure of Condorcet."Refairele coeur humaina neuf, telle est la pretentionexorbitantede cette ecole finale du XVIIIesiecle, issue de l'Encyclopedie,et dont Condorcet,je l'ai dit, est le produitextremeet comme le cerveau monstrueux."39 Condorcet'swas an esprit falsified "parla passion et parle systeme."His confidencein "l'excellence de ses idees et de son systemerelativementauperfectionnementde l'humanite"was emblematicof the What gross experimentin errorof the closing decade of the previouscentury.40 as even be not was worse, Condorcet'sphilosophicalsystem could regarded the 34 Sainte-Beuve, "Diderot"(1831)
in PL, I, 253-54.
35 Ibid., 255.
See, e.g., Sainte-Beuve, "Voltaireet Rousseau"(1861) in CL, XV, 226. Sainte-Beuve, "Rousseau"(1850) in CL, III, 78-97. 38 Sainte-Beuve, "Condorcet"(1851) in CL, III, 336.
36
37
39 Ibid., 347. 40
Ibid., 342-43.
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product of his own genie but was derived from Turgot.41His originality lay elsewhere, in "la foi aveugle dans les methodes,"and in "cetteidee, si contraire a l'observation,que toutes les erreursviennent des institutionset des lois, que personnene nait avec un espritfaux."42 Nothingcouldbe further,of course,fromNaude'sRealpolitik.Sainte-Beuve's discussion ofNaude's politicalviews is the closest he came to tacklingthe centralthemes of the modem libertinagemodel. He excused Naude's more brutal political views-on the uses of assassination and poisoning, on the halfheartednessof the St Bartholomew'sDay massacres-with referenceto his time in Italyandto lessons learnedat the Vaticancourt,which hadprovidedhim with "toutesa finesse morale."43 This was largelydone in orderto justify his positive evaluation of Naude's moral and political writings. Sainte-Beuve regarded Naude's realism as preferableto the pamphleteersof the sixteenthcentury,the philosophes of the eighteenth, and the liberals of the nineteenth: "Naude n'appartienten riena cette ecole de publicistesdejaemancipeeau XVIesiecle, et In sharp qui deviendrala philosophiqueet la liberaledans les ages suivants."44 contrastto Sainte-Beuve'scriticism of Enlightenmentperfectability,Naude's political philosophyaccountedfor the trueface of humannature: Jeune,d'ordinaireon estime l'humaniteen masse, et l'on est plutotde la politique liberale. Plus tard, on arrive a mieux connaitre,a ce qu'on croit,c'est-a-diretropsouventa moins estimerles hommes;et si l'on est consequent,on incline alorspourla politiquesevere.45 Significantly,Naude's politics are the only aspect of Naude's libertinageconsidered by Sainte-Beuve;he touches upon, but makes no extreme claims for, Naude'sreligiousviews. If Sainte-Beuve'sobjectionsto the Enlightenmentwere political, his criticism of contemporaryliberalismwas even more so. Reviewing the edition of Tocqueville'sunpublishedwritingsandletterswhich appeareda couple of years afterToqueville'sdeath in 1859, he characterizedthe Ancien Regime, quoting Tocqueville himself, as taking away with the one hand what it gave with the other:if it uncovered"millemotifs nouveauxde haYrl'Ancien Regime,"it gave "peu de raisons nouvelles pour aimer la Revolution."Yet still he criticized Tocqueville,whom he appearsto have genuinelyrespected,for failingto recognize the improvedconditionof ordinarypeople freed from local tyrannyby the great centralizingdrives of Richelieu and Louis XIV. At the methodological 41
Ibid., 343-44.
42
Ibid., 345. "Naud," op. cit., 491.
4 44 45
Ibid., 493. Ibid., 494.
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level he faulted Tocqueville for privileging individual freedoms, claiming that in doing so he had enslaved history itself by imposing a fixed point of view upon it.46Much less charitably, he took issue with Charles Nisard's characterization, a propos of Villon and the fifteenth century, of "France, pays de democratie," and of"Poesie, fille du peuple," in Nisard's Precis sur I 'Histoire de la Litterature francaise. Such formulations struck Sainte-Beuve as "toujours un peu vaines et acquises, dans la bouche de M. Nisard."47More broadly, he took to task those at the liberal, romantic journal for which he himself once wrote, Le Globe, who wrote irreverently of the "courtisanesque" language of Louis XIV, treated Bossuet's ornate prose style cavalierly, and gave short shrift to "l'originalite franCaise."48 Sainte-Beuve's views on the nature of criticism and literary tradition were thus underwritten by anti-Enlightenment and anti-liberal sentiments. Such motives vividly animate the 1858 "De la Tradition en litterature,"where he defined the classic in loaded political terms. Classical literatures are "en plein accord et en harmonie avec leur epoque, avec leur cadre social, avec les principes et les pouvoirs dirigeants de la societe; ... contentes d'etre de leur nation, de leur temps, du regime oiuelles naissent et fleurissent."49Romantic literature is characterized as inquiet, searching, eccentric, and "voluntarily errant." By contrast classical literature is uncomplaining and unwhining, never bored with itself. It embraces "sa patrie, son temps:" such was Greek literature under Pericles, Latin literature under Augustus, and French literature under Louis XIV. The political and aesthetic plaint of romanticism, in Sainte-Beuve's eyes, was simply the third act of the Enlightenment. Romantic nostalgia was cast from the same mold as Enlightenment idealism, being either "tres en avant ou tres en arriere."In the nineteenth century, romanticism worshiped the Middle Ages; in the eighteenth, it was "deja revolutionnaire avec Rousseau."50 Such philosophical considerations of the past were very much the norm in French historiography in the decades before the ascent of Positivism.51 So too was the preoccupation with the Revolution. For Michelet defense of the Revolution was a quasi-religious historiographical undertaking.52Contemporary histo46 Sainte-Beuve, "Tocqueville"(1860) in CL, XV, 97: "La preoccupationde l'auteur en faveur de la libert6 de l'individu et de ses garantiesest, d'ailleurs, des plus honorableset des plus genereuses; mais sous cette impression il 6tait en train, dans cet ouvrage, de maitriser l'histoire et de lui imposer une vue fixe, exclusive." 47 Sainte-Beuve, "Nisard"(1836) in PC, III, 352. 48 Sainte-Beuve, "Villemain"(1836) in PC, II, 389. 49 "De la Tradition," op. cit., 369. 50Ibid., 370-71. 51 See Yvonne Knibiehler,Naissance des sciences humaines:Mignet et l'histoire philosophique au XIXesiecle (Paris, 1973), 345-49. 52 Lionel Gossman, "Micheletand the FrenchRevolution,"Representingthe FrenchRevolution, ed. James A.W. Hefferman(London, 1992), 81-105.
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riansof philosophy,principallyCousinin France,hadclearlyidentifiedthe systematicrationalismof the Frenchphilosophes with the Revolution,portraying the Revolutionas the inevitableoutcomeof the philosophywhich hadpreceded it. As outlinedin Cousin's Coursde I'histoirede la philosophie, which SainteBeuve hadattendedas a student,the combinationof EnlightenmentandRevolution were the climactic events of modem history.The Reformationand the English Revolution had been essential but, importantly,only partialrevolutions. The philosophy of the sixteenthcenturygave birthto a spiritof independence which had come to fruitionwith Bacon and Descartes.The Enlightenmentgeneralizedthese previousrevolutionsin philosophyjust as the Revolutionof 1789 generalizedpreviousreligiousandpoliticalrevolutions,for the firsttime providing mankindwith a condition of generalizedliberty.In this light even the extremeviolence of the Revolution,particularlywhen comparedwith the violence of the Reformation,could be seen to be inevitable.The eighteenthcenturyhad fulfilledthe tragicmodemmissionof effectinga completebreakwith the Middle Ages.53 Despite his antipathytowards philosophy as a discipline, over the years Sainte-Beuvereviewed the works of a diverse arrayof philosophers.Yet he did so squarelywithin the limits of literaryhistory. He rarely discussed ideas or systems in isolation, choosing to situate them insteadwithin a broadrange of biographical,institutional,andpoliticalcontexts.While he nowherechallenged the validityof Cousin'ssketchof modemintellectualandpoliticalhistory,SainteBeuve certainlyquestionedboththe inevitabilityandthe desirabilityof the Revolution.On the historiographicalplane, this meantqueryingnot the role philosophy hadplayed in the events leadingup to 1789 butratherthe legitimacyof that role and,consequently,the legitimacyof an intellectualhistoryfoundeduponthe historyof philosophy.The eighteenthcenturywas generallyabhorrentbecause it had given free reign to system and philosophy. Sainte-Beuve several times expressed preference for Cousin's predecessors and successors, particularly Royer-Collard,who hadprecededCousinin the chairof philosophy,andJouffroy, one of Cousin's disciples, who had broughtSainte-Beuveto the Globe in the 1820s. In 1833 Sainte-BeuvequotedapprovinglyfromJouffroy'scourse on La Destinee humaine:"Les evenements ... sont si absolumentdeterminespar les idees, et les idees se succedent et s'enchainentd'une maniere si fatale,"that philosophycould only standandwatch, having no effectualpower of its own.54 In 1847, reviewingthe publicationof Cousin'soriginalcours of 1815-1820, Sainte-Beuvestressedthe methodologicaldebtof Cousin'seclectic movementto the spiritualistphilosophy of Royer-Collard.Cousin's principalachievement was to have had "l'idee de completeret d'animerla methode psychologique, l'histoire de la philosophie (Paris, 1829). Sainte-Beuve,"Jouffroy"(1833) in PL, I, 312.
53 Victor Cousin, Cours de 54
Sainte-Beuve
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celle de l'analyse interieure[of Royer-Collard],par la recherchehistorique." Sainte-Beuvearguedthat amidst the subsequentvulgarizationof Eclecticism, the importanceof a "spiritualismequi s'appliquaitmieux au fond et a la nature des idees"hadbeen entirelyeclipsed.55By 1847 Eclecticismhadentirelyforgotten "cetteautremethodeet ... cette doctrined'analyseet de descriptioninterieure qu'instituaM. Royer-Collard,que M. Cousin, en 1816, elargitet exposa, dont M. Jouffroy,depuis, avait fait son vaste et presqueunique domaine."56SainteBeuve's criticismswere no doubt inspiredin partby the animositywhich had arisenbetween the two men. They had once enjoyed cordialrelations:in 1840 the powerfulCousinhadsecuredSainte-Beuve'spositionat the Mazarine,while the gratefulSainte-Beuvein turnfurnishedCousinwith archivalandmanuscript material.Things soured, however, when in 1843 Cousin published under his own name autographmanuscriptsdiscoveredby Sainte-Beuvein the course of his Port-Royalresearch.57 Nonetheless, therewere real intellectualdifferences betweenthe two. As he had foreshortenedthe Enlightenmenton the landscapeof the Ancien Regime, so Sainte-BeuveforeshortenedCousin'soverwhelmingpresenceon the canvas of contemporaryphilosophy.Perhapsmost telling in this regardis his robustdefense of Maine de Biran, the last of the ideologues, in two essays of 1857. The first was in a review of Taine's Les Philosophesfrancais du dixneuviemesiecle (1857). RebukingTainewith havingprovidedlittle morethana caricature,Sainte-Beuvefavorablyevoked Maine de Biran'sdescriptionof his own "interior"method.Mainede Biranhaddecidedto neglect the expressionof ideas in orderto focus more intently on ideas themselves. The passages from Maine de Biran'swritingsquotedby Sainte-Beuvenicely approximateboththe notionof interiordescriptionespousedby Jouffroy(to whom Sainte-BeuvecomparedMainede Biran)andSainte-Beuve'sown views on the only half-cognizant powers of the genie. His summaryof Maine de Biran'scentralconcernechoes what he had written of Naude, Bayle, and Diderot: always searching for the interiorpointd 'appui,whereothersfoundnothingof substanceMainede Biran always succeeded in locating the fixed center,the essential point incapableof furtherdivision or reduction.58 In an essay devotedto Mainede Biran'sposthumouslypublishedJournalSainte-Beuvedismissedhis associationwith the ideologues as a passing whim, eventuallycorrectedwhen Maine de Biranconsulted his powerful"sens intime."59 TheJournal itself, as the recordof one blessed by naturewith the facultyof interiorperception,was more a moralpaintingthana
Sainte-Beuve, "VictorCousin"(1847) in PL, III, 471. Ibid., 472. 57 See Bonnerot, op. cit., I, 265, 384. 58 Sainte-Beuve, "Taine" (1857) CL, XIII, 280-82. 59 Sainte-Beuve, "Mainede Biran"(1857) in CL, XIII, 317.
55 56
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book of philosophy.It deserveda place withina "bibliothequeinterieure"alongside such seventeenth-centurymastersas Pascal and Fenelon.60 In recallingCousinto his intellectualorigins Sainte-Beuveemphasizedthe factthathis own differenceswith Cousinwerenot of methodbutof order.SainteBeuve thusdid not deny contemporaryinfluencesuponhis method.Buthe carefully claimedaffinitywith a groupof thinkerson the marginsof bothEnlightenmentthoughtandthe contemporarymainstream.Like Cousin,Sainte-Beuvehad sought to supplementthe technique of interiordescriptionwith historical research.Unlike Jouffroy,who Sainte-Beuvereproachedwith having moved towards philosophical conjecture,he combined interiordescriptionwith la critique.His rejectionof philosophy,alreadyexplicitin the 1833articleon Jouffroy,61 led him instead to literaryhistory.This was of course literaryhistory as "critique"ratherthan textual scholarship.Though Sainte-Beuveregularlyfeasted on the latterin his essays andbook reviews,he remained,as he once remarkedof Nisard, "le contrairede ceux qui donnentau public des papiersplutot que des idees."62
Sainte-Beuve'sphilosophyof historywas thus fashionedin oppositionto a consensuswhichconsideredthe combinedforces contemporary historiographical of EnlightenmentandRevolutionthe crowningachievementof Europeanthought since the Renaissance.Yet it was also opposed to the history of philosophy in genere. This explains some aspects of Sainte-Beuve'sattitudetowardsCousin. He hadno quarrelwith Cousin'sassumptionthatthe historyof philosophyin the eighteenth-centuryhad to be interpretedin light of the final political developments of that century,as his treatmentof Condorcetmakes plain. Nor does he questionthe assumptionthatthe historyof post-medievalphilosophyas a whole should be approachedfrom such a point of view. It was at this juncturethat Sainte-Beuve'screationof a traditionof seventeenth-century literaryskepticism became crucial.This was because, thoughhe acceptedCousin's diagnosis that the genie of the eighteenthcenturyresidedin its philosophy,he was convinced that the genie of the seventeenthcentury lie well outside of philosophy. The seventeenthcenturyhad a history of philosophy,but it was properlysubordinatedto the literaryhistoryof the century,just as it hadbeen subordinatedto the historyof eighteenth-centuryphilosophyby Cousin. On this sharplyhierarchicalsystemthephilosophicalgenie of the eighteenth century,and moreoverof the Revolution, was portrayedas having effected a radicalbreakwith the genie critique of the seventeenthcentury.Sainte-Beuve had no doubtsthatthe latterwas a more directexpressionof the geniefrancais. 60
Ibid., 322.
"Jouffroy,"op. cit., 304: "Etpuis, nous l'avouerons,comme science, la philosophienous affecte de moins en moins." 62 Sainte-Beuve, "Nisard" (1861) in CL, XV, 209. 61
Sainte-Beuve
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It was in fuller accord with the traditionnot only of Frenchthought,but with Frenchlaws, institutions,andcustoms.Acceptingthatskepticismwas one of the key featuresof the seventeenth-centuryesprit; and underliningfor other purposes non-philosophicaland anti-systematictendencies in Naude and Bayle, Sainte-Beuve clad seventeenth-centuryskepticism in "literary"garb. Yet his evocationof the seventeenth-centuryoriginsof la critiqueplayeda much stronger role than was traditionalin sketches of disciplinaryhistories. He had an intenselyorganicist,genealogicalconceptionof historicalprocesses.He claimed to have returnedto the originsnot only of literaryhistoryas a disciplinebut also of modem Frenchcriticalthoughtaltogether.Given his views on the deformity of the Frenchgenie duringthe Enlightenment,such a returnto the origins of le genie critiquewas an attemptnot only to legitimize literaryhistory,but to redeem andrenew contemporaryFrenchthought. Literaryhistory thus redressedthe uneven characterof contemporaryaccounts of seventeenth-centuryintellectualhistory.Philosophy,the naturaland mathematicalsciences included,andits historywere irrevocablyassociatedwith the intellectualexcesses of thephilosophesandthepoliticalexcesses of the Revolution.Sainte-Beuveneverrejectedthe teleologies inherentin contemporaryhistories of philosophy.Instead,he appealedto literaryhistoryin orderto circumvent the outcomeof such teleologies. This emergesquiteclearlyin a suggestive reviewof thetwenty-secondvolumeof theHistoirelitterairede la France(1853). Thoughthe volume underreview was devotedto the thirteenthcentury,SainteBeuve nonethelessusedthe reviewto reflectuponthe long historyof theHistoire litteraire and to expound upon the general excellence of the undertaking.He recountedthe genesis of the collective endeavorof FrenchBenedictinesunder Dom Rivet in the earlyeighteenthcentury,andhe reviewedthe publicationhistory of the eight volumes of the Histoire litterairebetween 1733 and 1749, the yearof Rivet's death.Contrastingthe laudablepublishingenterpriseof the Congregation of Saint Maur with the Encyclopedie, "ou la congregation des philosophesallaitregnersans partage,"Sainte-Beuverecountedthe publication of a ninth volume, from Rivet's own pen, in 1750, and of a furtherthree volumes, largelythe work of others,to 1763. Mais l'ouvrage, arrivea ce tome 12eet au douzieme siecle, et n'etant plus soutenupar la pensee active du fondateur,etait reste interrompu durantpres de cinquanteans, lorsquel'Institutle repritsous l'Empire. Le Gouvemementavait desire la continuationde cet utile travail.Un Benedictin survivant,Dom Brial, devenu membrede l'Institut,fut le lien entreles nouveauxet les anciensredacteurs;non pas que Dom Brial euitparticipea la redactiondes deriers volumes de l'Histoirelitteraire, a une date si eloignee, mais il avait ete employe a qui remontaientdej"a
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d'autrespublicationshistoriquesdes Benedictins,et il avait heritedes traditionset de la methode.63 On Sainte-Beuve's telling, it was not so much the death of Rivet which had interruptedthe Histoire litteraireas it was the Encylopedie,the Enlightenment, andthe Revolution.It was revived amidstthe rubbleof the Enlightenmentdurtraditionas though ing the Empireandsustainedby Benedictinehistoriographical five decades of Frenchhistoryhad never been. In stressingthe greatcontinuity between the efforts of Rivet and the volume underreview, Sainte-Beuvewas intent on characterizingnot only the Histoire litterairebut literaryhistory in general as a pre-Enlightenmententerprise.He quoted at some length Rivet's own descriptionof the project: Ce sont les monumentsconnus de la litteraturegauloise et francaise, recherchesavec soin,reunisavec methode,rangesdansleurordrenaturel, eclaircisavec unejuste etendue,accompagnesdes liaisonsconvenables, dont nous formons l'Histoire litterairede la France.On y auraun tableau vivant et anime, non des faits d'une nation policee, puissante, belliqueuse, qui se borne a former des politiques, des heros, des conquerants,mais des actionsd'un peuple savant,qui tendenta former des sages, des doctes, de bons citoyens, de fideles sujets.64 While Sainte-Beuve'spractice of literaryhistory and that of the monumental Histoire litterairecould not be furtherapart,he deliberatelyoccludedtheirdifferences in the face of a common foe. In his review Sainte-Beuvegratuitously cited two letters of Voltaire-"un des heureux du siecle et le plus actif des voluptueux"-in which Voltairedisparagedthe vast eruditionof the Histoire litteraire producedby the "pesantsBenedictins,"while boasting that he had readnone of it. Voltaire'signoranceand insouciance, Sainte-Beuveremarked, was a sign of"la decadencedu gofit"which was to follow.65 For Sainte-Beuve not only did literaryhistoryredressthe historiographicalimbalancecreatedby historiansof philosophy,but it also redressedFrance'sculturaland ideological imbalancefollowing the irreligionandirreverenceof the Enlightenment.It is in these termsthatwe are to understandthe sentimentexpressedin "De la Tradition en litterature" in 1858:"C'estde cette religionlitteraireque nous sommes ... et que nous voulons etre toujours."66
63
Sainte-Beuve, "Histoirelitterairede la France"(1853) in CL, VIII, 275.
64 Ibid., 277-78. 65 Ibid., 279-80. 66 "De la Tradition," op. cit., 368.
Sainte-Beuve
491
In the end, Sainte-Beuve'scriticalwanderingsreturnedto the same familiar pathandto his searchfor an alternativeto the seemingly ineluctableyet bitterly unwantedEnlightenmentinheritance.While he contestedthe validityof the contemporaryFrench predicament,he never doubted its reality. His retrievalof neglected seventeenth-centuryintellectualtraditionswas not an escape but a forced opportunity.The import of his historical thought thus cannot be fully graspedwithout taking its idealist characterinto account. So too, his idealism cannot be understoodapartfrom his historicalthought:ideas were imbedded neitherin "philosophy"nor in "literature"but in the past, even if thatpast was veryrecent.Philosophyandliteraturewere merelymodes of expression.Though the seventeenth-centurytraditionof critiqueand literaryskepticismunearthed by Sainte-Beuvewas vital in itself, the process of its retrievalwas no less so. In the main outlines of his thought Sainte-Beuve was in full accord with early nineteenth-centuryphilosophiesof history,even those ideologically opposedto his own. He soughtto relievethe seventeenthcenturyof the burdenof Enlightenment and Revolutionthrougha turnto literatureratherthanphilosophy and to literaryhistoryratherthanpolitical historyor the historyof philosophy. The turntowardsa notion of literaryskepticismitself was an important,if now forgotten,step in distinguishingliteraryhistoryfromthe historyof philosophy as a distinct form of what we now call, though with increasinghesitancy, intellectualhistory.It did so by claiming for itself an independentskepticaltraditionat a time when historiesof philosophywere tightlywoven aroundthe rise of modemskepticismfromBaconto theEnlightenment.Representingmuchmore than an attemptto delineate anodyne disciplinaryor professionalboundaries, Sainte-Beuve'seffortswere rootedin the contemporarypredicamentof French cultureand politics. The turn away from the history of philosophy to literary historywas animatedby an intenseanti-Enlightenmentintellectualstanceanda profoundpolitical rejection of all that 1789 stood for. Sainte-Beuve later describedthe essays of the 1830s and 1840s of the Revuedes deuxmondesas "une The venerationof the literature longue campagne"and "uneguerresavante."67 of le grand siecle which lies at the origins of literaryhistoryas a discipline and aroundwhich the modem disciplinestill defines itself in France,was a rejection of modem progressivismnot only as representedby the Enlightenment,but by philosophytout court. In oppositionto the philosophersSainte-Beuveonce describedhimself as "unnaturalistedes esprits"andthe disciplinehe practicedas "l'histoirenaturelle litteraire."68 The turnfromphilosophyto literaturein reconstructingthe intellectual historyof pre-EnlightenmentFrancehad a lasting methodologicalimpact. Rejectionof philosophyas a meaningfulinvestigativerubricentaileda rejection 67 68
Sainte-Beuve, "Remarquessur l'ensemble de mon oeuvre critique"in PL, II, 525. Sainte-Beuve, "Pensees"in PL, III, 546.
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of theway in whichhistoriansof philosophyhaddescribedthe historyof thought. This hadbeen unquestionablyorientedaroundthe long marchof reasonfromits premoder conditionof enslavementto traditionand authorityto the full enjoyment of its contemporaryfreedoms.Sainte-Beuveexhibiteda muchmore flexible conception of the relationshipbetween thought, its historicalexpression, andits manifestationin the present.Not only was reasoncarefullyrejected,but so too was the entire historical-philosophicalmethodology which had arisen aroundchartingits progressthroughEuropeanhistory.Literaryhistoryas practiced by Saint-Beuvewas the resultof this struggleto find a non-philosophical languageto describethe historyof thought.Whatemergedwas a disciplinewhich embracedthe descriptionof literaryphenomenaratherthanformalideas,a "natural history"of intellectualtradition. Universityof St Andrews.
Morris:
William
Art,
Work,
and
Leisure Ruth Kinna
WilliamMorris'smost importantcontributionto Britishsocialistthoughtis often said to be his elaborationof a plan for the socialist future.E. P.Thompson, for example,arguedthatMorriswas "apioneerof constructivethoughtas to the organizationof socialist life within Communistsociety."'His vision of socialism, famouslycapturedin his utopiannovel News FromNowhere,was inspired by a numberof principles,butperhapsits most notablefeaturewas the demand thatlaborbe made attractive.2As JohnDrinkwaternoted shortlyafterMorris's death,Morrispassionatelybelieved thatan individualwho is "overworked,or employedall the while in degradingwork ... cannotbe himself."The message of his socialism,in Drinkwater'sview "oneof the profoundestandmost inspiriting that it has been given to any man to deliver,"was that "in bringingbackjoy to their daily work [men] ... would put their feet on the first step towards ... true
dignity andprideof life."3 Since Drinkwater'scomments,Morris'sideas aboutthe organizationof labor in socialism have attracteda considerableamountof attention.Most scholars have arguedthathis ideas were underpinnedby two separateconcerns:his hostility to the effects of industrializationand his oppositionto the division of labor.As Fiona McCarthynotes, Morrisnot only protestedagainst the pollution, congestion,and"squalidindustrialwaste"producedby "uncontrolledfactoryproduction,"he also spoke out againstthe "rigidorganizationof the factory
1 E.
P. Thompson, WilliamMorris: Romanticto Revolutionary (New York, 1976), 682. See G. D. H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought(5 vols.; London, 1974), II, 414-24; Fiona McCarthy,WilliamMorris: A Life For Our Time(London, 1994), 584-88; Paul Meier, WilliamMorris: The MarxistDreamer,tr. FrankGubb (2 vols.; Sussex, 1978), I, 288-394; A. L. Morton, The English Utopia (London, 1978), 202-24; Thompson,Romanticto Revolutionary, 682-98. 3 John Drinkwater,WilliamMorris A Critical Study (London, 1912), 198-99; and Paul Bloomfield, WilliamMorris (London, 1934). 2
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which keeps the operativevirtuallychainedto a single repetitivetask."4Though both aspects of Morris'swork have generatedconsiderablescholarly interest, the firsthas attractedmore attentionthanthe second. A. L. Mortonpreferredto examine Morris'sattackson the effects of industrializationin orderto counter the impressionthat his complaintswere anti-modemor that his socialism requireda returnto premechanizedmethodsof production.5Othershave argued, more positively, thatthe proposalsMorrismade for the reorganizationand for the improvementof factoryproductionin particularset him apartfromhis conRecently,eco-socialistwritershave developedthis line of thought temporaries.6 andextolled Morrisas a precursorof greentheory.7By contrast,Morris'sviews aboutthe division of laborhave not been seen as eithercontroversialor distinctive. In some accounts his ideas are straightforwardlycomparedto Marx's.8 Otherssuggest that his understandingof the division of labor was hazy. Paul Meier,for example, arguesthatMorriswas unclearaboutthe problemsthatthe division of laborraisedandthathe only discussedit in a very generalway.9Both these approachesmistakenlyemphasizethe separatenessof the two elementsin Morris'sthought,and the relationshipbetween his critiqueof industrialization andthe division of laborhas been neglected. I will arguethat it is this relationship, andnot the two respectiveparts,which holds the key to his demandfor the realizationof attractivelabor. Morrisintegratedhis ideas aboutindustrializationandthe division of labor into a wider analysisof the relationshipbetween work and leisure.He began to thinkaboutthis relationshipbefore he committedhimself to socialism in 1883, but his maturethoughtwas influencedby Fourieras well as Marx.The two led him to conceptualizethe relationshipin two distinctways. In the first he contrastedwork with leisureand suggestedthatattractivelaborrequiredthe reduction of necessary labortime; in the second he identifiedwork with leisure and defined attractivelaboras the exercise and expressionof humancreativity.As will be seen, these two conceptions were not easily reconciled. The first led Morristo arguethat the realizationof attractivelaborwas dependentupon the division of laborand the increasein productivitywhich it fostered;the second convinced him thatattractivelaborrequireda change in workingpracticesand
Our Time,356-57. 5 See especially Morton,English Utopia, 217-19. 6 See, for example, RaymondWilliams, Cultureand Society 1780-1950 (Middlesex, 1971),
4 McCarthy,Life For
159. 7
See, for example, Derek Wall, GreenHistory (London, 1994), 10. Life and Work(London, 1975), 348; A. L. Morton, the Marx and "Morris, ImaginationSelected Writingsof A. L. Morton, ed. Engels,"History of and Willie Heinemann Thompson(London, 1990), 300-303; Thompson, WilliamMorMargot ris, 690. 9 Meier, Marxist Dreamer, 357. 8 Jack Lindsay, WilliamMorris: His
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that its realizationwas blocked by the conditionswhich this very division imposed. Morriswas awareof the tension in his workbutwas unableto resolve it. Nevertheless,his attemptto do so highlightsthe distinctivenessof contribution to late nineteenthcenturysocialist thought. Morrisstartedto write aboutthe relationshipbetweenwork andleisureand the idea of attractivelaborin the late 1870s and early 1880s, a few yearsbefore his turnto socialism. Morris'sfirst considerationsof this question, as of most social issues, was mediatedby his understandingof artandhis personalexperience. His art was driven by two forces, a sense of unyielding resolve and a seemingly inexhaustibletalent. His determinationto become a craftsmanfirst became apparentin 1857, when he moved into Red Lion Squarewith Edward Bume-Jones.Since the rentedroomswere unfurnished,Morrisset aboutdesigning some furnituredevelopinghis new interestin parallelwith his literarycareer. In 1860, two years afterthe publicationof TheDefence of Guenevere,he moved into the Red House in Bexley Heath.Discovering thathe could not find manufacturerswho could providesuitablefurnishings,Morrisdisciplinedhimself to work in accordancewith his motto "if I can" and provide his own.'? Mocking him,his one time studentDanteGabrielRossettisuggestedthatthemaximshould be "since I can't."Yet thoughMorrishad failed in his bid to become a painter, Rossetti'ssuggestionsoonprovedto be well wide of themark.WhenFordMaddox Brown suggested that the friends set up in business together,Morrisdemonstratedthathis will to masterthe craftswas matchedby extraordinaryability.In Morris, Marshall,Faulkner,& Co., he embarkedon a careerthat would lead him to become one of the most versatileand influentialdesigners,dyers,weavers, and printersof his age. When Morrisfirst explainedhis ideas aboutwork and leisure, he used his personalinsights and motivationsas startingpoints for his analysis. In the articles collected togetherin Hopes and FearsforArt he identifiedtwo sourcesof motivation.The first was materialand correspondedto his sense of purposeMorrisknew that he needed to make a living. Puttingthe point negatively, he wanted to avoid "the fear of starvationor disgrace."' His second and stronger impulse,which matchedhis talent,was pleasure.Aside fromthe need to support himself and his family, he was, he declared,bornto laborin culture.'2Without his work he would "die of despairandweariness.""3 Leisure, Morrissuggested, could also be consideredin two ways. If work was seen as a necessity then leisure could be thought of as non-work or free '0J. W. Mackail, TheLife of WilliamMorris (2 vols.; London, 1912), I, 148-49; McCarthy, Life For Our Time, 166. 1"The Prospectsof Architecture,"Collected Worksof WilliamMorris (24 vols.; London, 1992), XXII, 142. 12 "Makingthe Best of It," 82. 13 "Prospectsof Architecture,"142.
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time.Alternatively,if it was consideredas pleasure,thenleisurecouldbe thought of as an extension of work, or voluntarylabor.In both cases leisurewas a form of rest,but in the firstit impliedinactivityor,moreprecisely,any pastimewhich did not have a manualcomponent.In the second, by contrast,leisure was productive. Before he declared himself to be a socialist in 1883 Morris clearly preferredthe second,active, formof leisure-voluntary labor-to the first.Free time spent inactively, he claimed, was work's least importantreward.Admittedly, his poetryin particularsuggested a differentpriority.TheLife and Death of Jason, TheEarthlyParadise, and Sigurdthe Volsungwere full of adventure andexcitement,but they also emphasizedthejoy of peaceful reflection.Forhis own partMorris,too, guiltily confessed to spendingsome of his free time "as a Nevertheless,he insistedthathe preferredto spend dog does-in contemplation." the greaterpartof his leisuretime doing work "which ... gives me just as much pleasureas my bread-earningwork."'4 To reinforcethe point he addedthathis friendsalso believed thatthe "only idea of happyleisurewas otherwork,"and he suggestedthatthey differedfrom him only because they liked the "dog-like leisure less andthe man-likelabourmore.""' Morrisextrapolatedfromhis personalmotivationsto the populationat large. Workin society, he argued,was drivenby two forces:the first,nature,reflected his concernto make a living; and the second, desire, paralleledhis love of art. Individuals,he argued,worked in orderto live. But even thoughwork was an inescapablefact of life, Morrisarguedthatit also satisfieda hedonisticimpulse. To make his point he returnedto the dogs, this time using them as exemplarsof purepleasure-seeking.Justas "thedog takepleasurein hunting,andthe horsein running,andthe birdin flying,"so the "naturalandrightful"motive for laborin mankindwas the "desire for pleasure."'6 In a similar vein he arguedthat the majorityof individualspreferredtheirleisureto be activethannot. Morrisgranted thatsome occupations,for example,ploughing,fishing, andshepherding,were inherently"rough"andworkersemployed in these roles might need periodsof complete "dog-like"rest in orderto recuperatefrom their activities. In these cases Morrisconcededthatthe hardshipwork involvedrequired"certainconditions of leisure, freedom, and due wages being granted."7But in general he arguedthat leisure should be consideredas an extension of work and not a release fromit. In his essay "TheArtof the People,"writtenin 1879, he observed: [Work]is necessary toil, but shall it be toil only? Shall all we can do with it be to shortenthe hoursof thattoil to the utmost,thatthe hoursof
14
Ibid. 15Ibid.
"TheArt and the People," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXII, 42-43. 17Ibid., 45.
16
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leisuremay be long beyondwhat men used to hope for?And what then shall we do with the leisure, if we say thatall toil is irksome?Shall we sleep it away? -Yes, and never wake up again, I should hope, in that case.18
After his turnto socialism Morriscontinuedto argueboth that work was necessaryandthatit met a humandesire. Individuals,he argued,hadto laborin orderto live and to ensure that they provided at least the means of their own subsistence.The choice, Morrisargued,was to "labouror perish."Nature,he continued,"doesnot give us ourlivelihoodgratis;we mustwin it by toil of some sortor degree."'9At the same time workersoughtto takepleasurein theirlabor. When he looked forwardto the futureorganizationof socialism, he anticipated thatfree time would not be a sufficientguaranteefor leisure.Writingin 1884, he argued: When class-robberyis abolished,every man will reap the fruitsof his labour,every man will have due rest-leisure, that is. Some Socialists might say we need not go any furtherthanthis.... But thoughthe compulsion of man'styrannyis thus abolished,I yet demandcompensation for the compulsionof Nature'snecessity.As long as the work is repulsive it will still be a burdenwhich must be takenup daily, and even so would marourlife.... Naturewill not be finally conqueredtill ourwork becomes a partof the pleasureof our lives.20 Yet now Morrisbegan to reconsiderthe importanceof leisure.As he did so reevaluatedthe importanceof freetime andbeganto concedethatperiodsof rest were as necessary to all workersas their laborwas. In contrastto his original discussion, he agreedthatone of the rewardsfor laborwas the promiseof inactivity. Ratherthan always regardingleisure as an extension of work, he now admittedthatall work had "some pain"in it and thatone of the compensations for "animalpain"was "animalrest."2'In short, as a socialist Morrisnot only explicitly acknowledgedtwo differentconceptionsof the relationshipbetween work and leisure but also defended both of them simultaneously.On the one hand,recognizingthe stressfulnessof labor,he contrastedworkwith leisureand arguedthatleisureas free time was labor'sreward.On the otherhand,maintaining the pleasure to be derived from work, he defined leisure as voluntaryor unforcedproduction,comparablewith laborandthe fulfillmentof desire. 18 Ibid., 33. 19 "Useful Workversus Useless
20
Ibid., 107. 21 Ibid., 99.
Toil," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXIII, 98.
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In the courseof the 1880s Morrisfurtherdevelopedthese ideas aboutwork and leisure underthe influence of Marx and Fourier.Morris drew on Marx's work in orderto explore the ways in which the amountof free time could be increased.Even though,as he confessed towardsthe end of his life, he hadbeen unawareof Marx'sworkat the time of his turnto socialism,he soon madeup for this gap. Morrisbegan to read Marx sometime in early 1883, startingwith the firstvolume of Capital,which was thenavailablein Frenchtranslation.Though, to his regret, his Germanwas not good enough to enable him to read all of Marx's publishedwork, with the aid of H. M. Hyndman,Andreas Scheu, and ErnestBelfortBax, he soon became familiarwith manyof those writingswhich had not yet been translated.Like many others,MorrisfoundMarx'swork difficult, buthe was immediatelyimpressedby it. InparticularMarx'sworkgave his conceptionof leisure as free time a firmertheoreticalfoundationand a clearer direction.Specifically,it convincedhim of two centralpropositions:thatthe key to the maximizationof freetime was the abolitionof capitalistexploitation,and thatthis exploitationwould be broughtto an end by the advancesin productivity which sprangfromthe division of labor. Morrishad moved towardsthese positions even before he read Capital. In the essays in Hopes and Fears for Art, publishedin 1882, he had consistently arguedthatthe commercialsystemwas basedon exploitation.Undercommerce, workwas not drivenby naturalnecessity butby the "fearof deathby starvation" engenderedby humangreedandthe profitmotive.22Workersdid not laborsimply in orderto provide for their own needs, still less because they wanted to. They were they were drivento laborby capitalists.Morrisadmittedthat commercial productionwas based on a contractualarrangementbetween workers andtheiremployers,but he contestedthe fairnessof the contractsand the freedom with which they were enteredinto. Though the workersreceived "food, clothing, poorish lodgings and a little leisure" in returnfor their labors, their work secured"enormousriches to the capitaliststhatrentthem."23The evident imbalanceof this exchangeconvincedMorristhatthe majorityof workerswere "engaged for ... the most part of their lives in work, which ... is mere unmitigated
slavish toil, only to be wrungout of them by the sternestcompulsion."24 Morris located the main evil of the commercialsystem in the "tyrannous In commerOrganizationof labour"which hadaccompaniedits development.25 cial society workerscould not possibly work freely for theiremployersbecause they hadbecome subjectto a strictdivision of labor.He arguedthatthis division operatedin two divergentways. Forprivilegedworkerslike himself it forcedan unnecessarydegree of diversification.Althoughhe derivedconsiderableplea22 23 24 25
"Prospectsof Architecture,"141. "MakingThe Best of It," 115. "The Beauty of Life," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXII, 66. "Prospectsof Architecture,"150.
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sure from his labor,Morrisinsisted thathe would never have chosen to undertake such a huge rangeof work had it not been for the division of labor.He had, he said,been "compelled to learn many crafts, and ... forbidden to master any."26 Forthe greatmass of less fortunateworkers,the division led to specialization.In this sense, he argued,the division of laborwas a "technicalphrasefor ... always doingone minutepiece of work,andneverbeing allowedto thinkof any other."27 This, Morrisargued,was the most importantand iniquitouseffect of the division of labor.It condemnedthe majorityto pieceworkanddeprivedhim of skilled craftsmento help him in his labors. After reading Marx, Morrisrefined these ideas. Exploitation,he now argued, had its roots in the patternof propertyownershipin society. In any given historicalperiod society was divided into rich and poor. The formernot only possessedmoreincomethanthe latter,they also effectivelycontrolledtheirlives. Crucially,they controlledthe means of production-the tools, land, and factories-necessary for work.Non-owners,by contrast,controlledonly theirlaborpower.Like Hyndman,Morrisreferredto this situationas monopolyand,drawing on his earlier ideas, he argued that it was unjust because it reduced the workersto the level of slaves. In orderto laborusefully, Morrisargued, two mattersarerequired:1st, The bodily andmentalpowersof a human being, developed by training,habit and tradition;and 2nd, Raw materialon which to exercisethosepowers,andtools wherewithto aid them. The second mattersare absolutelynecessaryto the first;unless the two come together,no commoditycan be produced.Those, therefore,that must labourin orderto live, andwho have to ask leave of othersfor the use of the instrumentsof their labour,are not free men but the dependents [sic] of others,i.e., their slaves.28 With a greaterinterestand awarenessof the capitalist class structureand the mode of production,Morrisclarifiedtwo of his earlierarguments.First,having agreedthat all laborwas necessary-or forced-he distinguishedbetween the force exercised by natureand that which sprang from the uneven patternof ownershipin society. Monopoly,he suggested,was drivennot simply by profit butby the capitalists'desireto escape the naturalnecessity of labor.In Morris's view it was not subsistence which forced the majorityof workers to laborthougha subsistencewage was all they received-it was the necessity of providing the monopolistswith sufficientmeansto allow themto live a life of leisure. Dividing the populationinto threeclasses, Morrisobservedthatthe rich "dono 26"Makingthe Best of It," 82. 27Ibid., 115.
28"Monopoly:or, How Labour is Robbed," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXIII,
248.
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work, andmakeno pretenseof doing any,"the middleclasses "workfairlyhard, thoughwithabundanteasementsandholidays,claimedandallowed,"while those of the workingclass "workso hardthatthey may be said to do nothingelse than work."29
Morris'ssecond point of clarificationconcernedthe division of labor.In a furtherrefinementof his ideas he distinguishedbetween the specializationhe longed to be able to enjoy personallyandthe specializationthathe believed the majorityof workerswere forcedto endure.The distinctioncorrespondedto the differencebetweenpre- andpost-capitalistorganization.Before the rise of capitalism,Morrisargued,workershadbeen dividedby their"variouscrafts."Drawing directlyon Capital, he arguedthat carriagemakers,for example, had been organizedby into particulartrades.30Each worker-the wheelwright, coachbuilder,andupholsterer-worked "athis own occupation"and the laborof the total work-force was "combinedinto one article."Under capitalism,by contrast,"theemployer... employs the whole...as one machinein the simultaneous productionof one article...."Whereasworkershad once perfecteda particular was apporcraft,undercapitalismeach componentof the "workman-machine" of kind this tioned part of the process of production.3'It was specialization, which forcedworkers"to do day afterday the same tasks, withoutany hope of escape or change,"thatMorrisdeplored.32 In his most importantrevision of his early work Morrisset his refined understandingof capitalismwithin a evolutionaryaccount of development. Impressed by the historical analysis presentedin Capital, MorriscreditedMarx with the "fulldevelopmentof the completeSocialisttheory...'scientific' Socialism." Marx, he suggested, had made two particularcontributionsto socialist thought:he hadrecognizedthe importanceof class struggleandthe role of conflict in the process of social change, andhe hadplottedthe "historicalevolution of industrialism."In Morris'sview, Marx'swork revealeda more general"law of evolution"namely,that"evolutionwas still going on, and that,whetherSocialism be desirableor not, it is at least inevitable."33 Morrisused Marx's science to arguethat capitalismwas heading towards an unavoidable,fatal crisis, which would release the mass of the work-force from the necessity of labor;and following Marx,he anticipatedthatthis crisis would be conflictual and violent. He accepted that the tendency of capitalism was towardthe increasingmodernizationof industryand towardever greater 29
"Useful Work,"99.
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, I, tr. Sam Moore and Edward Aveling, Collected Works,ed. FrederickEngels (50 vols.; London, 1995), XXXV, 341. 31 William Morris and E. Belfort Bax, Socialism From the Root Up, WilliamMorrisPolitical Writings.Contributionsto "Justice"and "Commonweal"1883-1890, ed. Nicholas Salmon (Bristol, 1994), 593-94. 30
32 "Useful Work," 112. 33 "The Hopes of Civilization,"Collected Worksof
WilliamMorris, XXIII, 75.
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efficiency in production.On this basis he also believed that the rate of profit would inevitablyfall over time and thatcapitalwould come to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The situation,Morrisargued,was bound to lead to class war,at firstwithin classes but ultimatelybetween them.As growingnumbersof ownersfell intobankruptcyandnon-ownerswere thrownintounemployment, capitalismwas destinedto collapse. He painteda picturewhich was both vivid andapocalyptic: [W]hatis visible beforeus in these days is the competitivecommercial systemkillingitselfby its own force:profitslessening,businessesgrowing bigger and bigger,the small employerof labourthrustout of his function, andthe aggregationof capitalincreasingthe numbersof the lower middle class fromabove ratherthanfrombelow, by drivingthe smaller manufacturerinto the position of a mere servantto the bigger.The productivityof labouralso increasingout of all proportionto the capacity of the capitaliststo managethe marketor deal with the laboursupply: lack of employmentthereforebecoming chronic,and discontenttherewithal.34 Morris'shopes thatthe collapse of capitalismwould inauguratea new epoch of rest were groundedon the assumptionshe made about its productive capacity.Like all economic systems, capitalismwas foundedon the "necessity In that sense it of man conqueringhis subsistence from Nature by labour."35 representeda stage in the developmentof mankind'sbattleto secure economic well-being. For all practicalpurposes(since Morrisadmittedthatsocialism denied "the finality of human progress")it was the final stage.36Crucially,by constantlymodernizingandsubdividingthe workforceinto increasinglyspecialized groups,capitalismhad expandedproductionto its greatestpossible level. By the introductionof "freshmachines,"Morriscommented, capitalism"increases the productivityof skilled labour"and "makesit possible to substitute unskilled in its place."As a result, skilled artisanswere drivenfromtheirpositions and forced "to acceptthatof the unskilledlabourer."37 Thoughcapitalism couldnot sustainitself as a system, the productiveforces it hadunleashedmeant that, in socialism, it could provide the basis for a new abundance.With the enormousoptimismcommon to most nineteenth-centurysocialists, Morrisargued that, once therewas no longer any need to make profit, therewould be a "mass of labour-poweravailable"for productionand that the "most obvious
34 Ibid.,
79.
a New Epoch," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXIII, 124. Morrisand Bax, Socialism From the Root Up, 622.
35 "Dawn of 36
37Ibid., 604.
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necessities will be ... easily providedfor."38In socialism all those workerswho hadbeen maderedundantby machineswould be able to work.At the same time the productivecapacityof the machinerywould be released in orderto reduce the total amountof necessarylabor.In shorttherewould be abundantfree time and rest for all. While Morrisdrewon Marxto show how the furtherdivision of laborcould reducenecessary labortime, he turnedto Fourierfor an insight into how pleasure of voluntarylaborcould be enhanced.In particular,Fourier'swork underpinned the distinctionhe sought to draw between labor that was free-in the sense that it was only forced by nature-and laborthatwas undertakenvoluntarily or "freely,and for the love of the work and for its results."39 Morriswas first introducedto Fourier'swork, shortly before he declared for socialism, by John StuartMill's Chapterson Socialism. In his retrospective accountof his transitionto socialismMorrissuggestedthatMill hadbeen largely critical of Fourier.In reality Mill was not as harshas Morrisimplied. Though Mill rejectedFourier'scurefor the social ills, he supportedmuch of his diagnosis of their cause.40Morris'sposition was similar. Like Mill, he thought that Fourier'ssocial criticismwas "valuable." But Morriscame to this conclusion by a differentroute. Unlike Mill, MorrisinterpretedFourier'swork largely in the light of the criticismEngels had made in Socialism Utopianand Scientific. In line with Engels's categorizationof socialist thought Morris argued that Fourier'swork was naive. Admittedly,for a utopianFourierhad shown an unusual "insightinto the historicalgrowthof Society."41But he had failed to capitalize on this insightand,like most earlysocialists,hadmistakenlybelieved that he could realize his goals by voluntaryagreementand by persuadingothersof the "desireablenessof co-operation."In Morris's view Fourierharboredthe equallymistakenbelief thathe could constructa new artificialsociety fromthe "materialswhich capitalisticsociety offered."42 However,whereasEngels celebratedFourieras a satirist,Morriswas most impressedby Fourier'snotion of attractivelabor.Aware that Fourier's ideas aboutwork were often ridiculed,43he nonetheless arguedthat his "doctrineof the necessity andpossibility of makinglabourattractive"was one that"Socialism can by no means do without."44Morrisused his notion of attractivelabor very much as he used Marx'stheoryof history:in orderto clarify his own idea thatthe key to unforcedlaborlay in the transformationof work throughart. 38"Useful Work," 111.
39Ibid., 116. 40 Stephan Collini (ed), J. S. Mill "On Liberty," with "The Subjection of Women"and "Chapterson Socialism" (Cambridge, 1989), xxiv. 41 Morris and Bax, Socialism From the Root Up, 567. 42 "Hopes of Civilization,"74. 43 News From Nowhere, Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XVI, 91. 44 "Hopes of Civilization,"73.
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Here too, Morris'sconviction that art held the key to voluntarywork predatedhis conversionto socialism. Echoing Ruskin,Morrishad arguedas early as 1879 that art was "the expression by man of his pleasure in labour."From this premisehe concludedthat"thechief dutyof the civilized worldto-day is to set about making labourhappy for all."45In this particularcontext the kind of art that Morris had in mind was craftwork.Elsewhere and in more tortured prose, Morrisasked, [W]hatis an artistbuta workmanwho is determinedthat,whateverelse happens,his work shall be excellent? Or, to put it in anotherway: the decorationof workmanship,whatis it butthe expressionof man'spleasure in successful labour?46 At this earlystage in his career,Morrishad suggestedthatthe transformationof laborthroughartdependedon the extent to which work could be made intelligent.Accordingly,he defined intelligentlaboras thatwhich made the laborer's "work-hours passpleasantly."Morespecifically,intelligentlaborgave theworker Morrisadmittedthat by contrastto "at least some control"over production.47 workerunrestrictedfreedomof individual which the imaginativelabor, granted expression,intelligentlaborwas only partlycreative.But it still providedsome scope forthe developmentof the worker'screativity.Moreover,like imaginative labor,it demandedthatworkerswere botheducatedanddedicatedto theirwork and that methods of productionwere sufficiently flexible to respond to individual work patterns. Morris saw one of the principle obstacles to the realizationof intelligent laborin the mechanizationof production(thoughhe also acknowledged,rather In unhelpfullythatmachineworkwas enjoyable"if it be not too mechanical").48 spite of his "boundlessfaithin theircapacity,"he insistedthatmachines"cando In the workplacemechanizationwas everything-except makeworks of art."49 responsiblefor the "slaveryof mindandbody,"andit was inimicalto intelligent labor.50Indeed, it was the instrumentthroughwith the division of labor operated. Withoutthis burdenworkerswould be set free from the division and the specializationit imposed.Eachwould become a handicraftsmanwho shall put his own individualintelligenceandenthusiasminto the goods he fashions. So far from his laborbeing "di45"Art of the People," 42-43. 46"The Lesser Collected Works 47
Arts," "Prospectsof Architecture,"145.
of WilliamMorris, XXII, 23.
48Ibid., 143.
"Artand the Beauty of the Earth,"Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXII, 166. 50"Prospectsof Architecture,"149.
49
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vided,"... he mustknow all aboutthe warehe is makingand its relation to similar wares; he must have a naturalaptitudefor his work.... He mustbe allowedto thinkof whathe is doing, andto varyhis workas the circumstancesof it vary,andhis own moods. He mustbe for ever striving to makethe piece he is at workat betterthanthe last. He mustrefuse at anybody'sbiddingto turnout ... even an indifferentpiece of work.... He must have a voice, and a voice worth listening to in the whole affair.51
Morris'sreconsiderationof the questionof voluntaryor unforcedlabormay have been affectedby his own manufacturingexperience.In 1881 Morrisestablishednew workshopsat MertonAbbey,nearLondon.Thismove enabledhim to take direct control of the productionof the tapestries,dyes, wallpapers,and fabricshe marketedthroughMorris& Co. It also providedhim with a forumfor the practicalimplementationof his Ruskinianideas. Yet from the startMorris insistedthatthe workshopsat MertonAbbey could not meet his ideals andthat his employees could not work freely,as he wantedthem to do so. It was, he told the Americanpoet and essayist EmmaLazarusin 1884, impossibleto produce art"in this profit-grindingSociety."5Nevertheless,within the limits thatcapitalismimposed,he attemptedto makeconditionsat MertonAbbey as relaxedas possible. Workerswere allowed to come and go as they pleased. They had access to a collection of "finebooks, finely printedandbound."And "inthe summer season the roses noddedin upon them at the open windows."53 In the light of his manufacturingexperienceandFourier'sworkMorrissignificantlyexpandedthe conditionsnecessaryfor the realizationof voluntaryor unforcedlabor.If workwas to become synonymouswith leisure,fourconditions would have to be met. First, work would have to meet a vocation; second, it would have to be performedin pleasant surroundings;third,it would have to allow some scope for variation;and fourth,it would have to be useful. On the firstpointMorrisarguedthateach individualshouldbe able "tochoose the work which he could do best."54Forthe mostpartfree choice would not leave anyjobs undone. Morris cited with approvalFourier's suggestion that children "who generallylike makingdirt-piesandgettinginto a mess, shoulddo the dirtywork of the community."5Moreover,echoing Fourier'sbelief that individualsfell into one of 810 basic personalitytypes, each with a differentrangeof interests and abilities, Morrissuggestedthat"people'sinnatecapacitiesareprettymuch "Makingthe Best of It," 115-16 Morristo Emma Lazarus,The Collected Letters of WilliamMorris, ed. Norman Kelvin (4 vols.; Princeton, 1987), II, 276-77. 53 James Leatham, WilliamMorris: Master of Many Crafts (London, 1994), 74. 54 "Attractive Labour,"Political Writings,94. 55 Morris and Bax, Socialism From the Root Up, 567. 51
52
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as various as their faces are."56This variationof character,he suggested, ensuredthatindividualswould opt to undertakea rangeof differenttasks andthat no communitywould be left with a job undone. Whatevertheirchosen occupations,all individualswould work in pleasant surroundings.On the model of MertonAbbey, factorieswould be made clean, spacious, light, and airy,and they would be set within green fields ratherthan concentratedin urbanareasor "congeriesof towns."57Like Fourier(andMarx), Morrisbelieved thatthey would also become centers of educationas much as they were units of production.In the futurefactorieswould have "amplebuilding for library,school-room,dininghall andthe like."People would gatherthere not only to work, but in orderto take partin "social gatherings"such as "musical or dramaticentertainments."58 The thirdconditionfor work to be synonymouswith leisurewas thatlabor shouldbe varied.This conditionmeantthatall workwould containboth a mental and a manualaspect. Throughouthis life, Morrisremainedskepticalabout the value of purely intellectuallabor.But instead of consideringthe problem egocentricallyas he had done earlier,he beganto examinethe division between mentalandmanualwork fromthe point of view of the manualworker.Guiltily comparinghis own position to thatof a bricklayer,Morrisrealizedthathe was fortunateto be able to combinehis mentallaborwith "strongphysicalexercise." After a hardday's writing, he could "takea boat out and row for a couple of hours or more."The hodman,by contrast,was too exhaustedfor mentalrelaxation and fit only for "beerand sleep."59In socialism, by contrast,when labor was performedfreely,both men would be able to enjoy the same opportunities. Since some of the hodman'sworkwouldbe performedby writerslike Morris,he would be able to utilize his free time in more constructivepursuits. Variationalso requiredmixing indoorand outdoorpursuits.In many of his laterwritingsMorrismappedthis stipulationonto his prohibitionof the division between mental and manuallabor.In an ideal world, he argued,brainworkers would find relaxationin primarilyagriculturalpursuits.Although there were always likely to be some "obstinaterefusers"(as he called them in News From Nowhere), most workerswould willingly turnthemselves towards"easy-hard Therewere, Morrisbelieved, "few men work,"and especially to haymaking.60 ... who would not wish to spend part of their lives in the most necessary and Elsewherehe painteda picture pleasantestof all work-cultivating the earth."61 thatwas positively idyllic: "Attractive Labour," 94. 57 Ibid., 96. 56
"Workin a FactoryAs It Might Be," WilliamMorris: Artist WriterSocialist, ed. May Morris(2 vols.; New York, 1966), II, 137. 59 "The Reward of 'Genius,' "Political Writings,196. 60NewsFrom Nowhere, 173. 61 "Useful Work," 112. 58
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Surely almost everyone would wish to take some sharein field or garden work besides his indooroccupation,even if it were no more than helping to get in the harvestor save the hay; and such occasions would become reallythejoyous andtriumphantfestivalswhich the poets have dreamedof them as being, andof which pleasurethereis still some hint or, it may be, survivalin barbarouscountries.62 Morrisoutlinedthe requirementsfor his fourthandfinal condition,the need for labor to be useful, by contrastingit with useless toil. He considered the uselessness of existing labor from two points of view. Just as Fourierdistinguishedbetweenacts of positive destructionandacts of negativecreation,Morris distinguishedbetweenthosejobs he considereddefinitelyharmfulfromthose which were simplywasteful.The firstcategoryincludedthe productionof armaments and of"adulteratedfood and drink."63 The second categorywas largely directedtowardsthe productionof luxuryitems or otherconsumergoods which Morristhoughtunnecessary.A whole mass of people, he argued,were "occuThis categoryalso includedworkwhich was pied with ... miserabletrumpery."64 directedtowardsthe "temporarypalliation"of unemployment.In times of crisis, Morrisobserved,workerswere often employed in "reliefworks"which meant, for example, "justdigging a hole and filling it up again."This was not useful workbut a "make-believeof realwork."65 Useful workenhancedthe well-being of the communitywhile at the same time meeting a genuine need. It produced goods which were fit for a particularpurpose, not a passing fad. Because it enhancedthe worker'sself-esteem, useful work also producedgoods thatwere designedboth to be durableandto give pleasureto theirowners. Once all these conditionshad been met, leisure would no longer be consideredas relief from work.It would transcendlaborandin time, and"peoplewould ratherbe anxious to seek workthanto avoid it."Indeed,undersocialismworkwouldbe characterized by "merrypartiesof men and maids."66 Having invoked Fourierto pursuehis understandingof work as voluntary labor,Morrisneeded to reconcile this conceptionwith his Marxistunderstanding of leisureas free time. He attemptedto do so by arguingthat,once necessary labortime hadbeen reduced,socialist society could move towardsthe organization of unforcedlabor,or laboras art.He admittedthatthis furthertransformation (to what he called communism)was uncertain.It was possible thatwhere 62"AttractiveLabour,"94-95. 63"Artand Socialism," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXIII, 195. 64Ibid. 65 "Noteson PassingEvents,"WilliamMorrisJournalism:Contributions to "Commonweal" 1885-1890, ed. Nicholas Salmon (Bristol, 1996), 136. 66 "How We Live and How We Might Live," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXIII, 21.
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labor was free, in the sense of being compelled by naturealone, work might neverthelesscontinueto be organizedas it hadbeen undercapitalism.In "a free community"individualsmight"workin the samehurried,dirty,disorderly,heartless way as we do now."But his answerwas thatanybodywould be contentwith this state of affairs. Such a partialrevolution"would mean that our new-won freedomof conditionwould leave us listless andwretched."7In anycase, though the realizationof unforcedlaborwas not inevitable,Morriswas confidentthat its prospectprovided one of the strongestimpulses for revolutionarychange. The primaryliberationof laborfromcapitalism,he argued,"wouldnot leave ... artuntouched"because "theaims of thatrevolution... includethe aims of artviz., abolishingthe curse of labour."68 On this optimisticnote Morrisanticipateda two-stage revolutionin which the second stage would develop and improve on the first but not transcendit. LikeMarx,Morrisassumedthata certainamountof necessaryproductionwould remaineven in communismandthatthe realmof freedomcould only be realized once a residualamountof necessarylaborhadbeen performed.In Morris'sview the likely patternof futuredevelopmentwas formachineryto "go on developing, with the purpose of saving men labour,till the mass of the people attainreal leisure enough to be able to appreciatethe pleasure of life." Once they had "attained...masteryover Nature,"they "wouldsoon find out thatthe less work they did (the less work unaccompaniedby art...)the more desirablea dwellingplace the earthwould be."69 He describedthe resultingorganizationof work and leisure in communist society in some detail. Individualswould spend most of their time engaged in some sort of voluntarylabor.Anticipatingthe futureand-once again-using himself as a model, he argued: And I may say that as to that leisure ... I should often do some direct good to the communitywith it, by practicingartsor occupationsfor my hands or brain which would give pleasure to many citizens; in other words, a greatdeal of the best work done would be done in the leisure time of men relieved from any anxiety as to theirlivelihood, and eager to exercise their special talent, as all men, nay, all animalsare.70 Trueto his earliestbeliefs, Morriscontinuedto believe thatthis voluntarylabor would remainlargely unmechanized.Individualscould use machines if these suitedtheirpurposes,but in most cases workerswould be able to performtheir
67"Useful Work," 116.
68"TheAims of Art," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXIII, 93.
69
Ibid.
70"How We Live," 19.
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work more easily without them. It was not, he argued,"the making of a real work of art that takes so much ingenuity as the making of a machine for the makingof a makeshift."71 While individualscouldpass the majorityof theirtime in voluntarywork,in communistsociety some periodswould be reservedfor necessarylabor.In some respects Morris's ideas about the organizationof this work were vague. For example, he did not specify whethera partof each day would be given over to this workor whetherit would be organizedin irregularperiods.Similarly,he did not decide whetherthe work would be organizedby rote or whetherit would simply be performedby volunteers.But however it was organized,he did not believe thatthe existence of necessary laborwould be eitherparticularlyonerous or difficultto organize.For one thing therewould be very little of it. Communismwould abandonall those tasks which were "artificiallyfosteredfor the This residualamountof sake of makingbusiness for interest-bearingcapital."72 of it would be "exNone labor would also be necessary performedvery easily. actingon mentalcapacity,"andsince it entailedthe "minimumof responsibility on those engaged in it," it did not requireany particulartraining.73Moreover, much of it could be done with the aid of machines. Whilst machinerywas not suitablefor voluntarylabor,it could relieve the burdenof necessarywork.Admittedly,in commercialsociety, Morrisarguedso-called " 'labour-saving'machines ... really ... reduce the skilled labourer to the ranks of the unskilled." But
in "truesociety"he suggestedthatthese same "miraclesof ingenuitywould be for the first time used for minimizing the amountof time spent in unattractive labour."74 Morris'spictureof communistsociety has oftenbeen describedas utopian.75 The elements of the picturethat he took from his understandingof work and leisuresupportthis view. His was anArcadianvision. Workersmightsometimes laborin the new factories,but they would no longerbe found in such high concentrationsas capitalismdemanded.As the mode of productionchanged,so too would collapse. Instead would the cities; andmuchof the existing infrastructure of being forcedto live in a "horriblemuck-heap"like London,individualswould inhabita "few pleasantvillages on the side of the Thames."Similarly,where they now had to travelin hasteby rail, in the futurethey would have more time to indulgethemselves and"travelin a tiltedwaggon [sic] or on the hindquarters of a donkey."76 71
72 73
"The Society of the Future,"Artist, Writer,Socialist, 461. Morrisand Bax, Socialism From the Root Up, 614.
Ibid.
"Useful Work,"117. 75 See K. Kumar,"News From Nowhere: The Renewal of Utopia," History of Political Thought, 14 (1994), 133-43. 76 "The Society of the Future,"461. 74
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Clearlythis vision can be, andhas been, criticizedfor its lack of realism.Yet the problems arising from Morris's understandingof communism go further thanthis. Many arise from the contradictionsof his understandingof attractive labor.Notwithstandinghis confidence that the organizationof leisure as free time would give way to the realizationof voluntarylabor,or laboras art,in the end Morriswas unableto reconcilehis two conceptionsof workandleisure.The tension between the two is shown both in his ambiguousattitudetowardsmachinery and in his estimates of the amountof work communistswould be requiredto perform.Morrismadeno attemptto develop a coherentpositionon the mechanizationof productionandmaintainedthatit could be avoidedin pleasurablepursuitswhilst still beingused to diminishirksomeduties.Buthe was aware thatthe existence of both voluntaryand necessarylaborin communismthreatenedto saddleindividualswith an intolerableburden.Consideringthe organization of laborin socialism, he questioned: So, you see, I claim thatwork in a duly orderedcommunityshould be made attractiveby the consciousnessof usefulness,by its being carried on with intelligentinterest,by variety,andby its being exercisedamidst pleasurablesurroundings.But I have also claimed,as we all do, thatthe day's work should not be wearisomely long. It may be said, "How can you make this last claim squarewith the others?"77 Partof Morris'sinabilityto providea satisfactoryanswerto his own question stemmedfrom the high priorityhe gave to art and his tendency to equate necessary,forced laborwith all non-artistictasks. Sometimes the results were comic: examples of "necessary and usually repellant [sic] work" included "scavengering,sewer-cleaning,coal-hewing,midwifery,andmechanicalclerk's work."78Not all of these jobs are obviously unpleasant,but even if they were, his dismissalof all non-artisticworkcontradictedhis Fourieristassumptionthat all laborwas attractiveto some personalitytypes. It also artificiallyincreased the categories of necessary labor that Morrisbelieved communistswould be compelledto perform. Even if Morrishad revised his idea thatartheld the key to voluntarylabor, his acknowledgementthat some necessarylaborwould remainin communism points to two more intractableproblems.The first concernsthe dynamicof socialisttransformation. In some ways, Morris'spredicamentwas similarto Marx's. He, too, relied on two separatedynamicsof developmentto explain the transition from one form of work to another.While the liberationof mankindfrom necessarylaborwas underpinnedby the developmentof productiveforces, inde77
"Useful Work," 116.
78Morrisand Bax, Socialism From the Root Up, 614.
510
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pendentof humancontrol,the organizationof voluntarylaborwas based on an exercise of will. ThoughMorriswas confidentthatclass strugglewould lead to the abolitionof capitalism,he could not show how or why the workerswould be able, by exercising their will power, to direct socialism's development at the momentof theirliberation.The convergencebetween Morrisand Marxon this issue was not coincidental.Morriswas adoptinga Marxiantheoryof development in an effortto show thatlaborin communismcould be made as attractive as Fourierhad suggested. ThoughMorrisseemed to have been unawareof the influence, Marx in his turn had also been influenced by Fourier'sideas; and althoughMarx'sview of historywas, arguably,less deterministicthanMorris's, he was no moresuccessfulin reconcilinghis earlyFourieristidealswith his later understandingof the developmentof economic forces thanMorris.79 The second problemconcernsthe division of laborin socialism. Unlike eitherMarxor Fourier,Morris'scapacityto reconcile his ideal of voluntarywork with his notionof necessarylaborwas confoundedby his uncompromisinghostility to this division. For Marxand Fourierthe division was not in itself something to be deplored.Thoughboth attackedits operationin capitalismand arguedthatit stifledexpressionandcreativity,they bothalso agreedthatin socialism it would help ensurethatindividualswouldbe able to varytheiroccupations and develop theirhumancapacityto the full. In short,for Marxand Fourierthe abolitionof the division of laboractuallyimplied its extension, in concertwith the abolitionof exploitation;the decline of specializationconsequentlyheld the As PaulMeier key to socialistsolidarityandthe developmentof interdependence. to the ultimatein order notes, Fourierarguedfor "thedivision of labour...carried to provideeach sex andevery age with suitableoccupations."80 Similarly,Marx arguedin Capital that "Moder Industrynecessitates variationof labour,fluThoughin its capiency of function,[and]universalmobilityof the labourer."8' talistic form,division preventedworkersfromtakingadvantageof the rangeof tasks available,in communismthe developmentof industrialproductionpromised to "replacethe detail-workerof to-day"with one "readyto face any change of production,and to whom the differentsocial functions ... are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own naturaland acquiredpowers."82 Morris'spositionwas very different.His love of artled him to arguethatthe abolitionof the division of labormust mean its eradicationand a returnto specialized labor.83Insteadof celebratingmoder industryfor the rangeof tasks it 79 Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx (Oxford, 19834),95-96; also David McLellan, "Marxand the Whole Man";Tom Bottomore,"Socialismand the Division of Labour,"The Conceptof Socialism, ed. Bhikhu Parekh(London, 1975), 62-71; 154-66. 80 Meier, MarxistDreamer, I, 183 81 82
Marx, Capital, 489.
Ibid., 490-91. See Gregory Claeys, Citizens and Saints: Politics and Anti-Politics in Early British Socialism (Cambridge, 1989), 49-58. 83
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would enable futureworkersto undertake,he maintainedan attachmentto the realizationof a pre-capitalistdivision: the example of the carriage-makerswas stampedon his vision. Indeed,in his laterwritingshe explicitly drewon the idea of medieval productionas a model for socialist organization.Withinthe medieval guilds, he argued,"therewas but little division." Individualshad learned theircrafts"fromend to end."Workhadbeen performed"leisurelyandthoughtfully," it "developedthe workman'swhole intelligence,"and it allowed each Morrisadmittedthat any attemptto "freedomfor due humandevelopment."84 tryto revive such conditionsof laborandto graftthemon to the body of capitalism was futile.85Yet he still maintainedthatthe medieval handicraftsprovided an importantmodel of organization.Medievalartistshad attemptedto "destroy the curse of labourby makingwork the pleasurablesatisfactionof our impulse towardsenergy,andgiving to thatenergyhope of producingsomethingworthits exercise."86Communistshad an identicalaim. In Morris'sview they soughtto reestablishwork on the basis of a craft-specialismratherthan encourage the developmentof limitlessdiversity.In SocialismFromtheRoot Up, for example, he arguedthatcertainkindsof arthadfallen foul of a division which haddivided Undercomthe "makerof the ornament"fromthe "designerof the ornament."87 munismMorrisexpectedthatthese two roles would againbe unitedin one person.88
Fourierand Marxfaced the difficulttask of showing how the existing division of laborcould be perfectedandmadecompatiblewith an idea of free labor. Morris'sproblemwas even moresevere:to demonstratehow the developmentof capitalistmethodsof productionin socialism was compatiblewith the returnto specialization.In the end Morrisnot only formulatedtwo separateideas of work and laborbut, equatingvoluntarylaborwith art,reinforcedthe distinctionsbetween the two by associatingthem with two entirelydifferentmethods of production.This formulationunderminedhis own argumentthatindividualscould divide theirtime in communismbetween necessarytasks and pleasurablepursuits. The time spent in necessary laborwould eitherincreaseas a resultof the abandonmentof the division of labor and the mechanizationit supposed, or workerswould continueto be compelledto performdismal dividedtasks at the cost of theircreativityand Morris'scraftideal. Yet for all its weaknesses, Morris'sconception of the division of labor in communismwas one of the most originalaspects of his thought,and it offered an integratedview of humandevelopmentand creativity.Morrisdid not con-
"ArtUnder Plutocracy,"Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXIII, 176. 85"Hopes of Civilization,"77-78. 84
86"Aims of Art," 91.
87Morrisand Bax, Socialism From the Root Up, 616. 88 See also his "Artistand Artisan as an Artist Sees It," Political Writings,276-79.
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siderthathis desireto overcomethe existing division of laborthroughthe reestablishmentof craftworkwould stifle creativeexpression.In his view individuals were more concernedto exploit theirprimarytalents thanthey were to explore ever new avenues of expression.In 1891 he arguedthat the Socialist claims art as a necessity of human life ... and he claims also that in orderthat his claim may be establishedpeople shall have every opportunityof takingto the workwhich each is best fittedfor;not only thattheremay be the least possible waste of humaneffort,butalso that that effort may be exercised pleasurably.For I must here repeat what I have often had to say, thatthe pleasurableexercise of our energies is at once the sourceof all artandthe cause of all happiness:thatis to say the end of life.89 The idea of creativitywhich this idea supportswas very differentfrom the one offered by eitherMarx or Fourier.Whereasthey suggested thatthe key to humandevelopmentlay in the pursuitof variety,Morrisbelieved thatindividuals should develop themselves within a particularfield. On occasion his views appearextremelyconservative.InNewsFromNowhere,forexample,whenGuest quizzes old Hammondaboutthe tendency of women to wait on their menfolk Hammondasks in response: "don't you know that it is a great pleasure to a clever woman to manage a house skillfully, and to do it so that all the housemates about her look pleased, and are gratefulto her?"90 Yet, however Morris perceivedthe sexual division of labor,thereis no reasonto assumethatwomen would be requiredto performsuch traditionalwork against their will. In his vision the attractivenessof labordependedon the developmentandrealizationof social roles, not their transcendence.But individualswould be able to invest theirbeing in theirlabor.And to do so they would, like Morrishimself, have to follow theirown promptingsanddesires.
LoughboroughUniversity.
89 "The Socialist Ideal," Collected Worksof WilliamMorris, XXIII, 260. 90News From Nowhere, 60.
Blumenberg and
Hans
Hannah
Arendt
the
on
Worldliness" of
the
"Unworldly Modem Age ElizabethBrient
Introduction In attemptingto describeand respondto the dominantethos of the modem age one is quickly confrontedwith a startlingand seemingly intractableparadox: the age which has defined itself by the very intensityof its "thisworldly" orientationis at the same time hauntedby an ever growing sense of world loss, of the Unheimlichkeitof modem reality. On the one handthe modem turnaway fromthe transcendentcontemplative andreligiousideals andvalues of antiquityandthe MiddleAges is evidencedby a profoundlynew, active, and indeedconstructiveapproachto the world. Modem science is predicatedon an objective stance which demystifies the cosmos andallows for a technologicalmasteryof naturewhich has improvedhumanlife in innumerableways. The modem conceptionof the self is groundedin a new conceptionof the autonomyanddignity of the individual,andmodem political theorybegins with the notion that society is an artifactto be constructedin the service of the very individualswho constitutethe body politic. We are made uneasyby the naggingsuspicionthatlife in this worldwhichwe have remadefor ourselves is somehow hollow, an artificialconstructionwithoutdepthor solidity, a merelysuperficialorderwhich threatensto dissolve into meaninglessness. The technologicaladvancesmadepossibleby modem science have also brought the atomic bomb, global warming,and acid rain. Power over naturehas led to the power to destroynature.The modem world has seen an unprecedentedrise in individualfreedom,and yet the autonomyof the individualhas all too often given way to the anomieof the individual.Loss of communityadvancesalongside failed experimentsin social engineering,andthe specterof totalitarianism hauntsthe modem dreamof social andpolitical emancipation. 513 Copyright2000 by Journalof the Historyof Ideas,Inc.
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Paradoxically,then, modem worldliness is attendedby an uneasy sense of world alienation.It has become quite common in attemptingto give an account for this perplexingstate of affairsto speak of a process of secularizationin the transitionfrom the medieval to the modem world, a process in which many of the centralideas andprinciplesof the modem age are takento be secularvariations on medievaltheologicalthemes.Thus,for example,faithin the progressof science or of historyis takento be a secularizedversionof belief in divineProvidence, the political equalityof all individualsunderthe law is said to be a secular reiterationof the understandingof the equality of all humanbeings before God, the transcendentalsubjectis exposed as a secularversion of the divine or angelic knower,andthe communiststateandothermodem utopiasmarkingthe end of historyaresaid to be secularizationsof Christianeschatologicalexpectations of the end of the world andthe coming reign of God. Thisreadingof the epochaltransitionexplainsthe worldlycharacterof modem realityin termsof the "immanentization" or secularizationof religious attitudesandexpectations.Italso servesto explaintheuncannysenseofworldlessness characteristicof much of modem life. This is becausethe new secularformsare now revealedeitheras distortedandimpoverishedversionsof an originallymeaningful world view (as for example in Neo-Scholasticism)or as the unfortunate perpetuationor unfoldingof an inherentlynihilistic tradition(as say Nietzsche, Heidegger,and many contemporarypost modernistswould have it). But does the secularizationthesis as a tool of historicalexplanationreallydojustice either to the complex reality of the epochal transitionin concrete historicalterms or even, and more to the point, to the fundamentalcharacterof the supposedly secularizedmodem ideas? Hans Blumenbergand HannahArendt would both no doubt answer emphaticallyin the negative.Both insiston the genuinenoveltyof modernity,on the fundamentallyunprecedentedcharacterof the modem orientationto and in the world as active, indeedas constructive.Blumenbergcharacterizesthis new orientationin terms of an overall existential attitudeof "self-assertion"(Selbstbehauptung),andArendtviews the modem age as characterizedby the radical reversalof the traditionalhierarchicalorderbetweenthe vita contemplativaand the vita activa. Both would insist thatthe modem scientific ideals of objectivity andprogress,andthe politicalandethicalconceptionof the autonomyandvalue of the individual,must all be understoodin termsof a profoundlynew and unprecedentedform of self and world interpretation.But whereas Blumenberg emphasizesworldlinessas the characteristicfeatureof the modem age,1Arendt points to an unequaledworldlessnessas the hallmarkof modernity.2 1
Hans Blumenbergdevotes PartI of TheLegitimacyof the ModernAge to a critiqueof the secularizationhypothesisand PartII to providingan alternativeaccountof the origin of moder worldliness. The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, tr. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge,Mass., 1983), 75; hereafterLMA. Original German edition, Die Legitimitdtder Neuzeit (erweiterte und iiberarbeiteteneuausgabe)(Frankfurt,1976). 2 HannahArendt, The Human Condition(Chicago, 1958), 254; hereafterHC.
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In an interestingpassage in the very openingpages of TheLegitimacyof the ModernAge Blumenbergcites Arendtin supportof his rejectionof the thesis that the "worldliness"of the modem age should be viewed as the result of a secularizationof the ChristianMiddle Ages. Blumenbergremindshis readers that the epochal transitionhas been describednot only in terms of secularizabutalso,by HannahArendt, tion,a processof "makingworldly"(Verweltlichung), in termsof world loss (Entweltlichung). HannahArendtspeaksof an "unequaledworldlessness"as the hallmark of the modem age. "Modemman,when he lost the certaintyof a world to come, was thrownback upon himself and not upon this world."The realityof the world over againstwhich he saw himself had at this very point begun to seem doubtful,in thatdirectcontactthroughthe senses hadbeen exposedby mathematicalphysics as a presentationof only the superficialappearancesof more substantialrealities. This thesis also presentsthe modemage as a continuationof Christianityby othermeans, but as a continuationin the same direction,a directionof world alienation [Entweltlichung].Man has "removedhimself from the earthto a much more distantpoint than any Christianotherworldlinesshad ever removedhim."(LMA,8)3 Blumenbergis misreadingArendt'spoint here, when he claims that she views modem worldalienationas a "continuationof Christianityby othermeans,"that is, as an intensification"in the same direction"of Christianotherworldliness. On the contrarythe worldlessness which Arendtdescribes as the hallmarkof modernitycannotbe understoodas a continuationof Christianotherworldliness. Modem world alienationis of a radicallydifferentnatureandhas its origin in a completelydifferentmatrixof self andworldunderstanding.This is actuallythe point she is making in the passage Blumenbergcites here. Thatbecomes clear when one readsfurtherin the same passage her insistencethat, Whateverthe word "secular"is meantto signify in currentusage, historicallyit cannotpossibly be equatedwith worldliness;modem man at any ratedid not gain this worldwhen he lost the otherworld;andhe did not gain life strictlyspeaking,either;he was thrustbackuponit, thrown into the closed inwardnessof introspection,where the highest it could experiencewere the emptyprocesses of reckoningof the mind, its play with itself. (HC, 320) However,Blumenbergis much closer to the markin his overall assessment of Arendt's descriptionof world loss as "a thesis that is directed against the dogma of secularization"(LMA,8). He agreeswith Arendt'sinsistencethatthe 3
Blumenbergcites from The Human Condition,320.
ElizabethBrient
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"worldliness"of the modem age cannotbe describedas the recoveryof a premedieval consciousness of reality.It does not representa returnto the world of the ancients. "The world" cannot and should not be understoodas a constant which remainsthroughoutthe historicalprocess, hiddenin the MiddleAges by superimposedtheologicalelements,thenrecoveredagainin the Renaissance.To readthe process of secularization(Verweltlichung)in this way, Blumenberginformof historicalsubstantialism. sists, is to accepta misleadingandunwarranted used Arendt's thesis the moder Having (that age is characterizedby world loss) to illustratethis point, however,Blumenbergdismisses its wider implications withoutfurtherado: HannahArendt'sthesis of"world alienation"is not, as such, the subject of our discussion here;but what it shows is the dubiousnessof setting up worldlinessandunworldlinessas a pairof alternativesthataretipped now one way and now the other in history,so that when transcendent ties andhopes areabandoned,thereis only one possible result.As soon as one leaves the sphereof influenceof the theologicalsystemof categories, the world to which the modernage appears to have turneditsfull attentioncan be an "unworldly" world in regardto its concept of reality or to the natureof its intuition as comparedto an immediacy ascribedto the ancients.(LMA,9)4 This is the first and last time Blumenbergalludes to Arendt'sdiagnosis of the "worldlessness"of the modernage, andyet, I will argue,Arendt'sthesis haunts Blumenberg'stext. What, afterall, are the existentialconsequencesof turning one's "fullattention"to "an'unworldly'world?"Blumenbergwould have done well to use Arendt's analysis here as an impetus to explore the (in particular ethical andpolitical) ramificationsof this aspectof the moder condition. In what follows I will give a brief account of Blumenberg'sattackon the secularizationthesis andthe farricherandmore sophisticatedmodel of historical transitionwhich he offers in its place. Then I will show how (even within Blumenberg'santi-substantialistic framework)theproblemof worldloss emerges as a peculiarlymodernproblem,and offer a few suggestions for a revised reading of the "sufficiency"of modernrationalityfrom an Arendtianperspective. The point,here, is not to set up an oppositionbetween a readingof modernityas "worldly"(Blumenberg)and "worldless"(Arendt)but ratherto bring the insights of both thinkersto bear on the "unworldlyworldliness"of the modern age.
4 Italics mine.
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Blumenberg'sCritiqueof the SecularizationThesis Blumenbergbegins Part I of The Legitimacy of the Modern Age with a considerationof the status of the concept of "secularization":"Whetheras an observation,a reproach,or an endorsement,"he writes, "everyoneis familiar with this designation[secularization]for a long-termprocess by which a disappearanceof religious ties, attitudesto transcendence,expectationsof an afterlife, ritualperformances,and firmly establishedturnsof speech is driven onwardin bothprivateandpublicdaily life" (LMA,3). Blumenberghas no quarrel with the use of the term"secularization"in this descriptivesense. Thatthe modem age is more "worldly"in orientationthan the Middle Ages he takes as a fairly straightforwardcomparativestatement.The difficulty comes when one attemptsto accountfor this state of affairsby invokingthe secularizationthesis as a tool of historicalexplanation(LMA,5, 9). Here theoristsemploy propositions of the form"B is the secularizedA" (e.g., "themoder work ethic is secularizedmonasticasceticism,"or "thepresidentof the FederalRepublicis a secularized monarch" [LMA, 4]). It is this explanatory use of the term which Blumenbergfinds deeplyproblematic. The thesis thatfundamentalconcepts,institutions,andattitudesof the modem age are reallyjust secularizedversions of medieval correlatespresupposes the identityof an originallysacredcontentthatis preserved(thoughtransformed) in the transitionto the moder world. It thus depends on an understandingof history dominatedby the category of substance, so that history becomes the story of repetitions,transformations,superimpositions,and conversions of an originally sacredcontent to new functions, etc., along with the identity of the contentthat enduresthroughoutthe process (LMA,9, 16). The task of the historicaltheoristwould thenbecome thatof identifyingthe originalcore contentin its metamorphoses,to unmasklayers of"hidden meaning"and identify "alienatedforms."5The transferin "ownership"of ideas andinstitutionsfromecclesiastical to secularhands at the end of the Middle Ages is thus understoodas a falling away fromthe originalcontext in which they most properlybelong. The conceptof secularization(as expropriation)6 is committedto the notion of an originalpropertyin ideas,andit is preciselythisnotionwhich, Blumenberg claims, makesthe secularizationthesis an anachronismin the moder age.7The connectionbetweenthe conceptof truthandthe idea of ownership,Blumenberg argues,has fundamentallychangedin the moder era. The Platonicmodel of a transcendentmeasureand source of the true gives way to a notion of truthas 5 See Hans-Georg Gadamer'sreview of the first edition of Die Legitimitdtder Neuzeit (Frankfurt,1966) in Philosophische Rundschau, 15 (1968), 201-9. 6 See LMA,22-24, 64. 7 See LMA,part I, chapter6.
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self-inherentand self-generating.Ratherthan claiming that an idea is truebecause it derives froman absoluteTruthof which it is a copy, the modem epoch, says Blumenberg,"producedthe axiom thatthe legitimateownershipof ideas can be derivedonly fromtheirauthenticproduction"(LMA,72). Forthe modem thinker,Blumenberginsists, the truthsof reasonaremarked by theirinternalnecessity,andknowledgeis generatedthrougha rationalmethod potentiallyavailableto anyone. This model of knowledge acquisitionthrough immanentself productionis fundamentallyinconsistentwith the secularization thesis,whichpresupposesthe notionof an original(anddivine)propertyin ideas. "Whenhistoricalunderstandingmakes use of this category,"says Blumenberg, "it enters into religion's self-interpretationas a privileged access to truth.It takesover the assumption,which is necessarilyboundup with the claim to have received a revelation,of a beginningthatis not historicallyexplicable, thathas no immanentpreconditions"(LMA,74). It is not the religious natureof the assumptionper se thatbothersBlumenbergbut the notion of a beginning which has its sourcein somethingwhich transcendsthe immanentunfoldingof historical conditions.As such, Blumenbergclaims, the secularizationthesis becomes entangledin paradox.Forhow can it be possible to arriveat a notion of secularization which is transparentto the theoreticianwho uses it? to delineate a use which is immanentto theory(einenwissenschaftsimmanenten Gebrauch)?Does not the conceptitself exclude itself fromthe whole process of secularization,of makingworldly,of makingimmanent?(LMA,10-11, 18, 49). But even apartfromthese difficulties,Blumenberg'sdeepestobjectionto the secularizationthesis is thatit presupposesa substantialisticontology of history. Indeed,Blumenbergviews the secularizationtheoremas a special case of historical substantialism in general, akin to contemporary "topos research" (Toposforschung),insofaras theoreticalsuccess is madeto dependon the establishmentof fixed constantsin history.Any such approach,Blumenberginsists, is problematicinsofaras it limits the capacityof criticalinquiryin advanceby assumingfrom the outset thatresults will, and must be, articulatedin terms of such fixed constants."Thisanticipationof what knowledge has to accomplish seems to me problematic:Constantsbringa theoreticalprocessto an end, where on differentpremises it might still be possible to inquirefurther"(LMA,29). Reoccupationas a HistoricalCategory PartII of the Legitimacythus aims at providingan accountof the "worldliness" of the Modem Age which does not make recourseto the secularization thesis and indeed utilizes an entirelydifferenthistoricalmethod. In lieu of the historicalsubstantialismwhich underliesthe secularizationthesis (and indeed most speculativeand all perennialistphilosophiesof history)Blumenbergpro-
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poses what has been termeda "phenomenological"approachto history,8an approachsquarelygroundedin the immanentunfolding of the historicalcontext itself. Consequently,he focuses less on the contentand more on the contextual functionof the ideas, values, andattitudesof a given historicalperiod.He views these ideas and attitudesas constitutinga sometimesmore, sometimesless, coherentframeworkof self andworld interpretation. In a periodof epochal change a new set of ideas, values, and attitudesmay come to replacean olderconfiguration.Such a shift occurs when the older configuration is, for one reason or another(and it is always a very historically specific set of circumstances),no longer able to provide individualswith adequateorientationin the life-world. Insofaras new responsesare offered to old problemswhich hadbeen solved differentlyin a previoushistoricalperiod,they may be said to "reoccupy"the position of the old ideas and attitudes.That is, they serve the same function,they answerthe same "carry-over"questions,but the answersthey give in respondingto the inheritedproblemsarenot the same. The ideas andattitudesarenew andprovideoriginalsolutionsthatareappropriate in the context of the new epoch. If there were a fixed set of perennialquestions or problemsthat were answeredever anewby each succeedingepoch,thenBlumenberg's"reoccupation" thesis would simply offer anotherformof historicalsubstantialism:form(questions) wouldtakethe place of content(answers)as the fixed elementin historical transition.9This is a position, however,which Blumenbergrejects:"Weare going to have to free ourselves from the idea that there is a firm cannon of 'the greatquestions'thatthroughouthistory and with an unchangingurgencyhave occupiedhumancuriosityandmotivatedthe pretensionto world and self-interpretation"(LMA,65). Indeed,the questionsthatarefelt to be existentiallypressing arenot alwaysconstantfromone epochto thenext.It is only whatBlumenberg terms"carryover questions,"problemsthatcontinueto be felt as pressingin the transitionfrom one epoch to another,that make for the identity in historical processes which has erroneouslybeen interpretedas a continuityof content. Take, for example, the question of the overall meaning of humanhistory. Does humanhistory,taken as a whole, have some redeemingpoint to it? Now this is not a perennialquestion.The ancientGreeksnever askedit. The meaning of historyas a whole did not appearto them as a problemto be solved. It simply I am indebted to 0. Bradley Bassler for this formulation. See also Robert Pippin, "Blumenbergand the Modernity Problem,"Review of Metaphysics, 40 (1987), 542: "In this sense, reading Hegel's account of his own denial of the possibility of a priori, or 'external,' formal epistemologies and critiques, one could call Blumenberg'snarrativean internalnarrative or phenomenologyof 'epochal' change." 9See Elias Jose Palti, "InMemoriam:Hans Blumenberg(1920-1996), An UnendedQuest," JHI, 58 (1997), 503-24. 8
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was not an issue. In the wake of Christiantheology with its salvationhistory, however,questionsaboutthe meaningandpatternof humanhistoryarosequite naturallyin the moder age. Theology had thus creatednew "positions"in the frameworkof the statementsabout the world and humanexistence which demandeda response.Blumenbergdescribesthis sense of debt, this sense of having to find answersto these inheritedquestions,as "residualneeds"(Bediirfnisreste): an inheritedsense of what we need to know about ourselves and our world. "Whatmainly occurredin the process that is interpretedas secularization, at least (so far) in all but a few recognizableand specific instances,should be describednot as the transpositionof authenticallytheological contents into secularizedalienationfromtheiroriginbutratheras the reoccupationof answer positionsthathadbecome vacantandwhose correspondingquestionscould not be eliminated"(LMA,65). To returnto our example,Blumenbergthus views the moder philosophies of history of the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturiesas attemptsto answerthe inheritedquestionaboutthe overallmeaningof humanhistoryby usingthe modem conceptof progress.But the conceptof progresshaditself emergedin a quite differentcontext, thatof the advancesmade by astronomyin the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies.10Thus the moder concept of progressis not a "secularization"of the contentof Christianeschatology,butratherit developedindependentlyof questionsconcerningthe meaningof historyandwas only subsequently adoptedin orderto satisfy the residualneed for such answers. Further,it was only in the wake of Christiantheology-which itself felt no need to pose the question("Whatis the meaningof history?")since it was alreadyin possession of the answer-that the questionbecame explicit as such. Blumenbergthus points out that in this "dialogical"relationbetween one age and the next, "Questionsdo not always proceedtheiranswers"(LMA,66). The need to shiftto a new system of self andworld interpretationhas everything to do with the way in which traditionalanswersbecome untenableor problematic, in such a way thattheir correspondingquestionsbecome visible as questions for the firsttime, as pressingquestionsthatdemandnew answers. When the credibilityand general acceptanceof such [traditional]answersdwindleaway,perhapsbecauseinconsistenciesappearin the system, they leave behindthemthe correspondingquestions,to which then new answersbecome due. Unless, perhaps,it turnsout to be possible to destroythe questionitself criticallyandto undertakeamputationson the system of world explanation.(LMA,66) See Hans Blumenberg,"On a Lineage of the Idea of Progress,"in Social Research, 41 (1974), 5-27, and Robert M. Wallace, "Progress,Secularizationand Modernity:The LowithBlumenbergDebate,"New GermanCritique,22 (1981), 63-79. 10
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Blumenbergnotes ratheremphaticallythathistoryhas shown thatthis elimination of carry-overquestionscannotbe a purelyrationaloperation."1 The problematicof carry-overquestionsis not a new phenomenonpeculiar to the modem age. Christiantheology itself experienced"a comparable'problem pressure'in its confrontationwith questionsthatwere originallyforeignto it" (LMA,65). For example, in the Patristicperiodtherewas considerablepressureto come up with somethingon the basis of the biblicalstoryof creationthat would be comparableto the greatcosmological speculationsof Greekphilosophy.And Greekphilosophyin its turnhad felt similardemandsvis-a-vis Greek mythology. In each case the new system of self and world interpretationwas measuredagainstthe standardof achievementset by the previoussystem which "prescribed"to the emergingnexus what questionsneeded to be addressedand the systematicscope it had to assume (LMA,66-67). In historythe pricewe pay for ourgreatcriticalfreedomin regardto the answersis the nonnegotiabilityof the questions.This does not exclude the possibilitythatthese questionsderivefroma humaninterestthatlies deeperthanthe mere persistenceof the epochal carry-over;but it does makeclearerhow muchmoredifficultit is to demonstratethe universality of a humaninterestthan simply to point to the fact that it has been able to survive a few centuries.(LMA,69) How thento accountforthe "worldliness" of themodemage?Whatis needed, accordingto Blumenberg'smodel of historicaltransition,is a story about the way in which the credibilityandgeneralacceptanceof traditionalmedieval answers to questionsinheritedfromantiquityis undermined,generatinga demand for new answers,a new system of self andworldinterpretation.Thatis precisely the sort of readingBlumenbergprovides in the Legitimacy.Thanksto the socommandof the phisticationof his historicalmethodologyandhis extraordinary intellectualtradition,Blumenbergis able to offer a supple,richly insightful,and compellingaccountof the originsof the worldlinessof the modem age (Section IV). The "worldless"characterof the modem age on the other hand, which Blumenbergfails adequatelyto address,cannotbe explainedsimplyby the problem pressureof carry-overquestions alone but ratherby the way in which entirely new questions and problems are actually generatedby the solutions the modems arrivedat to those carry-overproblems.The "worldless"characterof the modem age may thenbe recognizedas a new modernproblemgeneratedby 1See Blumenberg's"Prospectfor a Theoryof Nonconceptuality,"Shipwreckwith Spectator: Paradigm of a Metaphorfor Existence, tr. Steven Rendall (Cambridge,Mass., 1997), 96. OriginalGermanedition,SchiffbruchmitZuschauer.Paradigmaeiner Daseinsmetapher(Frankfurt, 1979).
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the new (modem) system of self and world interpretation.Arendt's analysis, here, helps bring this into focus (Section V). Let us turn first, however, to Blumenberg'sreadingof the origins of the worldlinessof the modem age. Worldlinessas the "Signatureof the ModemAge" Blumenbergviews modem "self-assertion"(active, reconstructiveengagement in the world) as a responseto the challengeposed by the theologicalabsolutismof latemedievalnominalism.Giventhe nominalistprioritizationof God's omnipotenceover his wisdom andgoodness, appealcould no longerbe madeto divine reasons for the creationof this world order-it is as it is because God willed it so-just as no reason could be given for the mysteriousworkings of God's grace. Reality at the end of the Middle Ages came to be regardedmore and more as an inexplicable"fact"(in the sense offactum, somethingdone or made) confrontingmankind,a contingentstate of affairsno longernecessarily adaptedto humanneeds. At the same time the intensificationof divine omnipotence in the arenaof humansalvation(reflectedin doctrinesof predestination) deprivedhumanbeings of the meaningfulnessof an otherworldlyorientation. This experienceof being left to the brutefacticity of the world became an irritationand provocationfor self-interestedactivity aimed at extorting from this faceless andindifferentrealitya new "humanity"(LMA,139). Nominalistic explanationsof the world,Blumenbergclaims,provideda new structuralframework for the understandingof reality,which graduallycame to be "reoccupied" by earlymodemmaterialisticandmechanisticexplanationsof nature:"Theradical materializingof natureis confirmedas the systematiccorrelateof theological absolutism.Deprivedby God's hiddennessof metaphysicalguaranteesfor the world, man constructsfor himself a counterworldof elementaryrationalityand manipulability"(LMA,173). Since the actualqualityof the worldescapes man's grasp,pure(qualityless,homogeneous)matteris postulatedas the minimalsubstrateof nature'2;andsince the postulatedmaterialsubstratumis meaninglessin itself, it is potentiallyavailableto man'srationaldisposition.It presentsitself as a malleablesubstratumsubjectto humanrationalityand technicalmastery.We may not know how natureactually operates,but we can constructmathematically soundmodels which can accuratelypredictits behavior.The productionof desiredphenomenathenbecomes a (sometimessimple,sometimescomplicated) matterof the reconstructionof, or artificialinterventionin, observedprocesses. Blumenbergviews the atomismof Nicolas of Autrecourtas the systematicadaptationof a minimal theoretical position least affected by the thesis of divine omnipotence. Here the appearancesof natureare due entirelyto the changing constellationsof identicalatoms, i.e., to a minimal homogeneousmaterialsubstratum(LMA,173). See also Blumenberg'sdiscussion of the connectionbetween voluntarismand atomismin the Leibniz-Clarkecorrespondence(LMA, 149-51). 12
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This shift in man'srelationto the world is characterizedon the one handby surrenderof the traditionalclaim to truthas adequatioand on the otherby this new use of theoryto "recreate"the world, where the measureof humanknowledge is now located within the humanmind itself as a "principleof economy." Blumenbergthus locates the truly modem aspect of Descartes's thought, for example, in his reductionof the process of doubt to the final regaining of an absolutefundamentin the immanenceof the cogito. The evil genius appearsin this context as a transformationof the deus absconditus,thatis, as the embodiment of the requirementsthatmust be met by reason in the face of theological absolutismif it is to find a new groundin itself (LMA,196). Divine spiritandhumanspirit,creativeand cognitive principles,operate as though without taking each other into account. The gratuitousness of the Creationimplies thatit can no longerbe expectedto exhibit any adaptationto the needs of reason. Ratherthan helping man to reconstructan ordergiven in nature,the principleof economy (Ockham's razor)helps him to reduce natureforcibly to an orderimputedto it by man. (LMA,154) WhenGod as measurebecomes absolutelytranscendentandso unavailable, the words of Protagorasare rehabilitated:man is recognizedas the measureof all things, where man is understood now as homo faber (man the maker). Descartes, for instance, grantsthat the scientist as model-buildercan have no guaranteethathis models of naturalprocessesaccuratelyreflectthe actualworkings of nature.But if they "save the appearances,"i.e., give a consistent,plausible account,then they provide a "sufficientcertaintyfor applicationto ordinarylife, even thoughthey may be uncertainin relationto the absolutepowerof God."13
Worldlessnessas the Hallmarkof the ModemAge Both BlumenbergandArendt agree that it is the mentalityof homofaber which guides the emergenceof the new science andthatthis mentalityconsists precisely in the relinquishingof the measureof truthas adequatioin the modem reconstructionof the world.'4While Blumenberghails this restrictionof our epistemological pretensionsas the preconditionfor "progressof knowledge" 13Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, in The Philosophical Writingsof Descartes, tr. John Cottingham,Dugald Murdoch,and Robert Stoothoff (Cambridge,Mass., 1985), I, Principle 205, 289-90. 14 See of Theory my "FromVitaContemplativato VitaActiva:Modem Instrumentalization and the Problemof Measure,"forthcomingin the InternationalJournal of Philosophical Studies.
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spelled out in termsof "theextensionof the masteryof reality,"Arendtwarnsof the threatof world-lossas the consequenceof the elision of value in the commitmentto universalobjectivitygroundedin the introspectivesubject(LMA,499). Indeed,the last section of TheHumanCondition,entitled,"The VitaActiva and the Modem Age," aims at tracingthe origins of modem world alienationin "its twofold flight fromthe earthinto the universeand fromthe world into the self" (HC, 6). Arendtbegins this section with a brief discussionof the impactof the early moder voyages of discovery and the emergenceof capitalismon the phenomenon of world alienation.Both, however, were eventuallyeclipsed in momentousness by the rise of the new science which considers the natureof the earth fromthe viewpoint of the universe(HC, 249-52). Indeed,the aims and method of the new science demanda removalfromour immediateimbeddednessin the worldas it presentsitself in meaningful,contextladenexperienceso thatwe can view all of naturefrom a "universal,"objective perspective.Arendtdescribes the discovery of this human capacity to think in terms of the universe while remainingon the earthon analogy to the discovery of the Archimedeanpoint. The theoreticalreconstructionsof moder science allow the scientistto "move the world,"quiteliterally,to remakenatureboth in the experimentand in nature at largethroughartificialinterventionin naturalprocesses. The experimentrepeatsthe naturalprocessas thoughmanhimself were aboutto make nature'sobjects, and althoughin the early stages of the modem age no responsiblescientistwould have dreamtof the extentto which manis actuallycapableof"making"nature,he neverthelessfrom the onset approachedit fromthe standpointof the One who madeit, and this not for practicalreasonsof technical applicabilitybut exclusively for the "theoretical"reason that certaintyin knowledge could not be gained otherwise.(HC, 295) Indeed, it was Descartes's genius, Arendt claims, to have located this "Archimedeanpoint"in the absolutefundamentof the cogito itself, in the certaintyof the knowing subject.Cartesianintrospection,which dissolves all real relationsinto mentalpatterns,she claims, laid the groundworkfor the new science insofaras the latterdependson a methodologicaltranslationof experience intomathematicaldescriptionsof naturalprocesses:"Insteadof observingnatural phenomenaas they were given to him, he [the moder theoretician]placed natureunderthe conditionsof his own mind, that is, underthe conditionswon from a universal,astrophysicalviewpoint, a cosmic standpointoutside nature itself" (HC, 265). Hence, earthalienationgroundsthe moder turntowardsthe active reconstructionor re-makingof nature.
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Arendtunderscoresthatthe attitudesof homofaber have been characteristic of the modem age fromits earliestbeginningsto the present:in particularthe convictionthatmanthe makeris the measureof all things,his instrumentalization of the world, andhis tendencyto reduceall humanmotivationsto the principle of utility(HC, 305). Nevertheless,she notes, the "victory"of homofaberproved to be unstable.This was due to certaindeviationsandvariationsfromthe traditional mentalityof homofaber, which were highly characteristicof the modem age. While it is typical of homofaber to view all things as the resultof a fabricationprocess,the exclusive emphasiswhichthe modem age placedon the process itself, combinedwith a fundamentaldisregardfor the things produced,is quite new (HC, 297). This shift in emphasisfromthe "what"to the "how"is actually foreignto the traditionalmind-setof homofaber, for whom the fabricationprocess had always been a means to an end, an end guided by values drawnfrom eitherthe sphereof thoughtor of (political) action. As faras homofaberwas concerned,the moder shift of emphasisfrom the "what"to the "how,"fromthe thing itself to its fabricationprocess, was by no means an unmixed blessing. It deprivedman as makerand builderof thosefixedandpermanentstandardsandmeasurementswhich, priorto the modernage, have always servedhim as guides for his doing and criteriafor his judgment.(HC, 307) Blumenbergsuggeststhat,with the late medievalimpossibilityof turningto an absolutelytranscendentGod as the measurefor humanknowledgeandpractice, an alternativewas opened up: "thealternativeof the immanentself-assertion of reasonthroughthe masteryand alternationof reality"(LMA,137). But as Arendtunderscores,this move brings its own difficulties. By makinghomo faber himself the measureof all things the problemof how to determinevalue became all the more acute. "While only fabricationwith its instrumentalityis capableof buildinga world,"she pointsout, "thissameworldbecomes as worthless as the employed material,a mere means for furtherends, if the standards which governedits coming into being arepermittedto rule it afterits establishment"(HC, 156). Whatis at issue, it must be underscored,is not the value of instrumentality for humanlife, thatis, the use of meansto achieve an end as such,butrather"the generalizationof the fabricationexperiencein which usefulness and utility are establishedas the ultimatestandardsfor life and the world of men"(HC, 157). The dangerpresentedin the mentality of homofaber is its own lack of selfregulating standards which would curb the tendency toward the limitless instrumentalizationof everythingthat exists. The potentialendlessness of this
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chainof ends andmeans leads-unless guidedby externalstandardsandvalues for the sake of which the processis set in motion-to radicalloss of value. In the transitionto the modernage the worldbuildingactivityof homofaber could not easily survive the loss of such traditionalmeasures. The fabricationprocess, unmooredandpursuedfor its own sake, could no longerproducea stableworld. At this point, Arendtholds, life asserteditself as the ultimatepoint of reference for the moder age, and the endless laboringcycle of animal laborans, who producesin orderto consumeandconsumesin orderto produce,emergedas the dominatemode of humanexistence. Centralin this turnof events was the developmentof the consumersociety in which exchange value triumphedover use value and led, finally, to the relativizationand devaluationof all values. Just as important,Arendt insists, was the whole course of the development of modern science and of moder philosophyin which humanbeings beganto view themselves as partof two allencompassingprocesses,natureandhistory,doomedto an infiniteprogresswithout ever reachingany inherenttelos (HC, 307). This"victoryof animallaborans"overhomofaberwas, accordingto Arendt, theresultof modernworldalienationcombinedwith a Christian-medieval legacy, the absolutization of life. namely The reasonwhy life asserteditself as the ultimatepoint of referencein the modernage andhas remainedthe highestgood of modernsociety is thatthe moder reversal[of the traditionalhierarchybetween the contemplativeand the active life] operatedwithin the fabricof a Christian society whose fundamentalbelief in the sacrednessof life has survived, andeven remainedcompletelyunshakenby, secularizationandthe general decline of Christianfaith. (HC, 313-14) The modernprioritizationof the active life over the contemplativelife left unchangedthatearlierreversalwith which Christianityhadbrokenintothe ancient world:the Christianassumptionthatthe humanbeing andnotthe world(whether as cosmos or body politic) is immortal. This reversal,writes Arendt,"was politically even more far reaching,and historically at any rate, more enduringthan any specific dogmatic content or belief" (HC, 314). To put it in Blumenberg'sterms,humanlife came to "reoccupy" the position of ultimatevalue formerlyheld by the world or cosmos in ancientthought.The assumptionthatlife andnot the worldis the highesthuman good was carriedover in the transitionto the modernage. It is no doubtin this context that we must read Blumenberg'scritical characterizationof Arendt's view of the modernworld as "a continuationof Christianityby othermeans," andas an intensification"inthe same direction"of Christianotherworldliness. But Blumenberg'semphasishere is misleading.As we have seen, modern worldlessness,forArendt,is notat all a continuationof Christianotherworldliness,
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nor is the modem absolutizationof life a continuationof the Christianbelief in the immortalityof the individuallife. While it is quite conceivable thatthe developmentfollowing upon the discoveryof the Archimedeanpointwould have takenan altogetherdifferent directionif it had taken place seventeen hundredyears earlier, when not life but the world was still the highest good of man, it by no means follows thatwe live in a Christianworld.Forwhatmatterstoday is not the immortalityof life, butthatlife is the highestgood. (HC, 319) The victory of animal laborans, of the "laboringmetabolismof man with nature"(HC, 320), Arendtinsists, would never have been complete without the modem loss of faithwhich deprivedus of the certaintyof individualimmortality. We arethrownbackupon ourselvesin a strangelyworldlessworld,andthe only thingthatcould appearas potentiallyimmortalin this contextwas "thepossibly everlastinglife process of the species mankind"(HC, 321). The last stage in the unfoldingof the modem laboringsociety,Arendtconcludes, producesin its individualmembers"a sheer automaticfunctioning,as thoughindividuallife hadactuallybeen submergedin the over-alllife processof the species" (HC, 322). We laborin orderto consume and consume in orderto labor.None of the higherhumancapacities(for fabrication,action, or thought) arenecessaryin orderto connectthe individualwith the life of the species. "The troublewith modem theoriesof behaviorism,"Arendtwrites, "is not thatthey are wrong but that they could become true, and that they actually are the best possible conceptualizationof certainobvious trendsin modem society" (HC, 322). Afterpresentingthis bleakpictureof the courseof modem worldalienation, Arendtis quick to addthatall "thisdoes not mean thatmodem man has lost his capacities or is on the point of losing them"(HC, 323). Individualspersist in makingandbuilding,she points out, thoughshe goes on to addthatthese activities are increasinglyrestrictedto the sphereof the artist,so that"experiencesof worldliness"aremore andmore rarein ordinarylife. Similarlythe capacityfor action, the basis of all genuine political life, has been all but restrictedto the sphereof the scientists. But the action of the scientists, since it acts into naturefromthe standpoint of the universeandnot into the web of humanrelationships,lacks the revelatorycharacterof action as well as the ability to producestories and become historical,which togetherform the very source from which meaningfulnesssprings into and illuminateshuman existence. (HC, 324)
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Arendtconcludesher studywith a considerationof thought,which she says "is still possible, and no doubt actual,wherevermen live underthe conditions of political freedom"(HC, 324). Yet it is the humancapacityfor thoughtwhich is most vulnerableto tyrannyandto the loss of a commonworld.Thoughtlessness, she had alreadystressedin herpreface,is amongthe outstandingcharacteristics of our time, and among its most dangerous.Arendt'sstudy is thus a self-conscious exercise in thought,"a reconsiderationof the humanconditionfrom the vantagepoint of our newest experiencesand our most recentfears"(HC, 5). Conclusion Blumenbergis not altogetherinsensitiveto the dangerof world-loss which hauntsthe modem turnto the active life of self-assertion,the dangerthatcomes with the failureto open ourselvesto the richnessof oursharedexperienceof the earth.He, too, senses the dangerof abandoningour"geocentric"perspectivefor the objectivitygained by a universalscience in the pursuitof the Archimedean point. He concludes his analysis of the Genesis of the Copernican World,for instance,with the following remarks: It is more than a trivialitythat the experienceof returningto the earth couldnot havebeen madeexceptby firstleaving it. The cosmic oasis on which man lives-this miracleof an exception, our own blue planetin the midstof the disappointingcelestialdesert-is no longer"alsoa star," but ratherthe only one thatseems to deserve this name. It is only as an experienceof turningback thatwe shall acceptthat for manthereareno alternativesto the Earth,just as for reasonthereare no alternativesto humanreason.'5 But does Blumenbergreally provide us philosophicallywith an answerto the problemof findinga measurewhich would makesuch a returnto "this"earth,in its particularity,possible? He wouldperhapspointhereto the modestprojectof restrictingourintellectualpretensionsto thoseof a "sufficientrationality" (einerzureichendenVernunft). This phraseis a clever tweakingof the Leibnizianprincipleof sufficientreason (Prinzipdes zureichendenGrundes),whereBlumenbergemphasizesthe need to accept and embracehuman(as opposed to divine) reason. It also underscores thatthe conceptof rationality,which he embracesin the Legitimacy,is thought in functionalterms.Sufficientrationality,Blumenbergexplains,"isjust enough to accomplishthe postmedievalself-assertionand to bear the consequencesof 15Hans Blumenberg, The Genesis of the Copernican World, tr. Robert M. Wallace (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1987), 685.
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this emergencyself-consolidation."As a result,he emphasizes,"Theconceptof the legitimacy of the modem age is not derived from the accomplishmentsof reasonbutratherfromthe necessity of those accomplishments"(LMA,99). That is to say, the rationalismof the modem age arose as a responseto the problem pressureexertedby the theological voluntarismof the late MiddleAges. To the extent that it proved effective as such a historical response and only to that extent,accordingto Blumenberg,does it "legitimately"groundthe modem age. Hence, Blumenberg'sdefense of modernityis aimedat those whose critiquefocuses on impugningthe legitimacyof the originsof moder rationality. Arendt's diagnosis of the worldless characterof the modem age, on the otherhand,focuses attentionon the consequencesof the rise of moder rationality and so calls attentionto the emergenceof a peculiarlymoder problem,one that arises out of the moder conceptionof the humancondition.Humanselfassertion,while it may indeed representa legitimate(in Blumenberg'smodest, historicalsense) responseto a crisis in self and world orientationat the end of the Middle Ages, itself raises new andtroublingquestions.If man is conceived of as homofaber, what will be the measurefor his making? This questionbecomes particularlyacute,Arendtnotes, when consideredin terms of the modem, constructivistconception of politics (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau,et al.). The enlightenmentidealof politicalemancipationwould seem to be too empty of contentto offer the sort of ethical measure(in the broadest sense of ethos) needed to establish a normativecontext, which would provide orientationfor ethical and political judgment. One of the centralproblems of modernitymay thusbe expressedas the problemof self andworld constitution, wherethe possibilityof self-determinationis constantlyin tensionwith the need to groundour politicaljudgments in a sharedconception of a common world. The temptationto seek an artificialclosure,to collapse this tensionwould seem to lie at the heartof the totalitarianimpulse.16 If Arendt is right to view world loss as an inherentdangerin the modem projectof self-assertion(and I thinkshe is), then Blumenberg'sdefense of modernityis only partiallysuccessful.Moreneedsto be saidaboutthe consequences of the modem turnto self-assertion.This is not to imply,however,thatthe fundamentalorientationof the moder age is altogetherbankrupt-a conclusion which would be all too easy to drawfromArendt'salmost fatalisticaccountof the developmentof modem world alienation.It is simply to identify one of its most existentiallypressingquestions.Recentethicalandpoliticaltheorieswhich make appealto the productiveimagination,to a sensus communis,to reflective judgment,or to the dialogic structureof narrativemay all be viewed as attempts 16 HannahArendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism(New York, 1958), and more recently, Michael Halberstam, Totalitarianismand the Modern Conception of Politics (New Haven, 1999).
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to respondto the problemof establishingan ethicalmeasurein a mannerappropriateto our presentcondition.Indeed,Arendt'sown political philosophymay be seen in precisely this light. By applyingBlumenberg'shistoricalmethodto ourcurrentsituation,we are freedup from the tendencyto view modem world alienationas a sort of inevitable consequence of a "wrong turning"located somewhere in the historical past. The course of the developmentof the moder age is just as dynamic and dialogical in characteras its origin. It is not unilaterallydirectedby a substantiallydeterminedcontent.Thehistoryof the moder age is the historynot only of the developmentof the moder phenomenonof self-assertionbutalso of the rich, varied, and continuinghistory of moder attemptsto arriveat solutions to the problemsgeneratedby this new existentialorientation.As Arendtremindsus, "Historyis a storyof events andnot of forces or ideas with predictablecourses" (HC, 252). Boston College.
Books
Received
Al-Ghazali. The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Islamic TranslationSeries). Trans. and intro. by Michael E. Marmura.Provo: BrighamYoung UP, 2000. xxix, 258p., index. Parallel English-Arabictext with correctionsof the first edition. Barrett,JeffreyA. The QuantumMechanics of Minds and Worlds.Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. xv, 267p., bibl., index. $45. Interpretingthe quantummeasurement problem. Bayle, Pierre. VariousThoughtson the Occasion of a Comet.Trans.and intro.by Robert C. Bartlett.Albany: State U of New York P, 2000. xlvii, 332p., bibl., index. $26.95. Translationof Pensees divers sur la comete from the critical edition (1911), with critical introduction. Ben Gershom,Levi (Gersonides). The Warsof the Lord, Vol.3. Book Five. The Heavenly Bodies and TheirMovers; The Relationshipsamongst These Movers, and the Relationshipbetween Themand God; Book Six. Creationof the Universe.Trans. by SeymourFeldman.Philadelphia:The Jewish PublicationSociety, 1999. 580p., index. Continuing cosmological and theological reflections of a fourteenth-century scholar;vols. 1 and 2 to follow. Bemasconi, Robert, and Tommy L. Lott, eds. The Idea of Race (Readings in Philosophy). Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing,2000. xviii, 212p. Eighteen collected essays including Voltaire, Kant, Herder, Hegel, Gobineau, Darwin, Du Bois, and Senghor. Bottero, Jean et al., eds. Ancestors of the West:Writing,Reasoning, and Religion in Mesopotamia,Elam and Greece. Trans.by TeresaLavenderFagan with foreword by FrancoisZabbal.Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000. xiii, 192p., index. Translationof L'Orient ancien et nous: L 'criture, la raison, les dieux (1996). Brann, Eva. What, Then, Is Time? Lanham:Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999. xvi, 236p., bibl., index, $23.95. Inquiryinto the questionof time throughPlato, Augustine, Husserl, Husserl, Heidegger,et al. Bronner, Stephen Eric. A RumorAbout the Jews. Reflections on Antisemitism and the Protocals of the Learned Elders of Zion. New York: St. Martin's P, 2000. 177p., index. $24.95. Significance and repercussionsof a notorioustext. Brooke, John, and Geoffrey Cantor.ReconstructingNature: The Engagementof Science and Religion. New York:Oxford UP, 2000. ix, 359p., ill., index. Revisionist approachto case studies in "science-religion"nexus from Galileo to the nineteenthcentury. Brown, RichardHarvey, and J. Daniel Schubert,eds. Knowledge and Power in Higher Education.New York:TeachersCollege P, 2000. vi, 207p., index. Ten papers. Buchanan, Allan et al. From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. Cambridge: CambridgeUP, 2000. xiv, 408p., bibl., index. $29.95 Applying genetic technologies to humansand the "shadowof eugenics." 533 Copyright2000 by Journalof Historyof Ideas,Inc.
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Journal of the History of Ideas
Bulgakov, Sergei. Philosophy ofEcono-my. The Worldas Household. Trans.and ed. by CatherineEvtuhov.New Haven:Yale UP, 2000. vii, 347p., index. $35. Translation of Filosofiia Khoziaistva(1912). Ciardi, Marco. La fine dei privilegi: Scienze fisiche, tecnologia e istituzioni scientifiche sabaude nel Risorgimento.Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1999. 349p., bibl., index. Avogadro,the Academy of Sciences of Turin,and "sublimephysics." Clark,J. C. D. English Society, 1660-1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics during the ancien regime.Cambridge:CambridgeUP, 2000. xi, 580p., bibl., index. $74.95 Second edition of 1985 book that reassesses the role of religion in English society. Cusa, Nicholas of. MetaphysicalSpeculations,Vol. II. Trans.and intro.by Jasper Hopkins. Minneapolis: The Arthur J. Banning P, 2000. 437p., index. $30. De coniecturis and De ludo globi, with critical "orientingstudy"and other apparatus. Dahood, Roger, ed. The Future of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Problems, Trends,and Opportunitiesfor Research (Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, vol. 2). Turhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1998. xvi, 194p. Twelve presentations. Daston, Lorraine,ed. Biographies of Scientific Objects. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 2000. ix, 307p., index. Eleven essays on applied metaphysics and the scientific categories of object, experience, and proof. Dever, Mark E. RichardSibbes: Puritanismand Calvinismin Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England. Macon, Ga.: Mercer UP, 2000. xiii, 270p., app., bibl., index. Theological biography. Edwards,Jeffrey.Substance,Force, and the Possibility of Knowledge: On Kant's Philosophy of Material Nature. Berkeley: U of CaliforniaP, 2000. xiv, 277p., bibl., index. $55. Philosophical criticism of Kant's argumentagainst empty space. Edwards,Karen L. Milton and the Natural World.Science and Poetry in Paradise Lost. Cambridge:CambridgeUP, 1999. xiii, 265p., bibl., ills., index. $59.95. Milton and seventeenth-centurynaturalphilosophy. Forster,Eckart.Kants Final Synthesis:An Essay on the Opus Postumum.Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUP, 2000. xx, 207p., index. $37. Philosophical analysis and apology. Fuller, Steve. ThomasKuhn:A Philosophical Historyfor Our Times.Chicago:U of ChicagoP, 2000. xvii, 472p., bibl., index. Full and criticalappraisal,placing Kuhn's work in the context of the Cold War. Galle, Roland,andRudolfBehrens,eds. Konfigurationender Machtin der Friihen Neuzeit. Heidelberg:2000. xii, 356p., index. Thirteenpapersin Germanand French. Gentrup,WilliamF., ed. Reinventingthe MiddleAges and the Renaissance: Constructionsof the Medieval and Early ModernPeriods (Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,vol. 1). Turhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1998. xx, 243p. Fourteen papers. Grafton,Anthony, and Nancy Siraisi, eds. Natural Particulars. Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology P, 2000. xi, 426p., index. $50. Thirteenscholarly papers. Gregory,Tullio. Genese de la raison classique de Charrona Descartes. Paris: PUF/epimethee,2000. v, 363p., index, 298FF. Collected essays on the "eruditelibertines" as the first proponentsof the Enlightenment. Hales, Steven D., and Rex Welshon. Nietzsches Perspectivism. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 2000. 228p., bibl., index. $40. Philosophicalthemes-truth, logic, causality, the self, etc.-in their perspectives.
Books Received
535
Hardin,Russell. Liberalism,Constitutionalism,and Democracy. New York:Oxford UP, 1999. xviii, 379p., app., bibl., index. $29.95. New theory of liberal constitutional democracy. Harvey, Steven, ed. The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought). Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic Publishers,2000. ix, 547p., bibl., index. Twenty scholarlycontributions,with a translation from Steinschneider'swork of 1893. Hechter,Michael. ContainingNationalism. New York:Oxford UP, 2000. 256p., bibl., index, $29.95. Nationalismas a form of collective action for political self-determination. Kalb, Don, et al. The Ends of Globalization:Bringing Society Back In. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. vii, 403p., bibl., index. Twenty-twopapers. Kenney, Douglas F., Sabine Menner-Bettscheid,and David Farrell Krell, eds. The RecalcitrantArt: Diotima s Letters to Holderlin and Related Missives. Albany: State U of New York P, 2000. xiv, 256p., index. Posthumouspublicationof Kenney and Menner-Bettscheid'stranslationof the Gontard-H6lderlincorrespondence. Knapp, Peggy A. Time-Bound Words:Semantic and Social Economies from Chaucers England to Shakespeares. New York:St Martin'sP, 2000. vii, 224p., bibl., index. $59.95. The history of eleven words 1380-1611. Kristeva,Julia, ThePortable Kristeva.Ed. by Kelly Oliver.New York:Columbia UP, 2000. xxix, 410p., bibl., index. $18.50. Selections. Langan,Thomas. Survivingthe Age of VirtualReality. Columbia:U of Missouri P, 2000. 184p., index. Living with high technology. Levinas, Emmanuel.Entre Nous: Thinking-of-the-Other.Trans. by Michael B. Smithand BarbaraHarshav.New York:ColumbiaUP, 2000. xii, 256p., index, $17.50. Translationfrom Entre nous: Essais sur le penser-a-autre (1991). Lewis, Pericles.Modernism,Nationalism,and the Novel. Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 2000. x, 241p., bibl., index. On Joyce, Conrad,Proust, and D'Annunzio on national character. Leys, Ruth.Freud:A Genealogy.Chicago:U of Chicago P, 2000. x, 318p., index. History of the idea of trauma,multiple-personalitydisorder,postmoderist theories. L6pez Pifiero, Jose M., et al., eds. La Actividad Cientifica Valenciana de la Ilustracion (2 vols.). Valencia: Diputaci6 de Valencia, 1998. 574p., ill. Listing of authors,works, and illustrations;and (vol. 2) of engravings. Lupoi, Maurizio. The Origins of the European Legal Order. Trans. by Adrian Belton. Cambridge:CambridgeUP, 2000. xiii, 623p., bibl., index. Translationof Alle radici del mondo guiridico europeo (1994). Machamer,Peter,et al., eds. Scientific Controversies:Philosophical and Historical Perspectives. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. x, 278p, bibl., index. $45. Fourteen case studies illustratingthe characterof scientific debate. Maker,William, ed. Hegel and Aesthetics.Albany: State U of New YorkP, 2000. xxvi, 209p., index. Twelve essays on Hegel and romanticism,his claims on art and relations to Schiller and Schlegel. Mall, Ram Adhar.InterculturalPhilosophy. New York:Rowman and Littlefield Pubs., Inc., 2000. xiii, 152p, bibl., index. $62. Mayer,Paola.Jena Romanticismand Its AppropriationofJakob Bohme: Theosophy, Hagiography, Literature.Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's UP, 2000. x, bibl., index. $65. The Romanticmyth and reception of B6hme.
536
Journal of the History of Ideas
McCumber,John. Philosophy and Freedom. Derrida, Rorty, Habermas, Foucault. Bloomington:IndianaUP, 2000. xi, 194p., bibl., index, $39.95. Philosophy as the quest for liberty,not truth,and why these four are (and Nietzsche is not) wrong. McKee, Sally, ed. Crossing Boundaries. Issues of Culturaland IndividualIdentity in the MiddleAges and the Renaissance (Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,vol. 3). Turhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999. xii, 283p. Twelve papers. Michael, John.Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and EnlightenmentValues.Durham:Duke UP, 2000. x, 218p., bibl., index, $49.95. TheAmericanconceptionof the "intellectual"from HenryLouis Gates, Jr.,to Stanley Fish, Paolo Freyre,and FredericJameson. Miller, Dean A. The Epic Hero. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. xiv, 501p., index. $52. Interdisciplinary,intercultural,and taxonomical study of the images and life-cycle of the hero and his followers. Montgomery,Scott L. Science in Translation:Movementsof Knowledgethrough Culturesand Time.Chicago: Chicago UP, 2000. xii, 338p., bibl., index, $28. Transmission of knowledge in Roman, Arabic, and Japanesecontexts. Mullarkey,John.Bergsonand Philosophy.Notre Dame:U of Notre Dame P,2000. xi, 206p., bibl., index. $20. Exposition and "metaphilosophical"analysis of seven majorworks. Nietzsche, Friedrich.Nachgelassene Aufzeichnungen,Herbst 1858-Herbst 1862 (Nietzsche Werke,KritischeGesamtausgabe,12. Ed. by JohannFigl. New York:Walter de Gruyter, 1999. ix, 528p. Miscellaneous prose and poetry from MSS; also next entry. Nietzsche, Friedrich.NachgelasseneAufzeichnungen,Herbst 1864-Friihjahr1868 (Nietzsche Werke,KritischeGesamtausgabe,I4).Ed. by JohannFigl. New York:Walter de Gruyter,1999. xiii, 586p. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Nachbericht zur zweiten Abteilung: Briefe von und an Friedrich Nietzsche, April 1869-Mai 1872 (Nietzsche Briefwechsel). Ed. by Renate Muller-Buck. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998. vii, 675p. With comprehensive apparatusand commentary;also next entry. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Nachbericht zur zweiten Abteilung, Briefe von und an Friedrich Nietzsche, Mai 1872-Dezember 1874 (Nietzsche Briefwechsel). Ed. by AnnemariePieper.New York:Walterde Gruyter,2000. vi, 835p. Numbers, Ronald L., and John Stenhouse, eds. Disseminating Darwinism. The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender.New York:CambridgeUP, 1999. xi, 300p., index. Ten papers by historians. O'Meara, Patrick,et al., eds. Globalizationand the Challenges of a New Century. Bloomington:U of IndianaP, 2000. xiv, bibl., index. $49.95. Perelman, Michael. The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Economy and the Secret History of PrimitiveAccumulation.Durham:Duke UP, 2000. 412p., bibl., index. Laboreconomics, capital theory, land and resources,entrepreneurship,markets, and "whatit really all means." Perlman, Mark, and Charles R. McCann, Jr. The Pillars of Economic Understanding:Factors and Markets.Ann Arbor:U of Michigan P, 2000. xvii, 362p., bibl., index. $79.50. Companionvolume to previous entry. Phillips, MarkSalber.Society and Sentiment:Genresof Historical Writing,17401820. Princeton:PrincetonUP, 2000. xvii, 369p., bibl., index. $55. On Hume, Mackintosh, Burke, Smith, Ferguson,et al.; and forms of Enlightenmentnarrative.
Books Received
537
Potkay,Adam. The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume. Ithaca:CornellUP, 2000. xv, 241p, bibl., index. $42.50. Johnsonand Hume as moralists. Ramsey,Ann W. Liturgy,Politics, and Salvation: The Catholic League in Paris and the Nature of Catholic Reform, 1540-1630. Rochester,N.Y.: U of Rochester P, 1999. xiii, 447p., bibl., ill., index. The Catholic scene of the religious wars. Rhonheimer,Martin.NaturalLaw and Practical Reason:A ThomistViewof Moral Autonomy.Trans.by Gerald Malsbary.New York: FordhamUP, 2000. xxii, 620p., bibl., index. Translationfrom 1987 Germantext. Richter, Gerhard.WalterBenjamin and the Corpus of Autobiography.Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2000. 312p., bibl., ill., index, $29.95. Interpretationof Benjaminon himself. Ronchi de Michelis, Laura.Eresia e Riforma nel Cinquescento. La dissidenza religiosa in Russia. Torino:Claudiana,2000. 256p, bibl., index. Evangelicals, antitrinitarians,and exiles. Rossiter,MargaretW., ed. Catching Up with the Vision.Essays on the Occasion the 75th Anniversaryof the Founding of the History of Science Society. Suppleof ment to Isis, Vol. 90. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. 359p, index. $11. Seventeen essays by some of the experts,with lists of officers and prizes. Scheibler, Ingrid. Gadamer. Between Heidegger and Habermas. Lanham,Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. xii, 188p., bibl., index. $17.95. Gadameron tradition and language. Schilling, Hermann. System und Evolution des menschlichen Erkennens Ein Handbuchder evolutiondrenErkenntnistheorie.Band3: Die entwicklungder operation "Messen."New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1999. 423p., bibl., index. Varieties and ways of measurement. Schwartz, Herman. The Strugglefor ConstitutionalJustice in Post-Communist Europe(Constitutionalismin easternEuropeseries), intro.by JudgePatriciaM. Wald. Chicago: Chicago UP, 2000. xx, 347p., index. Legal problems and shortcomingsin the formerEast Bloc countries. Secada, Jorge. Cartesian Metaphysics. The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy. Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 2000. xii, 333p., bibl., index. $59.95. In the wake of Gilson. Sedgwick,Sally,ed. TheReceptionof Kants CriticalPhilosophy.Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Cambridge:CambridgeUP, 2000. x, 338p, bibl., index. $59.95. Fourteen expert contributions, Sengoopta,Chandak.Otto Weininger:Sex, Science, and Self in Imperial Vienna. Chicago:U of Chicago P, 2000. x, 239p., bibl., index. $29. Shortlife and times of the authorof Sex and Character. Sharpe,Kevin. RemappingEarly ModernEngland: The Cultureof SeventeenthCenturyPolitics. Cambridge:CambridgeUP, 2000. xvi, 475p, bibl., ills., index. Rerevisionist studies, previously published. Sil, Rudra,and Eileen M. Doherty,BeyondBoundaries?.Disciplines, Paradigms, and TheoreticalIntegrationin InternationalStudies.Albany: State U of New YorkP, 2000. xi, 263p., index. $21.95. Nine essays. Silverman, Hugh J., ContinentalPhilosophy VII. Philosophy and Desire. New York:Routledge, 2000. viii, 253p., bibl., ills., index. Twelve interpretiveessays.
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Journal of the History of Ideas
Sissa, Giulia, and Marcel Detienne. The Daily Life of the GreekGods. Trans.by JanetLloyd. Stanford:StanfordUP, 2000. xi, 287p., index. $49.50. La Viequotidienne des dieux grecs (1989). Skorupski,John. Ethical Explorations.New York:Oxford UP, 2000. viii, 300p., bibl., index. $45. Essays on reason, the good, and morality. Souffrant,Eddy M. Formal Transgression:John StuartMills Philosophy of InternationalAffairs.New York:Rowman and Littlefield,2000. xv, 162p., bibl., index. $59.95. New view of utilitarianethics. Philosophicaldiscourse for the whole world. Storrs, Christopher.War,Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 1690-1720. Cambridge: CambridgeUP, 1999. xiv, 345p., bibl., ills., index. $69.95. Analysis of stateformations,centeringon Duke Amedus II. Stroud,PatriciaTyson. The Emperorof Nature: Charles-LucienBonaparte and His World.Philadelphia:U of PennsylvaniaP,2000. xv, 371p., bibl., ill., index. $34.95. Biographyof a naturalist(and nephew of Napoleon). Tricomi,Albert H., ed. Contextualizingthe Renaissance. Returnsto History (Selected Proceedingsfrom the 28th Annual CEMERSConference).Tumhout,Belgium: Brepols, 1999. vii, 230p. Ten papers. Valeri,Valerio. TheForest of Taboos.Morality,Hunting,and Identityamong the Huaulu of the Moluccas. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2000. xxi, 509p., bibl., ill., index, $27.95. Case study of the confrontationsbetween animals and humans. Vatan,Florence.RobertMusil et la questionanthropologique.Paris:PU de France, 2000. xii, 281p., bibl., index. Interpretivestudy of Musil's response to the European crisis. Voegelin, Eric. Published Essays 1953-1965 (Collected Works,volume 11). Ed. and intro.by Ellis Sandoz. Columbia:U of MissouriP, 2000. ix, 273p., index. $34.95. Fourteenessays written duringVoegelin's transitionfrom Louisianato Munich. Yolton, John W. Realism and Appearances. An Essay in Ontology. New York: CambridgeUP, 2000. xiii, 157p., bibl., index. Follow-up on the author's studies of philosophers,especially Locke, from Descartes to Kant. Yovel, Yirmiyahu,ed. Desire and Affect. Spinoza as Psychologist. New York: Little Room Press, 1999. xvii, index. $39.95. Sixteen contributions.
InternationalConferenceof the Journal of the History of Ideas The JohnsHopkinsUniversityNanjing Center for Chinese and AmericanStudies 31 May- 2 June 2001 Keynote speakers. Li Xueqin, History Institute,Chinese Social Science Academy Susan Mann, Departmentof History,University of Californiaat Davis Panels: Philosophy Chair:Kwong-loi Shun, University of California,Berkeley Joel Kupperman,University of Connecticut Antonia Cua, Catholic University of America Chen Lai, Beijing University Wan Junren,Qinghua University Political Thought Chair:William Rowe, Johns Hopkins University Joan Judge, University of California,Santa Barbara TheodoreHuters,University of California,Los Angeles Xiong Xuezhi, Instituteof History, ShanghaiAcademy of Social Sciences Lei Yi, Instituteof Moder History,Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing Historical Study of Women and Gender Chair:Dorothy Ko, RutgersUniversity Du Fangqin, Classics Research Institute,TianjinNormal University Deng Xiaonan, Beijing University Bonnie Smith, RutgersUniversity JudithBennett, University of North Carolina,Chapel Hill Issues in Modern Intellectual History Chair:Julia Ching, University of Toronto RichardLynn, University of Toronto Wing-cheukChan, Brock University He Weifang, Center for Judicial Studies, Beijing University Rong Jingben, CentralTranslationInstitute,Beijing Social History of the Book Chair: CynthiaBrokaw Lucille Chia, University of California,Riverside Uan Zuozhi, East China Normal University Wu Ge, FudanUniversity, Shanghai For more informationcontact Elizabeth D. Knup:
[email protected] Nanjing Center website: http://www.sais-jhu.edu/nanjing
ISIH The International Society for Intellectual History, founded in 1994, now has over 400 membersacross the globe and is still growing. Its goals are to facilitatecommunication between its members,to broadenour understandingof the field of intellectual history and the ways in which it is practiced,and to serve as a forumfor discussion of issues and news central to the discipline. To this end the Society organizes international conferences and publishes its review, IntellectualNews, which appearstwice a year. This year's conference, "TurningPoints,"will take place in September2000, at the Universityof Chicago and is organizedby Daniel Garberand Paul Hunter.In 2001 we will meet at TrinityCollege, Cambridge,England,at a conference about"Intellectual Quarrels"directed by Edoardo Tortarolo(Turin), Francoise Waquet (CNRS, Paris) and Sachiko Kusukawa(TrinityCollege, Cambridge).In 2002 there will be a conference on modernityin Australia,and conferences are planned in Finlandand Turkey. Intellectual News, though principally in English, also publishes articles in French, Italian, German,and Spanish. Articles are accepted by the Review in non-European languages,normallyfor translationinto English. Each issue of IntellectualNews publishes aroundten essays. These range across topics such as the intellectualhistory of the book and of institutions,to concepts such as modernityand deconstructionseen againstthe backgroundof intellectualhistory.Its section of book announcementsprovides memberswith the opportunityto publicize their own publicationsto the membership. Within the year the society's website will offer members furtheraccess to linked organizationsand resourceswithin the field. The website will incorporatea list of recent dissertationstogetherwith projectsin progress.There will also be a section for membersto list bibliographiesand published articles. The Society actively supports the establishment of an International Dictionary of Intellectual Historians which is currentlybeing preparedin Germanyat the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbiittel.For more informationcontact Ulrich J. Schneider at
[email protected]. ISIH membershipsecretaryfor Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Paul Neave Nelles ReformationStudies Institute School of History St John's House University of St Andrews St Andrews, Firfe KY 16 9AL Scotland
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PRIZE of the Journalof theHistoryof Ideas for her book
DIALOGUE QUANTUM TheMakingof a Revolution
Journalof the History of Ideas, Inc. The American Philosophical Society and the American Council of Learned Societies (throughits Committeeon the History of Ideas) have both contributedto the initiation,promotion,and planning of the project.
Board of Directors ANTHONY GRAFTON,Vice-President HANS AARSLEFF DONALD R. KELLEY CONSTANCEBLACKWELL JOHN F. CALLAHAN, Vice-President FRANCIS L. LAWRENCE I. LEONARD LEEB, Treasurer MARCIA COLISH WILLIAMJ. CONNELL,Secretary JOSEPHM. LEVINE, President HELEN NORTH RICHARDFOLEY J. B. SCHNEEWIND
Auditor. Diamond, Wasserman& Liss, P.C.
The SustainingFund of the Journal of the History of Ideas consists at present of an initial fund providedby the Research and Publication Fund of the College of the City of New York (the fund establishedin 1939 by the Class of 1912 and increasedby the Hon. MarkEisner),and of contributionsprovidedby individualsor institutions.All contributionsto the SustainingFundof the Journalof the Historyof Ideas, Inc. will be gratefullyacknowledged,and are exempt from income tax since the Journalis a nonprofit, educational enterprise, under Sec. 101 of the Internal Revenue Law. For informationaboutcontributingto the sustainingfund,please contactProfessorDonald R. Kelley, RutgersUniversity, 88 College Avenue, New Brunswick,NJ 08901. Contributors to the Sustaining Fund
Research and Publicationfund establishedby the Class of 1912, C.C.N.Y. ClaremontGraduateSchool, Co-sponsor of the SustainingFund Trustees of Smith College University of Cincinnati Sustaining Members and Life Subscribers
Dr. Adrien Ver Brugghen James Eugene Bacigalupi Hugh S. Bonar, Jr. HarcourtBrown Dennis C. Chipman,M.D. Anthony W. Deller Sebastiande Grazia Miss Helen Katsanou Dr. Joseph J. Klein Douglas Raymond Lacey Dr. HarryB. Lee Howard G. Macmillan
RichardMartin JohanF. Naeser S. A. Russell Dr. Gerald Sabath Alexander Sachs Alfred Leon Ster LaurentSter Ashley J. Tellis Yoshiaki Watanabe Lynn White, Jr. Dr. Henry von Witzleben Charles S. Yanikoski
ForthcomingArticles: Peter Adamson on Aristotelianism in the Arabic Plotinus Amy M. Schmitter on the Representation of Royal Power in French Academic Painting David Bates on Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin's EnlightenedMysticism David Armitage on Edmund Burke and Reason of State Catherine Kemp on Hume's Treatise Lisa Hill on Adam Ferguson and the Sociology of Conflict Eric MacPhail on the Plot of History from Antiquity to the Renaissance Cyrus Masroori on the Reception of European Thought in Nineteenth-CenturyIran
Journal of the History of Ideas The Morris D. Forkosch Prize ($2000) is awarded for the best first book in intellectual history each year. The awards committee favors first books which are published by any author in English and which display some interdisciplinary range, demonstrate sound scholarship, and make an original contribution to the history of thought and culture. Annual deadline for submission: 31 December. Winner for 1999: Mara Beller, QuantumDialogue: The Making of a Revolution (University of Chicago Press).
The Selma V. Forkosch Prize ($500) for the best article published in this Journal each year. Winner for 1999: Yanfang Tang, "Language, Truth, and Literary Interpretation: A Crosscultural Examination,"volume 60, number 1.
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