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Text
�Letters
Rssislaml lleams
llue1n~ea~I
Editors:
On November 13, the Assistant
Deans sent a notice to the student body
concerning some recent disturbing
events in the surrounding neighborhood. Oddly enough, as I happen to
live in one of the mentioned residences,
I have not felt nearly as alarmed as this
letter made me feel I ought to be.
In the letter, there is a preponderance of sensational phrases. For example: "great and ever-increasing seriousness", direct physical danger",
and "someone is watching us, especially our women students."
/1
The Assistant Deans say that
"it is not too much to say these things."
H n•Urt=>ui:>r these phrases foster a Sense
of hysteria and
and are adbased on
evidence.
An unsettling link is drawn between
two different events.
there is the
account of the rlt:>llnrt:>ru
plicit matter.
we are informed that some ,..,.,,,,,..,,.,._r~"
in the area have been marked with
chalk. We are not told if these are the
same residences which received the
pornographic materials, or in what
way the buildings were
or if
indeed there is any relation at all between the events.
Nevertheless, the image has been
set: an unknown man J.cucnc:i.,,,. .L.u
those
grammar, puncuation, or 0uc."'""'·
as submitted. The
does not print anonymous submissions,
except under
circumstances.
the sales clerk were
on:::ire·ss:torta1, so much so that he
"our
women students."
Certainly the Assistant Deans are
,..,.j.,-,..,...,..,..,,..,.. ..... members
,..,,... ....... ~~ .. ~·+·., of recent events in
order that we may exercise our best
The letter was ,.._,..,..,,,.,.,,,,'TT
well intentioned. Yet
their message with loaded terms and
blurring connections between events
add to the
of fear
exists as a result of the
sexual harassment.
HU'-'fJ''"''""'-"-·
He
it turned out, was the
Old fashioned cash
the dollars and cents for
~,-J,,~~~,..,~~"
also
Hawks Indiana
On the regWith Pat Boonemy
" , ~,, ..,.,.... ,. .,. in
counter onto
Aaron Lewis '96
Yitzhak Rabin's assassination and
Colin Powell's refusal to run for the
Presidency gave me the
to evaluate the mental scope
prominent journalists. These
events gave me the
observe that
ev01'",Tf-rl1nO" that occurs as if it is exclusively new.
On Wednesday's broadcast of the
News Hour with
rr<->:.>TlTHT
Colin Powell withdrew himself from
any possibility of running for President, was the mortal risk an individual
takes when occupying the office of
Commander-in-Chief. The .~~•AA•~AA•J•
(I can't remember his name; I'll simply refer to him as the Journalist to signify his role as the typical American
journalist) pointed out that assassinations of, and assassination attempts
upon, American presidents have become more extreme in the last
years. The Journalist mentioned the
assassination of Lincoln as more or less
an exception; assassinations, he
claimed, didn't
back then.
Then the Journalist
over several decades of
2
the Kennedy and Rabin assassinations
and the
assassinations of
Reagan and Ford.
the
Journalist's ignorance of American hisof the reis venial.
sponsibility of
especially
significant journalists, to have a compe:na10l1s unaterstamctmg of American
hH, .. ,..,..,.,., the sin seems less +.........,..,..,.T,,.h
it would have been nnn<:>rt-11no7"1fof one of the other
on the
to have asked: "What
about Presidents Garfield and
Roosevelt took a would be assassin's
bullet in the
what about the assassination of
Long; what about the Secret Service agent that died taking a bullet for
President Truman?" Had the
ist acknowledged these facts, his
would not have
much: being
a President is risky business. Stilt the
Journalist's
could have been a
finer one: being a President remains a
risky business, although it is not as
risky as it used to be.
I think it is only a matter
of time before such gaps in a
become huge
machine.
press my
the LED for a few sec:onas, perescape undetected. The
the
and the reg:ist(~r
achieve my
of the counter,
on my stomach. This hurt a
and
u.u'LIJC.U. back
a few seconds.
the floor the evil machine was
Vol. I."
was OK. I assured her
recall a snicker.
at this
the
balanced on the counter
end up reasoning from weak or false
The assassination of Rabin illuminated the pr~::>tE~ss1Lon
w~
furece~
memory, there has been an adamantine
among the Israelis.
must feel that this . . ..., .............
I failed to find any ,v ........................,, . .
,.,,__,.,...,...,,"'.,."'ri the intestine feuds of Israel's
anc:1e11t n 1 "i-'"'.,." with the intestine feuds
of Israel's recent
Not a word
about the spat between David and Saul
or the revolt led against David by
Absalom. Yet I did come across one
commentator on Israel's
who
hazarded the rebuke: "O Jerusalem,
1eriusaLler.n, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent
unto thee." While that rebuke was
apropos of the recent slaying in
I am afraid you won't find the
author of the rebuke anywhere on the
masthead of the New York Times or the
Washington Post.
the "Double" on Pat's
to be a date with Pat Boone. Was
U A ..
c111nn..n<::i:•r1
-~,,~.~,.,..,,Little
apprc)ac:hea the cashier's desk. There was a young man
stamcLmg at the cash
out customers.
sort of person was he? Not the sort of guy who comments
on what the customer
I
A
sional. Or at least someone too bored to notice. After
his i:>rn,..-.1,-,.u<:i.-r
Richard and Pat Buchanan? I've been married so
couldn't even remember what one should do on a
date.
recall a few
one shouldn't
made it home and there my luck turned
was the
I
need to
song.
It's been a year since purchasing the
and I still haven't
pn)gt'es~;ea ncnrnr1r1 Side 1, #2. And as for last year's tax
the
that with
customers on their taste.
December 5, 1995
The
December 5, 1995
3
�This word in from Mr. Darren
and not move before the penkick is taken.
Union sent a team of ten head to head
with six NCAA
teams on the
12th of November
The Guardians had
clinched the football
so this final game of the 1995 football season
was
meaningless standingswise. But what a game this was!!
Methinks it might have been the best
game of the year. Some memorable
moments from the game: Ms. (LOU!)
in a pass and exploddownfield before
,,,.,,.++,.,..,,,,. ,,,.......,.n.....~,Ms. Gibson
werenardefeated by the
Army's Cadets in the climactic
Game
on December 2, 14-13, due
to a "very, very poor tactical error" on the
of
Navy's
Charlie
Weatherbie.
was on the n-n"'- '"'""'r1
ahead 13-7 with 8:26
left in the fourth
and a fourth down. Mr.
Weatherbie decided to "go
for the
and throw
a short pass instead of ata field
Chris
result-
.M2tm..t1enn dasJ:1mg in for
6; and the grace, power and speed of
who
in this game
revealed himself to be the vr1ee1nn1e1lt
,i-.~--· For
this GI is awarded Athlete of the
Week. And for her
old
and
and non-~;ton
Miss Gibson is awarded Athlete of
too.
1
n ....
rallied to score a touchand Navy's fate
, , , , ,:oi ... tt~ ...
was sealed.
hxpn~ss
Freethrow Tournathe
season
The winner takes home
Hsu Shui-teh said.
The Nationalist
won 85 seats, or
over
in the 164-seat Parliament, down from the 92 the
now
holds. It received only 45 percent of
the
vote, the lowest since the
nation officially
from mainland China in 1949.
"The election has been the b1$2;gest
and
for the
people confirmed us as the rul-
4
The
ran on a
of reconciliation with
mainland China and eventual reunifi,,.,...'""""' '"'.,., said
vers in the """""'-i-"
wanese citizens to vote for them.
The elections were the third parm:UilLeil
elections in Taiwan since martial
law was lifted in
and
the way for nAr<>r>t-1 C1
dential elections in March.
December 5, 1995
from and return
to Chase-Stone
If interested in atcall to
reserve a
End of Semester events:
see the ex"Pandora' s Box: Women in Classi-
1995). Van leaves
at 6:15 p.m.;
is at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are reduced to $20. Must have
your student ID with you to
these
tickets I re>o-11!::. rh1
arrange greenery, attach evergreen
swags to
Beverages,
and music on-hand.
December 14, 7 a.m., 12 noon, and 5 p.m.;
December 15, 7 a.m.; Sunday,
7, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. These are
shuttle dates and times.
The
December 5, 1995
5
�Announcements • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
OPENING QyESTIONS
AK,
Are you a tree?
J.P.
J.P.,
No.
AK
AK,
I want to know what happens inside us when our stomachs growl.
Hungry
Hungry,
Well, in part I think your pen name
answers your question. I'd like to
take stomach growling beyond hunger, though.
I think that what the stomach is doing as it growls is sounding for the entirety of the body it inhabits. Yes, I
like to think of the stomach as representative of a larger system. It's an
area which is all too often abused, neglected, blamed for social disgraces,
etc. I hate to say this, but the old
maxim (I suppose it's a maxim) "you
are what you eat", is true. There are
oodles of eaters out there who think
that all that needs to be satisfied in
eating is the taste buds. As a result,
those who think in this crude way eat
icky things (that I admit are tasty on
occasion) like potato chips (Utz. Isn't
that a great name. If only my name
were Utz. AU sounds like a university though, so I suppose it's just as
well that I am not an Utz), as well as
large quantities of artificially sweetened goo. But, what happens each
time something wrong is eaten is that side the cavern which the crack indithe body grows more and more dissat- cates. I don't think it's safe to say that
isfied. You can't just please the taste the mist you see indicates what could
buds. For the pleasure of the taste buds . be thought of as a mist leak. No,
it is the whole body, not just the stom- that's not fair to say at all. I've alach, which suffers. But, the stomach ways heard that prior to exposure to
has enzymes which are akin to the sa- oxygen blood is blue, but once it is
exposed it's red, as we see when we
liva which oils one's throat.
These enzymes work day and night are cut. So, I'd like to suggest (and in
trying to find redeeming qualities in the fact I will) that the mist you are wonnasty things you toss into your body. dering about is not mist at all when
Upon repeatedly finding absolutely it's out of our sight (when it's down
nothing of value they are what ulti- below with whatever troglodytes you
mately give voice to the dissatisfaction may envision). I say that it's just plain
of the entire system that is your body. old air.
But you know what? It's plain old
Thus the stomach growls.
stinky hot air. It's the air of the
AK
school's sewage system. Have you
ever out of curiosity taken a good
AK,
Walking from Chase-Stone in the whiff of that "mist"? Well, I suppose
Pinkney direction this afternoon, I no- ·you haven't or you wouldn't have
ticed a cloud of steam flowing from a romanticized it in first place with that
crack in a large cement platform back complimentary word "mist". No,
there. What's down there? Is it the you would have instead called it
Cave? Or is it a big pit with life and something like , "poison air... [that]
death spirits with a big Dark Crystal has the dirty smell of dying, cause it's
never seen the sunshine and it's never
hanging somewhere in the mist?
felt the rain"*. That's right. It's air
Really Not a Pagan
so hot that even summer temperatures above ground are cooler than it,
Really,
so no matter the season we'll always
Well, that's a stumper. If your Cave
is the cave which I think it is, I can't see it when it escapes, like rancid
say that I remember Plato's mention- breath.
There might be a dark crystal in the
ing any steam clouds. I'm going to
middle. I don't know. I'm sure not
have to eliminate that as a possibility
going to go down with a flashlight to
for this particular mysterious crevice.
I don't want to disagree with you find out, though.
immediately that there might be a AK
Dark Crystal, but I do want to disagree *"Casey's Last Ride", From John
with your notion that there is mist in- Denver's Aerie: 1972
Address your curiosities to AK c/o the Gadfly
·~~,,t:.
263-2066
56 Marytand Ave.
Annapolis, MD
6
~
The Gadfly/ December 5, 1995
ALL
DOMESTIC
GGARETIE5
From the Nurse
As some of you already know, I will
be living in England for the calendar
year 1996. My husband will be an exchange professor at Britannia Royal
Naval College in Dartmouth, England.
We leave the country 29 December. We
have been looking forward to this
move for more than a year.
So farewell. I shall miss SJC, the
Prank, Collegia, KWP productions,
Reality (can the Juniors top last year's?)
and Graduation. It will be interesting
to find out what sort of traditions are
at BRNC. I know one of the royals visits each year and their graduation is
called, "passing out." If you would like
to keep in touch, my address and
phone are listed in the College directory and as soon as we are settled we'll
have e-mail. So take care of yourself.
Marylin B. Mylander
the debris left behind often includes
very many cigarette butts-prima fade evidence of illegal activity.
Please do not give us any reason to
levy such fines. Don't break the law
by smoking indoors, and don't leave a
mess for others to clean up.
William Pastille and
Abraham Schoener
Assistant Deans
Community Art
Exhibition: Call for Entries
If you wish to be considered for
1996-97 financial aid (this includes current recipients), please stop by the financial aid office to pick up an application packet.
Caroline Christensen
We invite all artists and art students
to submit work to the Community Art
Show. Here are the delivery times and
dates.
3-dimensional pieces should be delivered to the Pottery Studio, Saturday,
December 9, between 10 a.m. and 2:30
p.m.
2-dimensional work should be delivered to the Mitchell Gallery Tuesday,
December 12, between 1 p .m . and 5
p .m. or Wednesday, December 13, between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Please be prepared to fill out a short
form with your name, address, phone
number, title, medium and price when
you deliver your work.
Rick Malmgren
Clean Up!
Disco Ball Pilfered
It has come to our attention that certain student clubs are producing great
messes when they meet. Furthermore,
We have a problem that we're pretty
sure you can assist us with. Somebody
saw fit to liberate the lovely Disco Ball
Financial Aid for '96 - '97
% ... ·
from its rather ineffective (apparently)
hiding place at the most recent boathouse party. Obviously, the Tech Dept.
needs it back, so that it may grace the
Polity with its appearance at future
events, and continue to bring joy to our
lives. Ergo, please return said ball if it
is in your possession, or, if you know
who has it, please coerce him into returning it. (There are no penalties or
sanctions intended for the offending
party(s), nor is it desired that said
party(s) confess.) Thoughitmaybreak
your heart, please return it, anonymously if you like, to the Tech Dept. or
one of the Reality Archons, ASAP. Otherwise, we (in particular, and you, in
general!) will be held financially responsible for replacing it, and the Polity will have to do without it in the interim, neither of which are viable options.
Many thanks to those who braved
the elements and came to the disasterwrought party. It'll be much better next
time!
Ian Kelley
Hey, all you artsy people ...
Don't miss HERMAN MARIL:
SEARCH FOR THE ESSENCE on view
in the Mitchell Gallery through December 14.
Come and see what you think. .. and
then come to the GALLERY DISCUSSION led by painter Gail Watkins December 6, 1995 4 p .m . at the gallery.
Hydee Schaller
.··., . appy
Hofit{ays
$1.90 +
TAX
The Gadfly/ December 5, 1995
~
7
�.
';Jt
IErtCEL
MSRP Starting Under
SEE YOUR TOYOTA DEALER TODAY.
$10,500
@TOYOTA
I L o\· e \\ha: Y ou Do For \le
MSRP BASED ON TAX . TAGS . TITLE. FREIGHT. OPTIONAL & REGIONALLY REQUIRED EQUI PMENT. DEALER SETS FINAL PRICE
The
Gadfly
Kiss my butt, I'm outta here: Jesse Berney
Assistant Editor: Jennifer Coonce
Proofreading Queen: Anne Kniggendorf
Production Assistant: Nelson Hernandez
Circulation Manager: Kristin Woodfin
Printing by the St. John's College Print Shop
The Gadfly
St. John's College
P.O. Box 2800
Annapolis, MD, 21404
Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a student weekly distributed free
to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus as well
as tutors emeriti, members of the Board of Visitors and Governors, and
the offices at the St. John's Santa Fe Campus. -All opinions expressed
within are the sole responsibility of the author. The Gadfly reserves the
right to accept, reject, and edit all submissions in any way necessary to
publish the most professional, informative, entertaining, and thoughtprovoking newspaper which circumstances at St. John's permit.
Yearly subscriptions are available for $35.00. Tax-deductible contributions are greatly appreciated. Please make checks payable to The
Gadfly.
For display advertisement prices and information, call 263-2371,
ext. 320.
Deadline: Friday at 5:30 p.m. Submissions may be submitted in
any Macintosh or RTF format on a 3 1 /2" floppy disk along with a typed
copy. Typed submissions are no longer acceptable.
�
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<em>The Gadfly</em>
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Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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thegadfly
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8 pages
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paper
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Berney, Jesse (Editor-in-Chief)
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The Gadfly, Vol XVII Issue 10
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1995-12-05
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Volume XVII, Issue 10 of The Gadfly. Published December 05, 1995.
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Vol. 17 #10
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Annapolis, MD
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St. John's College
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English
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text
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pdf
Gadfly
Student publication
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Text
�------·--------··
if you were in
!'-......,,.... ~.... ~, you could have
Atlantic
Mortimer Adler opened to a ,,,..~.nLrr,r1
house of expectant listeners Friday
night. People sat on the floor and stood
in doorways to see this intellectual
ant. Whether they were there to hear
his history of the New Program, to see
the annual roast or both was unclear.
This was a sight that some had been
awaiting for two years. Dr. Adler began by saying that he wasn't giving a
lecture, and that he hoped that it would
tum into a discussion. His talk was
mostly
telling about the
origins of the New Program at St.
John's. He spoke of
Van
and
Hutchins, calling Scott Buchanan
the hero of his story. Adler told
about the resistance of the tutors
to become generalists, believing
that their competence lied in being specialists. He related his
own plea to them to have the
courage to become generalists.
Adler told of the evolution of
the name "Great Books,",..,...,.~~·.,..,·~
from a class he took at Columbia University which named
them "Classics of the Western
World." His definition of a Great
Book, he told us, is that it can be
read again and again and somenew be found each time.
Good books, he said, only need
to be read once.
Dr. Adler also spoke of the . . . . •.L~
ness of the college. He said that it isn't
the seminars, nor the
or language, and not the Great Books,
"It is the only
in the
in
which there are no professors. Thank
God."
Midway through the lecture, a red
robed Aaron Thomas appeared
on stage with an alarm clock and a big
teddy bear. He respectfully .,.....,..,.,""""'+r•rl
the bear to Dr. Adler to make things a
little more bearable" and as the audience applauded and Mr. Thomas exited, Dr. Adler continued his lecture
mid- sentence, right where he had left
off.
gan
were
the first. He told of his extrer:nelv
and -1-...0,.,,,.nrdtures on Aristotle in
seniors
alarm clocks in the back of
the lecture hall. All of the alarms went
off at cv,,,.-,t-lu
Atthe
which was held imme-
five
asked questions
and the answers were
short.
One audience member asked
whether Mr. Buchanan had been optimistic about the program catching on
in 1937. The response:
not at all."
The
and
ended
note:
Michael
•A~-~~ .•• ~,·~ stood up and asked the fi"Dr.
tell
virtue
5:00 Sean Stickle
In
of
Isocrates' Criticism of Foriegn Policy
Committee
Mr. Raditsa, Chair
Mr. Yee
Mr. Sterling
about the gamfor
the
u.1.a.L.!'..ICl'-''·
12
11:45 Jason McCready
Ou1DOSih".S and the ,.,..,,..·mn.... +"
3:45 Michelle Sitton
The Power of the Mind: Man's Struggle
to Rise Above Nature in the Essays of
Montaigne
Committee
Mr.
Chair
"I
could've
been to some of those lectures."
A few
had been a little
Mr. White
viscious.
soon after a time
had heart trouble may have been
that of the sound of a h.-."-1-1...,,-.-
13
a sip
then it went all the way back to the
in the center.
"".. "hn,~r1 ahold of the lecturn and
the lecturer
was when students
marbles go at
the
and he could not
1995
Adler a cone of ice cream which
the entire
and playing
"Simon Says" with the audience obeyboard instructions given
be11m.d Dr. Adler.
Some people were unimpressed
with this year's prank commenting
"didn't get it." Others felt that
it was
and were relieved
that it was short and not too startling.
Remarked
"I thought
amusing but not
of the
Mr.
Chair
Ms. Flaumenhaft
Mr. Slakey
were
and felt a sense of honor at hear-
/1
The
11
LVlHIJJlau•c:u
..,.....
2
events.
statewide
that the lack of smoke took away from
the ambiance. Others felt that the members of the Lola's staff were not as professional as
were in years
"The drink line was DVt~Dr,t"1rYn::l
due to the severe ,,...",..... t1h 1 rl<>
those kids
as
from his glass.
"It's a time warp for me. I feel like I
should be carrying around a
+......... ~• .,~.,,.,., in a violin case, " come.-. . . . . . a . . Alexis
some of the
felt that this year's version of Lola's
11:45 Cora ,,._,._...,,.,r,.,,...
The Good, the Bad, and the
of
Budd
unlike the casinos in Las
Atlantic
ter
not a
casino.
It seemed as if most of the patrons
"".,.,,.,,,.,...,.,,.r1 about the
concerned more with having a great
time.
people had fun
and socializing, and some
were
enough to go home with some
extra cash. The others had fun gamtheir
paychecks
away. And in the
the event raised
about
for
the
purpose of the event.
The
Mr. Sachs
Mr. Sageng
3:45 Sebastian Ganson
Rousseau, Emile, and the Savage Man:
A Return to Society
Committee
Mr. Higuera, Chair
Mr. Burke
Mr. Maistrellis
The
continued on page 5
1995
3
�ment
a statement, Seagram said MCA's current
owner,
Electric
Co., will retain a 20
stake in the
company, best known for its Universal
Pictures
such
as "Jaws,
"Jurassic
"and "E.T."
In a statement
conclusion of the
which values all of
MCA at $7.13
dent and
as a
with the key
maintain his lead.
His announcement is anti-climactic
since Dole has said for months that he
erntenmg the race in hopes of capturpresidential nomination to face the
renomination
bid of
Clinton.
Dole joins the field as the best
known
the candidates and a
front runner - almost 30 perahead in polls of his
Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.
to
Dole
leads Gramm
support among
to
14 percent in the
latest CNN /USA
.......... ..., ..,,.., .. JLLa.i 1
Lew Wasserman and President Sidney
Sheinberg will remain with the entertainment
after the
transaction is
in
"I want to express my respect and
unlocked."
" Kristin Leake
"Is How to Read a Book a good book?"
tell you, I don't know how
to read it
Carter Snead
said
were killed but an army
said the official toll was
six dead. There were two women
~ .........., . . ,,;;..the six soldiers
she said.
hA,eo.,.....,-1-.., I officials
there were still 35 wounded
some
" ... Only
the
Fabians
were
much cooler than
[the British Labour
rode
and had
sassy little
ian ~·~·~.,,~"Lauren ..... u.iu1v.i.i
"Who could have sex
to
Denver? The sight of his face makes
me
H.LLVVLC.J.lll·
"I need love." Salvatore Sdbona
over."
Villasenor
in caucuses and
maries next year cinch the
nomination at the
1996 -nr<:>Cl.rlr"~h~I nOfllffi.atlng COnvention in San
He has tried twice before for the
pn~s11J.e11m:u nomination and
in 1980 and 1988. The last was a bitter
race
George Bush.
Others in the race
far behind.
mc:1uae conservative commentaTennessee
Dornan and Indiana Sen. Richard
are
to enter the race
later this
Gov. Pete
Wilson is considering a run.
The
'
•
........_ .... ..,, ........._ui:;.
an Islamic militant crashed a car full of exn1r'""'rac into a bus ,.,.,,.,..,..,,..,,0-
the crucial
is
whether Dole can go the distance and can keep out in
front in the a ....,,,0,11 ..... ,,,.
4
said in the statement. "But the core
of Matsushita is
"
Bronfman has
exnr'"'""'"'r1 a desire to enter the motion
In the 1980s he pro"The
Nicholson.
ran a car loaded with explosives car into an Israeli convoy at Netzarim settlement.
Islamic
claimed refor the Kfar
"The greatest Business in the line of
Business is to mind your
Business
and
don't have any Business then
to leave mine alone.
from
&
carried out the Netzarim
~ ....................... said the investment in
MCA" continues the
of
Seagram ... We believe that the entertainment sector has
rr>"r,uTl'h and
said.
1995
Hamas released a farewell video of
the bomber
anAK-47 rifle. He
revenge for
~ ~ ......../ ............ death of a member in
Gaza one week ago. A Hamas source
said
attacks were not coordinated.
Palestine Liberation "'-'-"'""'U'L....,_, .... .,,v...
'--....,. . . . .,, ............... , Yasser
who rules
most of Gaza under a 1993 peace deal
with
condemned the bombings
as a
emies of peace." President ...__..,,.... ~ ...,. . ,,
sponsor of the
Middle East
peace process, also
the attacks.
The bombings increase pressure on
Arafat to crack down on the Islamists
who have vowed to wreck the accord.
Israel ~"-""""--HJL,_,J.
I
You must excuse me if I write out of
but even more so if I write out
For
outofoass1on
weak ~~""'~~~~,~
and the like. But
were I out of reason, I could
not even begin to justify these
rants and raves in the language by which they proto convey their imWords without reason are
incoherent and I ......... L._..,.....
even base-vile. Reason is
the very essence of verbal
communication and as
whether you
reason
or
you must obey its
rules if you would
to
these
vermicular zealots
There are some who
would have us believe that
not
is it immeasurably
better to be
away
"'"'"""''""''"" than to exercise rea-
imbeciles further construct
Dl£>O-Ol1rlt-rll'"l>"<'.>CC>C and '-Al>.'.U-'.J.lU.
tions to convince us
is so.
To criticize reason with
ridiculous!
14
3:45 Tucker Braddock
L.J.uu........n.•, Chair
Mr. Allanbrook
Blits
The Trouble with Dialectic The Dualof Language That Must Be Overcome by Human Understanding
Committee
Mr. Capozzoli, Chair
Page
Mr. Umphrey
argue
reason, your
recourse is to silence.
Nothing else can succeed.
Use
impulses and you
will fail. Use
"-_.,_.F.,·...,
and gestures to
n ...c.c.oy·u- your contention and
you are
being fools.
The very act of bringing
forth articulate rationale to
endorse the intentional erosion or
elimination of reason is unforgivably
You can just take your
cursed charlatan heresy and go waste
away in your little cells of ignorance.
...u. ..........
Rot in
you hedonistic
sonsu vbichez. See if I care.
There isn't enough room in this sophisticated, refined
world of reason for
pleasure seeking,
sensualistic stragglers. We temperate, level-headed
savants will not
suffer the presence
of these
excitable
delinquents.
Hot damn taAhab,
naticism could advocate such reckless
such
unchecked railing?
Who cannot be
disgusted and reby these
slaves to
passion getting all
worked up, provoking emotional
.,."'"' ..... '"'""''"''"'" and stirring up sentiment?
What contemplative soul with
any mental faculties whatsoever
can bear the gushy
outpourings, zealous ej a cu la tions,
and wild exclamations of
these
crazed savages,
these barbarians?
How much longer can we
up
with these slobberingly effusive, maniacal utterances?
The cranial must conquer the carnal.
Mind over materialism!
The
1995
5
�Dear Sir,
Spring is finally here, the birds are
singing, the flowers are blooming and
the sound of heavy machinery is
wafted on lilting breezes into my room.
This morning I was woken at 6:35 am,
yesterday it was 6:40. Normal people
work from 9 'til 5, why do workmen
have to come at 6:30 and be gone, leaving only piles of debris, by 3:00 pm?
Well it's
so that they
can get to
nice and early in order
to rise at the crack of dawn and gleefully pile drive and jackhammer under
window. Can someone please exthe sleep/study rule to them?
I appreciate that this new library is
very
and
but
couldn't
save the use of aurally
abusive and sleep deprivatory equipment until
I
9:00?
Yours sleepily,
Felix Leslie
this letter because of
rer:>ea1tea abuse of question period
prc)cedures that I have witnessed, be,.,,.,.,..,...,,..,.,,,. with the first lecture of the
year.
heart of my anger is directed
at the tutors who attend question period. But
to those of you who do
not know me: I have attended lecture
and question
religiously, as the Dean once remarkedfor all of the four years I have been
here, and not until this year have I had
difficulty asking questions. For those
of you
do
I
will find it almost inconceivable that I
was impeded from speaking for fortyfive minutes.
Several people have asked me over
the course of the last four years
I
stay at a question period until the end.
The reason I used to give without reservation was that the eidos of St.
was the experience of question
6
The
because
students had the opportunity to hear tutors
more candidly about their thoughts on these
books. Also, it was the place where a
"real" conversation
People
the reason tutors stayed until the wee
hours was because
cared to hear
sincere questions addressed
someone who was
and respected. The last hour usually evolved
to a seminar
discussion with the
dozen people who were left.
The events of this year are
different. The rule that is announced
proudly
the Dean
year at the
first question period is that
hour is for students' questions
This practice was not only abandoned
the second
but was abused
even at the Dean's L!U•=e>u_v,_, LJ1C'-""'""·
Several tutors
their eyes and
groaned at the idea of
to show
a little restraint. Last Friday, as is the
at least half a dozen
the first half hour.
because
tion of a lack of -rc
tional
is a
and conversakind of igI finally
two
different tutors about their
after
the
of their colleagues. The first conversation was
with a new tutor
his
confusion about
because he had taken the Dean's words
0
......
0
·"+
He was
an incident in which a tutor had accused a
student of
a racist. The second
tutor
to him how different
the
of
The
Enabling
take place at 7:30 PM on the
Pv€'•nrrL2' of Don Rag Week (May
which time all sophomores will
have
their don rags. The
advantages of this late date
are: 1. Students will have had
the
semester to do well in;
2. The don rag committee will
have had a preliminary discuss ion of each student's
3. The orals on the im~ ~1-"'v-. r sophomore essay can
take place at more leisure.
year a
sailors
80 or so students for a
The event, called
the Arnie Gay Sail
will be held Sunday, May 7
this year.
include: fun sailing on the
chec1Gng out a
Eva T.H. Brann
Dean
in the sun
We need a
students
to act as
liasons to the boat owners;
in the
these
have been called "Student
i...:1.r;"'''"'"''rc: " but you don't
have to have
skion,erlN abilities to do it
have to be
in contact with
UUC:.Ul" Who
are
boat as you are.
wants to volunteer as
a student
me a note in campus
call ext. 239, or come
the Public Relations Office.
There is
and
1. The application deadline for
the following positions has
been extended to Friday,
March 24. Come to the Financial Aid Office to
up applications for these positioi:s
of these jobs are available without regard to financial need):
Adnn:ssHms Office
Art Gallery Assistant
·~~~_,,..., .. .,..,,t-..u Service Worker
Lab Assistant
speak, it was -1..-.,r-o.-.·-i'">~... 1u
or other
a question. In
intonation is often the
way of distinguishing the uu•c-=>u_vH from the statement.
I am
Music Asisstant
Writing Assistant (rising
time this year. Also, I want to
emphasis on the lack of respect
shown to students
the tutors as a
group rather than
son. As ct-i1r1a-ntc
in.
1995
too much
I do not mean to
on the enforcement of the
there has been such a
change in the dynamic this year, and I
do not intend to contrive either a solution to the
or a false conclusion to assuage my confusion.
I wish to offer a
of what has
happened this year and conclude by
asking tutors
the change has occurred.
Alka Kothari
2. A very limited number of
Scofield Loans will be available this summer to rising Juniors/ Seniors to help fund students who want to participate
in summer programs to
supplement their academic w~rk. D~tails and applications are available m
the Financial Aid Office. The application de~dline is Friday, April 14, 1995.
3. Information and applications for oncampus summer employment are
is Monday, April 24.
students are welcome
beginners to experts. The
first 80 to sign up can exto be
to boats. Sign-up
will be posted in FSK Lobby and
in the coffee shop on
13.
Questions? Ask at
PR office in
Mellon or call ext. 239.
Barbara
is called the sailing
The
11, 1995
7
�.. WE SELL 6 REPAIR
RED WING
6 OTHER
FINE BRANDS"
--""'.'.=...,,
_.....,
__
RED WING
DYES • POLISHES
SHOE STRETCHES
WA TERPROOANG
268-2807
We've Made It Easier For The Class Of '95 To Drive The Class
~--
----~,1ore
'95.
Side Door
:moact Beams
Power --
Be:»=-: Gas
lv11:e0qe
WE'RE MAKING IT EASIER FOR COLLEGE GRADS.
@TOYOTA
distributed free
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to over 600 students,
and
campus as well
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Text
�by Craig Sirkin '95
Entering its fourteenth year,
match
vs. USNA
more excitement
ever.
a five games to zero v•v·iiLl-''"-"'·f-.
academy last year, the team has a
deal of expectations to live up to.
Phelan, Navy's
says that his
team is
only time
taking the Middies too
is the
across the street in a game
were not allowed
the
out of 14.
been working
year on
his all around game, ~~·~,,..,........ +,"<:!""''"er
He has turned himself
all around
Lr:1mm1ns 1 Senior
He is one of the most
in the game, freafter shots
in fact so
come so
great, that
are far
dents for the number of
this year. Mr. Schoener has taken sab~~··i-~•i, and we are eager to see his return next year. He did mention someabout
Sox.
out from the
at 6'6" and his oa1~tnE~r,
at 6'4" made the best
ward combo in the game.
Senior Jon
when
For a look at the rules
croquet, see page 5.
tn1.1rnf11''1PYIT
Ned Freeman
Senior Reuben Marshall
~LAA,L
Senior Craig
The team this year is:
Sean Stickle, Senior
The unknown. Most non.n10
realize that Sean played
but
how could he pass up the world's best
physics experiment. He's been making long shots for years with a sweet
shot, and wonderful feel for the
of front campus. While his presence
on the team shocked many, his success
on the greens will
folded and sober to lose to
~enmr'-ID:lP@~n•u
Wicket
veteran on the team and
USNA
m•atcnes, Craig is an organizer, a planner and a
Craig's specialty
is late game excitement. In his rookie
camefromfarbehind,not
in the fifth game, allowhimself and his partner John
Bennett ('93) to win, and reap all the
benefits of
His
ne:roH:s continued last
year as he
Pharis
came from behn1d.
...,
Senior Sean Stickle
rial Wicket.
The
�- The Supreme Court has
into
contrn>uo:>·rcu over affirmative action prostand a
Americans scrambled
the midnight deadline for
tax returns. Large post offices across
the nations stayed open late
to accomodate last minute filers.
In New
the
staid neoclassical central
office was transformed into a raucous street ~...,~·~nT~
especially as the minutes ticked closer
to midnight. Outside, bands
vendors hawked
merchandisers offered free backrubs and
antacid and television crews'"'°'.'"'"'.,.."'',-;
the festivities on film.
cainp1ed out,
forms and receipts across counters, floors and any
other level surfaces
could find.
Even with the two extra
to file this
.....,,,.,..., . . ..-...,..,...,., Court action came at
affirmative action
versational status. We must affirm that
we still hold the floor while we recolconsider how to express our
and assemble our
sentences.
use these very basicand otherwise ~ .. -~,...·~~,,
and
to
u.
.!VJL\.J.l.•'--la
left intact a U.S.
JlJl , ..............
programs.
The Clinton administraton supthe
but said
sitions until
the white
"This may
have
to do with what
"''"'·u+~,n-.rr
tm~tls;~htiers.
L'-
in
there are two
solutions most effective in eradicating
hesitation
The first is to
be better
preparing your
words in -o.r1·""'T"'"''° +h'"'""''hu e11m1natm.g
the need to defend gaps in your speech
from verbal "intruders". The second is
become both less concerned about
as valuable a resource as any. Protect
environment from
litter
,..,.,.".>,....,..,,..."' conservation with your
you are a victim
ficials said. "It's more exciting this way,
under the
gun,
that ~ . . .occ'n~·n
said Minnie
full of blank tax
minute taxpayers, there was
least some method to their madness.
New Yorker Frank Kaufman said
saw no need to send a check to
Internal Revenue Service one minute earlier than ne~:essarv
As the
the finishing touches on their returns - or
filled out forms
an extension
- the
Tax Foundation Monday released a
on the
tax burden carried
American taxpayers.
The Tax Foundation says the average American will work 126
this
year to pay off all
state and local taxes, assuming every dollar earned
from the start of the year goes to paying taxes.
4
The
we
as
as any of the standard inof "likes",
knows", and
i otmnL1es are
to everyone
whom you
Make
note of each time one of
im,nc.rt;::in(:e on race discrimi0.,.,...,.,..,1,...u...,,..,,.,..,...+
affirmative ac-
Witnesses said
r1a.",.,.,..''""'"'"" it as
similar to an
ea1rtnau.ake. after seeing a
with
stars on the
go down near a
cluster of trees in Alexander
.,..,.,,.,.,,.,. .... +,., said the
did not
as it plunged to
have an innate fear of silence? Or
a disorder akin
some, a short attention span is a
..,..,.,_,..,,_ ... ~. They can't-or
won't-concentrate on a
to formulate a
that the
cacies of the game.
take years to 11PvP1on
but the basic rules are
I
~ ...... ~,~them here.
best three out
all five games
the outcome
games.) A single game consists of two teams of two
each.
Two
on one
two Middies
on the other. There are four balls, colored
black and
Each
continued on page
The
1995
5
�------
.......
--------------
;'
«==
Mr. Robert Goldberg
Political Theory
cratic Theory)
International Relations
Kenyon College
llmlms lime l1m11111la11 l111i,
J
Dear Gadfly:
A simple note to thank
sible for getting SJC on-line.
past few weeks,
didn't have this before. The '-"'''. . '""~"benefits
the hard
Matt Braithwaite and Mr.
there are others who have
don't know who
all the others.
puter lab to
The users
themselveswell ...........,...,..,..,......
JH-'"'1'-'T-\/
been on for
to
back on for
you.)
have been
in teaching how
through e-mail and
enues. I wish we had more
I hear rumor that more are
Great job Matt and Mr.
Yours,
H.Maxwell
Ms. Katherine Heines
Philosophy (Plato)
University
Please take home all of your glazed
and
bisque that you want
to save. We
deaning the studio
at the end of the semester and disposof
left on the shelves. If
Ms. Oksana Lassowski
Mathematics (Topology)
Concert Pianist
Albright College
Mr. George Russell
Philosophy (Hume)
Xavier University
BEN ZEBLEY '98
Seminar discussions were brought
a halt on
as the seniors
un•.::><:1h::>rl control of the classes from the
shots of whiskey,
Yoo-Hoos, and
to the masses. The seniors
roller skatmad scientists, and disco
dancers to lure the willing underdassto the auditorium to
the
skit.
AU.•~~·~ all of the
the favoramong students was the one that
took
Mr. Beall and Mr.
A
some revellers partying until after ·sunrise. At ten in the morning, the official
on the
with mimosas, beer, and yodelling. Some of
the students living
in the dormitories
adjacent to the
quad complained
the music started
too early, but once
were up,
many were dancing to the music of
Heads,
Gloria Gaynor, and
other
artists.
Eva T.H. Brann
Dean
The
new tutors will be
us in 1995-1996:
(Nietzsche and
L._,._.,,._ ..
William Braithwaite [Yes, he's
father.
Law and Litera-
School of Law
Warren
Powell saved the
He retrieved the
and sent them on
their
Mr. Cohen
Mr. Yee
3:45 Heidi Overbeek
The Spring Collegium will take
on Saturday, May 6.
wants to perform should contact David
Braithwaite before Friday, April 21.
to the
may not be
accepted after
date. Send information by campus mail, including the
name and instrument (or voice) of each
pertormLer. the title and composer of
and the approximate
Excepting large groups, pertor·mamoes should be under 6 minutes.
David Braithwaite
..................L'V .... ...,
Science
Fordham University
....... 'V ......
19
the iced tea and lemonade flavored beverages.
many mischievous
students not on the
to answer such
as, "How
many licks does it take to get to the
center of a Tootsie
roll?" and quesabout
habits. As his classmates answered
these
Bill Erskine was forced
do
on the
a freshman seminar
Prometheus Bound. In
several seniors
a seance. The
with the
Committee
Mr. Zuckerman,
Chair
Mr. Beall
Ms. Kronsberg
3:45 Jason
Axiomatic~~~~~~~.,..,.
The Transformation of
The
Oresteia
Mr.................a..., ...., Chair
Mr. Beall
Mr. Salem
I
Hilbertarian
11:45
Marie
V.U.U.1.llUJ.l.H.. <<.-<•.LJ.lF,
Salvation of a Fallen
'
•
Another reason for the decline of the
scene:
calculator is bigger
your
calculator." An
anonymous Freshman
"Mirth I
if
thou canst
Mr.
Comenetz pa:rai:1nras:1.ng Milton
IOlN-
J1-.cPun1
about teachand bad
~nen 10 ..di
~1uden1s
&
r" ..11:ul!y
xm- 7 ~6-0876
6
The
~60
King
Gi:orgc St.
A.:ro-.;s from
campus
::,oc:rates, he didn't answer."
The skit was well-received by the
students were
to see the well-acted and
of The Wizard of Oz.
,...,h,>-nrrA...-1 the career
Deusen, who played
"I have
decided to travel around the ,...,....,,,.,..., .
.,.,.u
searching for productions of The Wizard of Oz so that I can continue to
Dorothy," the senior said. When asked
which of Dorothy's qualities would
the senior to pursue this career,
Ms. Van Deusen responded, "She is
naive and worldly at the same
time."
The party after the skit in the FSK
lasted into the wee
with
5:00 Charles Weber
Altruism and the Dream of the Great
Man: An Essay on Tolstoy's War and
Ms. Locke
Mr. Sageng
Peace
Thurston
The Voice of a Stentor
3:45
Mr. Schoener
Mr. Schulman
Mr. Slakey, Chair
Ms. Blits
Mr. Higuera
Rasmusen
An Examination of
in Rousseau's
5:00
11 :45 John Clasby
THE POWER TO BECOME SONS OF
GOD: The Way to God in the Gospel
According to John
Committee
Ms. Blettner, Chair
Second Discourse
Committee
Mr. May, Chair
Mr. Berns
Ms. Maschler
�5
one ball. One team
blue and
the other
plays red and yellow. The
of
the game is to have both of your
team's balls run the entire course
(fourteen wickets and two
before the other team does.
The players take their turns in
the order of colors marked on the
stakes: blue, red, black, and yellow.
A player's simplest turn consists of
one shot on his own ball. However,
there are two ways to extend one's
turn, go through a wicket, or hit
another ball.
If someone goes through a
wicket, he may take one more shot.
'"'-"l'.A''°"''°,. one cannot
go through just any
wicket. The wickets
must be run in
and you must go
them in the
proper direction. The
clips you see on the
wickets mark the next
wicket a player is trying to go through.
another
ball gets you two
more shots. On the
first
your ball is
placed
the
struck ball. You
strike your ball. You may not place your
foot on your ball and knock the other ball
away without
yours. Both balls
must move. Besides, footing the ball is for
A skilled
can make the balls
go whatever relative distance he chooses.
The second shot after hitting a ball is just
shot on your ball. You never
a
strike another
ball; actually,
you're not allowed to ever touch another
ball with anything but your own ball.
The most important rule to learn in order to follow the action is the dead ball/
live ball rule. The rule goes somewhat like
this: once you hit a ball; you may not hit
that same ball again until you have passed
through that wicket. So if I'm the black
and I hit the red ball, I may hot hit the
red ball again until I pass through my
next wicket. This is called
dead
on a ball. In my example
would
be dead on red. Being three ball dead
means you have hit all three balls and
cannot hit anything until you pass
through your wicket. Being three ball
live means you have not hit anything
since you passed through your last
wicket and you may hit any ball. If you
hit a ball you are dead on, both balls
are replaced to their position before the
offending shot and the turn is over.
The deadness and liveness of each
ball are kept track of on large wooden
boards adjacent to the court. Other
than this board, all officiating is done
by the players
all, it is a
gentleman's game).
Those are the
most basic rules.
The game gets
more complicated
towards the end,
but if you have any
questions during
the match there
should be plenty of
people around who
can help to explain.
So go get dressed
up, buy lots of food
and booze, and
have a blast.
Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a student weekly distributed free
to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus as well
as tutors emeriti, members of the Board of Visitors and Governors, and
News Editors: Rebekah Jongewaard, Christina Papvasiliou
Technical Advisor: Seth Milliken
Production Staff: Matt Braithwaite. Deirdre O'Shea
by the St. John's
St. John's College
P.O. Box 2800
Annapolis, MD, 21404
Print
within are the sole
reserves the
to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to
the most professional, informative, entertaining, and thoughtpro1voI<~mg ni:>iNsrJaoer which circumstances at St. John's permit.
sut>scr1ptlons are available for $35.00. Tax-deductable contributions are
appreciated. Please make checks payable to The
Gadfly.
For display advertisment prices and information, call 263-2371,
ext. 320.
Deadline: Thursday at
Submissions may be submitted
in any Macintosh-based word processing format on a 3 1 /2" floppy disk
along with a typed copy. Otherwise typed submissions are acceptable.
�
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<em>The Gadfly</em>
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paper
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Jongewaard, Nathan D. (Editor-on-Sabattical)
Berney, Jesse (Managing Editor)
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The Gadfly, Vol XVI Issue 18
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1995-04-18
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Volume XVI, Issue 18 of The Gadfly. Published April 18, 1995.
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Vol. 16 #18
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Annapolis, MD
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St. John's College
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English
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text
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pdf
Gadfly
Student publication
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3d5d42278972878cd1dc0286c3321565
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Text
�Write Enough?
Announceinents
Salvatore Scibona
The college's 1993 self-study states:
"The crux of our writing problem is
this: We are a conversational college
and our mind is on substance. In preserving these modes -as we are determined to do- we sometimes shortchange written expression and form.
We must find a way to solve the problem practically without losing the principle."
I've long thought that despite all of
our exhortations against sophistry, the
program can very easily lend itself to
just that. While the discussions which
so distinguishes us from other colleges
is invaluable, we risk becoming too
focused on mere discussion. Many of
us get accustomed to the level of vigor
and responsibility for the underpinings
of our thought that our classes establish. We are rarely held responsible for
the full development of an idea from
precept through conclusion. In conversations of fifteen to twenty people, we
progress as a community. The place
for thorough development of an
individual's ideas is on paper. We
don't do it often or well enough.
Aristotle tells us that virtue is a
habit, so too are reading, speaking and
If we want to get better, we
practice. The college has definitely
habitualized reading and speaking, but
there aren't enough papers to make
writing a habit. One seminar essay
(though Santa Fe has two), five language papers, and a couple in other tutorials makes for a little more than ten
papers a year (on average). This means
that most of us are not writing every
day, and are lucky if we are every week:
the problem is one of quantity.
Quality: Notes on an SCI meeting
with the Dean (in the self-study) two
years ago
out that papers are often
unmarked and that we do
not get a great deal of guidance on
form. Some tutors seem unwilling to
criticize form when the content is interesting enough, but I for one, would
like both. It's very hard to find out
from many tutors' comments if this
was a good paper as well as a good
thought. Though the addition of a
writing tutorial is probably extreme, a
2
re-focus of the language tutorial on our
modes of expression in English may
not be.
The Dean tells me that she is reluctant to further legislate, e.g. more required papers in tutorials, especially
when many tutors are not assigning the
minimum now. But we can at least
suggest and encourage. Possibilities
follow:
1. More brief papers done explicitly as exercises to get students into the
habit of writing consistently. Of course
we could write these one our own time,
but it's a lot more likely to get done if
they're assigned. Here, tutors might
focus on matters of grammar, expression, and style in their comments.
2. It's very easy to get stuck reading
those books which are on the
program, most of which are not English
prose, the language which we should
know how to write. The more English
one reads, the better one gets at writing it. I don't know exactly how to facilitate this outside of assignments, but
few of us read enough good books in
our own language to get a solid sense
of how to use it.
3. Making Strunk and White's The
Elements of Style (or some similar text)
a required reading near the beginning
of the freshman language tutorial. This
quasi-manual of English writing is
brief enough to be read in two or three
class periods and is perhaps the greatest book of English composition advice.
4. Occasional papers on the seminar readings of interest. As it stands,
most of us only write one paper on the
bulk of a whole year's seminar readings.
5. Portfolios. This is maybe the
hardest idea to encourage - and to
habituate one's self to - but seems
very useful. Most of us have some collection of papers we've written but
adding to that occasionally with unassigned work is both personally rewarding and excellent practice.
I hope the discussion on this
disscussion on this subject continues,
although Lord knows we don't need
any encouragement to talk about
The Gadfly/ May 2, 1995
Blast
The King Williams Players are
proud to present The Winter's Tale May
5, 6, and 7 at 8:15 pm. This play, one of
Shakespeare's last Romances, is part
tragic, part comic, and part fantasy. It
treats the meaning of love and redemption as the story of King Leontes' jealousy enfolds. The show will be listed
as an attraction for those attending the
Annapolis Arts Festival, so this should
provide a chance to share our project
with a large section of the community.
The
production
features
undergratuates, tutors Jon Tuck and
Samuel Kutler, and one graduate institute student. We also have the services
of Dr. Anthony Woolf who is playing
the lute. Sophomore
Michael
McDonald plays Leontes who suspects
his wife Hermione (senior Kathy
Stolzenbach) of infidelity with his best
friend Polixenes (Luis Salas). The
queen's friend and champion Paulina
is played by junior Allison Eddy
Brown. Other unusual facets of the
production include a folk dance and
costumes courtesy of the Annapolis
Opera. The show is directed by
Adrienne St. Onge, who wrote her senior essay, "Exit: Pursued by a Bear" on
The Winter's Tale. The
of the
bear is a not so carefully guarded secret.
Adrienne St. Onge
Requests
Please note the following guidelines
with regard to having transcripts sent:
1. Your request must be in writing.
Forms are available in the Office of the
Registrar or a simple note will suffice.
2. Transcripts, both official and unoffiare free to enrolled students. After leaving the College, you are entitled
to two free official transcripts after
which the fee is $2 per official copy.
Unofficial copies are always free of
charge.
3. Please specify whether you would
like an official copy or an unofficial
copy of your record. The official copy
continued on page 4
be planning a second bombing. FBI
agents in Santa Monica, Calif. questioned a man Friday night who closely
resembled the FBI' s composite drawing of the second suspect, but obtained
no evidence linking him to the blast,
police said. A police source said authorities had already ruled out any link
between the man and the Oklahoma
bombing. Sightings of the suspect have
been reported across the United States
but have so far turned out to be false
alarms.
Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh,
27, the only person charged so far in
the case, was ordered held without bail
Thursday by a U.S. magistrate who
said there was an "indelible trail of evidence" linking him to the bombing.
Mc Veigh has been linked to right-wing
paramilitary militia groups in Michigan.
were found not to have been in the
building at the time of the blast.
Construction crews spent much of
Friday shoring up the federal building
to make it safer for searchers to work
in. They put up steel girders around
the building and installed orange
safety netting around the upper floors
to stop debris from falling onto workers below.
OKLAHOMA CITY, (Reuter) - Ten
days after the deadly Oklahoma City
bombing, the death count continued to
rise Saturday as rescuers dug through
rubble for more than 70 victims still
missing in the ruins of a federal building.
Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating told
HARRJSBURG, Pa. (Reuter)- If conNBC television that search teams have
victed murderer Keith Zettlemoyer is
recovered the bodies of 123 victims
put to death by lethal injection as
from the wreckage of the Alfred P.
scheduled Tuesday, it will be
Murrah building. "We are up to 123,"
Pennsylvania's first execution in 33
Keating told NBC' s Saturday Today
years.
Show. "But the problem now is the inZettlemoyer, 39, has said he no
security of the building ... all those
longer wishes to fight his sentence even
massive pieces of concrete on the upthough his victim's mother has
floors are very unstable, the strucin last-minute
appeals
ture itself is unstable."
for Zettlemoyer' s life to be
Oklahoma City Fire Despared. So
those appeals
partment Cpt. Chris Jackson
have failed.
told local television Saturday
"I am opposed to the state
that" several different victims
~"'
of Pennsylvania executing
in different parts of the buildKeith Zettlemoyer for the killhave been spotted but being of my son," said Aldona
ing able to get to these victims
De Vestco in a court paper.
at this time in various places
"He (Zettlemoyer) was a very
is too dangerous."
disturbed person at the time
Work remained stalled in
of the offense and at the time
the heart of the
where workers expect to find L-------------------------A of the trial."
ZettlE~m<JVE~r. from Snyder
most of the missing victims,
An Oklahoma
television station County,
was convicted for the Ocafter debris collapsed on rescue workthat the 5,000-pound tober 1980 slaying of former co-worker
ers Thursday night. Jackson said: reported
"They're not going to let any ne1·s011- fertilizer and fuel oil bomb was set off Charles De Vetsco in
Robert Dunham, executive director
nel into that area of the building until with an old-fashioned safety fuse lit
Post-Conviction
they're absolutely sure it's safe." Lo- with a match. It said the bomb was of the
cal television said it could be another relatively simple and probably cost Defender Organization, which represents death-row inmates, said
day or so before the search of this area, about $3,000 to build.
Rescuers were battling fatigue in the Zettlemoyer is seriously mentally ill
known as "the Pit", resumes.
The Pit is believed to contain victims painstaking search for victims of the and incapable of fighting the execution
from a children's day care center and a blast. Oklahoma City police chaplain on his own. Therefore Dunham is conthe legal battle to save
who helps counsel search
busy Social Security office. The bodies Jack
of 11 children have been retrieved from teams, said one of the hardest things Zettlemoyer's life.
Former Democratic Gov. Robert
the day care center and four babies are rescuers had to put up with was the
protracted search. "They thought at Casey, who retired in January, was acstill missing.
Searchers were focusing on an area first they could come in here five or six cused by death penalty advocates of
where debris spilled outside the build- days and be out. We're into the second preventing executions by foot-draging, finding seven victims there Friday, week, it may well go into the third ging in the signing of death warrants,
week, it looks like, before we get to although he signed six in his last six
Assistant Fire Chief Jon Hansen said.
months in office. But new Republican
Investigators have one suspect in some of those bodies," he said.
Authorities reduced the number of Gov. Tom Ridge has made crime-fightcustody and have cast a nationwide net
for a second suspect, known only as missing from 97 to between 73 and 79
continued on page 4
"John Doe Number 2", fearing he may as people originally unaccounted for
The
May 2, 1995
3
�3
ing a major theme of his administration. He has
five death
warrants since taking
including Zettlemoyer' s.
There are currently 189 prisoners on Pennsylvania's death row,
including 105 who have lost their
automatic initial appeal thus making them eligible for death warrants. Experts say a flurry of executions is unlikely in the state anytime soon, because lengthy appeals
can follow the signing of a death
warrant.
Vietnam Marks 20th
Anniversary War's
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam
(Reuter) - Vietnam celebrated the
20th anniversary of the end of the
Vietnam War Sunday, paying tribute to the late Ho Chi Minh as the
inspiration behind the communist
victory over the U.S.-backed Saigon
regime.
Ho, who led the communist war
effort as North Vietnam's first president until he died in 1969, was the
absent guest of honor in the
that was once called Saigon but
now bears his name, which was
captured by communist forces on
30, 1975.
National leaders,
Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, Com-
munist Party chief Do Muoi and Gen. Vo
Nguyen Giap, strategist of the victory, saluted and applauded thousands of solveterans and young people who
marched in a two-hour parade on the avenue leading to the old presidential palace, now renamed Reunification Palace.
The United States, whose armed forces
lost their first war in Vietnam, was absent
from the festivities. No U.S. officials were
present and the U.S. role in the war was
not mentioned. Mayor Truong Tan Sang
made one passing reference to "the enemy," without naming the United States,
in a keynote speech stressing the city's
drive for prosperity. "For the sake of development, we are ready to put the past
behind and look to the future," he said.
Prime Minister Kiet said in Hanoi Saturday he shared the pain of Americans
who lost relatives in the war and it was
time for the two countries to forget hatred
and look to the future. A U.S. veterans'
leader echoed such conciliatory remarks
Sunday and said the war should never
have taken place.
"When I look at the celebrations today
and look around Ho Chi Minh Cit)'1 it's just
so clear there should never have been a
war here, never, never, never," said Bobby
executive director of the Vietnam
Veterans of America Foundation. "Hopefully, the American people will increasingly understand that
here have
been victims of our mistake, our self-admitted mistake, and it's time to stop punishing the victims," he told Reuters.
page3
bears the Registar's signature and the
raised seal of the College. An unofficial copy is marked "unofficial" and is
usually for your personal use only.
4. Official transcripts will not be processed for students who havenot met
their financial obligations. All arrangements must be cleared with the Treasurer before the Registrar will release
transcripts that have a hold placed on
them.
5. Most prospective employers, foundations, and graduate schools require
that the undergraduate records come
directly from the institution of origin
rather than the applicant. In some
cases, an official copy of the student's
record is submitted with the application materials. In this instance, an official copy in a sealed envelope can be
obtained from the
Offie for
inclusion with your application package.
6. Transcript requests are processed
promptly. During peak
that is,
during the end of first and second semesters, allowances must be made for
the recording of grades and the high
volume of requests. For your informait may interest you to know that
we process more than 1800 academic
records during the course of the year.
7. Finally, Don Rag Reports ?re for internal use
and should not be sent
to other
etc.
R. Lewis
Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a student weekly distributed free
to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus as well
Editor-on-Sabattical:
D. Jongewaard Managing Editor: Jesse Berney as tutors emeriti, members of the Board of Visitors and Governors, and
the offices at the St. John's Santa Fe Campus. All opinions expressed
Layout Editor: Jennifer Coonce Business Manager: Aaron Thomas
Advertising Manager: Marissa Mijal Circulation Manager: Rebekah within are the sole responsibility of the author. The Gadfly reserves the
right to accept,
and edit all submissions in any way necessary to
Jongewaard
publish the most professional, informative, entertaining, and thoughtNews Editors: Rebekah Jongewaard, Christina Papvasiliou
provoking newspaper which circumstances at St. John's permit.
Technical Advisor: Seth Milliken
Yearly subscriptions are available for $35.00. Tax-deductable conProduction Staff: I Wish
tributions are greatly appreciated. Please make checks payable to The
Gadfly.
For display advertisment prices and information, call 263-2371,
by
St.
ext. 320.
Deadline: Thursday at midnight Submissions may be submitted
in any Macintosh-based word processing format on a 3 1 /2" floppy disk
along with a typed copy. Otherwise typed submissions are acceptable.
Gadfly
St. John's College
P.O. Box 2800
Annapolis, MD, 21404
�
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<em>The Gadfly</em>
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Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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thegadfly
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4 pages
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paper
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Jongewaard, Nathan D. (Editor-on-Sabattical)
Berney, Jesse (Managing Editor)
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The Gadfly, Vol XVI Issue 19
Date
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1995-05-02
Description
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Volume XVI, Issue 19 of The Gadfly. Published May 02, 1995.
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Vol. 16 #19
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Annapolis, MD
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St. John's College
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English
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text
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pdf
Gadfly
Student publication
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e47061388ee04bdbd9ab6c5e47b069d4.mp3
e5568267171d0615dc6ee5b51fa16152
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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01:46:33
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Towards "A New Birth of Freedom" - Tragedy and Comedy, 1786: Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 17, 2004, by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Berns, Gisela N.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2004-09-17
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sound
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mp3
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<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1081">Typsecript</a>
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English
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Bib # 74602
Subject
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Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805. Don Carlos
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791. Nozze di Figaro.
Tragedy
Comedy
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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33cb3fa41963bab899212dea436d4df6
PDF Text
Text
Towards "a new birth of freedom" --Tragedy and Comedy, 1786:
Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
Gisela Berns
St. John's College, Annapolis
To the memory of Oskar Seidlin
The year is 1786. In Annapolis, delegates from different states, among them
James Madison from Virginia and Alexander Hamilton from New York, convene to
discuss matters of commerce under the Articles of Confederation, with the possibility for
h
larger issues left open. Like the rehearsal for the performance of a great play, what _ as
come to be called the Annapolis Convention concludes with a recommendation for a
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia the following year (Morris, 161-9; Kammen,
19-22). Conscious of the enormity of the task before the Founding Fathers, Madison, in
Federalist 14, asks:
Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to
the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration
for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good
sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To
this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the
example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of
private rights and public happiness.
In the same spirit, Friedrich Schiller, in his Prologue to Wallenstein, speaks of the
struggle for freedom at the end of the century as a time where "actuality itself becomes
poetry" and "art, upon its shadow stage I May strive for higher flight, indeed it must, I Or
yield in shame before the stage oflife" (WP, 61-9). That these lines, from 1798, have in
mind not only the French Revolution, of which Schiller, in 1792, had been made an
honorary citizen, but also the American Revolution, is clear from two interesting facts:
one, to this day a large lithograph of the Battle of Bunker Hill hangs at the entry to
l
�Schiller's study in Weimar. The other, in a letter of 1783, possibly meant to confuse the
authorities, Schiller toys with the idea of emigrating to America. Undecided whether,
once there, he would practice medicine, get involved in politics, or teach philosophy, he
concludes: "But tragedies, for that matter, I shall never cease to write - you know my
whole being hangs on it" (To Lempp, June 19, 1783).
Living in political exile, under the constant threat of persecution for his
revolutionary ideas, Schiller, in 1783, turns from the stormy prose of his earlier plays to
the noble iambic pentameters of a dramatic poem in grand style, the tragedy of Don
Carlos. In tune with the political events of the New World, the completion of Schiller's
pan Carlos coincides with the Annapolis Convention of 1786, its first performance in
.
\
Hamburg with the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. (An added nice touch: On this date,
September 17, 1787, the Convention came to agree on the new Constitution to be sent to
the States for ratification) (Farrand, 641-9).
*
*
*
Set in the historical world of 16th century Spain, under the iron hand of the
Inquisition, Schiller's Don Carlos presents the clash of two worlds, the world of Philipp
II, despotic ruler over a vast empire, and the world of Don Carlos, his heart aglow with
the dream of liberating mankind from such unnatural rule. Serving the King's world,
Count Lerma represents the court, Duke Alba the military, Domingo the church. The
inspirat)on for the Prince's world, Marquis Posa, his childhood friend, emerges as the
mastermind behind an intricate plot, using all major characters of the play in his grand
cosmopolitan scheme for the creation of a new paradise on earth. Not a historical figure,
Marquis Posa, in the play a knight of Malta, might have been modeled on the Marquis de
Lafayette, in 1776 fighting for the Independence of the United States of America
(Dokumente, 121). Spanning the years between the two friends, Schiller, at the outset of
2
�the play, was more Carlos's, at its completion more Posa's age. In the Prince's appeal to
his father for the command of the army to Flanders: "23 years, I And nothing done for
immortality!" (DC II, 2, 1148-9). Heinrich Heine, in his
T~e
Romantic School, fills out
the picture by speaking of Schiller as "himself that Marquis Posa, who is, at the same
time, prophet and soldier, who fights for what he prophecies, and, under the Spanish
cloak, carries the most beautiful heart that ever loved and suffered in Germany" (Heine,
148). Vowing to use the "portrayal of the Inquisition" to "avenge prostituted mankind"
and "strike to the soul of a type of man the dagger of tragedy, so far, has only grazed"
(Dokumente, 134), Schiller begins and ends his Don Carlos with the title hero in conflict
with the religious authority, at the beginning with Domingo, the King's confessor, to be
present at every tum of the dramatic action, at the end with the Grand Inquisitor, blind to
all human feeling and demanding the death of the King's son in the name of the sacrifice
of God's only son on the cross. (Due to the censorship of Schiller's own time, both the
Grand Inquisitor and Domingo had to be omitted in some of the early performances of
Don Carlos) (Dokumente, 158-63).
One character to heighten the tension between the play's two worlds is Elizabeth
of Valois, the King's young Queen. Once betrothed to Don Carlos and in her heart still
his, she also shares his political dreams and sympathizes with Marquis Posa's plans for
him.
To complicate matters, the King has his eye on Princess Ebo Ii, one of the Queen's
Ladies in Waiting. She, however, is secretly in love with the Prince. Unbeknownst to
Philipp, Domingo, his solicitor, and Alba, his henchman, use the King's love affair to
further their own political ends.
*
*
*
In a discussion of different genres of poetry, Schiller, in his On Naive and
3
�Sentimental Poetry, considers the characteristics of tragedy and comedy and their
relationship to each other. Of the opinion that, in tragedy, a great deal of interest is
created simply by the subject matter that, in comedy, has to be supplied by the art of the
.
.
poet, Schiller reflects:
Not the sphere from which the subject matter is taken, but the forum before which the
poet brings it, makes the same tragic or comic. The tragic poet must beware of calm
reasoning and always interest the heart. The comic poet must beware of pathos and
always entertain the mind. ... If tragedy, therefore, takes off from a more significant
point, one has to concede that comedy heads for a more significant goal and, if it ever
were to reach it, would make all tragedy superfluous and impossible. Its goal is one with
the highest man strives for, to be free of passion, always to look about and into himself
clearly and calmly, to find everywhere more chance than fate and to laugh more about
absurdity than to rage or weep about malice (Schiller, V, 724-6).
*
*
*·
With a comparable constellation of characters, but the one clearly a tragedy, the
other, at least on the face of it, a comedy, Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's
The Marriage of Figaro, both completed in 1786,
in~ite
a closer look at the differences
between them.
Both set in Spain, but Don Carlos in the 16th, The Marriage of Figaro in the 18th
century, Schiller's historical tragedy, affecting the life of mankind as a whole, takes place
at the court of Philipp II, Mozart's comic opera, affecting but a few individual lives, at the
castle of Count Almaviva. Thus, the difference in atmosphere, Don Carlos remote and
grand, The Marriage of Figaro contemporary and intimate, contributes to the one being a
tragedy, the other a comedy. Against the background of these differences of time and
space, the comparability of the two sets of characters appears even more striking. King
Philipp and his Queen have their counterparts in Count Almaviva and his Countess,
Carlos, the young prince, in Cherubino, the young page, Marquis Posa, the political
mastermind, in Figaro, the domestic mastermind, Princess Eboli; the King's favorite, in
4
�Susanna, the Count's favorite, Count Lerma, the court councilor, in Bartolo, the lawyer,
Duke Alba, the defender of the realm, in Antonio, the gardener, and last but not least,
Domingo, the King's confessor, in Basilio, the priest masquerading as the Count's music
master. The only figure in Don Carlos with no counterpart in The Marriage of Figaro is
the Grand Inquisitor.
Given the difference between tragedy and comedy, what this list suggests is
outrageous! How could one ever compare these two sets of dramatic characters? Yet,
that is exactly what I intend to do in this lecture. The result, I hope, will be a deeper
understanding of both tragedy and comedy.
*
*
*
A clue to both Don Carlos and The Marriage ofFigaro, their opening scenes
contain already the whole plot to unfold in the rest of each work. Highlighting its title,
Schiller's Don Carlos, opening in the royal gardens at Aranjuez, presents the title hero in
conversation with Domingo. In his unsuccessful attempt to pry into the Prince's thoughts,
the priest touches on Carlos's troubled relationships with his father, with his new mother,
and with the political world around him. The scene ends with Carlos's dire premonition
of doom and the role of "suspicion's venomed serpent sting" (I, 1, 122-7) in bringing it
about. Highlighting its title, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, opening in a room
between the Count and the Countess's apartments, presents the title hero with Susanna,
the couple to be married, in a lively duet, each singing in the same key, but Figaro's
music more plodding, accompanying his measuriilg the space for their bed, Susanna's
music more fluid, accompanying her showing off her wedding cap. A delightful school
for marriage, this duet, after an orchestral introduction of equal eight measures for both
Figaro and Susanna, has Figaro sing twelve, Susanna only six measures. Trying to get
Figaro's attention, Susanna starts singing his music, but at her speed, only to move him to
5
�switch over to her music. Like in a good marriage, they end up complementing each
other in a merry medley of parallel, oblique, and contrary motion, and yes, they do sing
her music. Even so, there are obstacles. The Count, intent.on seducing Susanna,
Marcellina, Bartolo's old servant, intent on holding Figaro to a marriage contract for his
unpaid debts.
While the opening duet was in G Major, the opera's key of marriage (I, 1), the
duet spelling out the obstacles is in B-flat Major, its key of intrigue (I, 2). In order to get
from G Major to B-flat Major one has to darken G Major tog minor, its parallel minor,
and then to brighten g minor to B-flat Major, its relative Major. The first operation keeps
the tonal center, but changes the key signature, the second operation keeps the key
signature, but changes the tonal center. The intricate musical path from G Major to B-flat
Major, one of the most frequent moves in this opera, points to the weight of the obstacles
to be overcome. Like Schiller's opening of Don Carlos, Mozart's opening of The
Marriage of Figaro ends on a note of warning about the venom of suspicion.
*
*
*
Our glimpse of the intricacies of Mozart's opening duet invites a moment of
reflection on the difference between opera and drama due to the element of music. More
stylized than drama, opera enriches the spoken word by multiple layers of meaning
through the musical elements of melody, counterpoint, and harmony. Within these,
different articulations of time and space, that is, different rhythms, working with or
against different meters, provide added insights into dramatic characters and situations.
Consonance and dissonance, used in various combinations, are powerful means for
underscoring dramatic tension and resolution. The correlation of dramatic themes with
musical keys, separated from and connected with each other through the circle of fifths,
allows for interesting cross-references not only between different dramatic characters, but
6
�Key to the Keys in
Mozart's TheMarriageofFigaro
The opera's overall key is D-Major
�also between different dramatic moments in the operatic plot. The Major or minor mode,
either dominating a whole scene or the one marking critical points within the context of
the other, throw light or shadow over the opera's musical
l~ndscape.
As befits a comic opera, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro is mostly in Major.
The two pieces in minor, the openings to acts three and four, are tinged with comic irony
and thus belie their dark shadows. The opening of act three, at the same time the opening
of the second half of the opera, overlays one line in minor with another in its relative
Major, only to let its parallel Major win out for both lines. We shall come back to the
details of this at a later stage.
*
*
*
Before embarking on the comparison between Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's
The Marriage ofFigaro, a word ought to be said about Beaumarchais's play of the same
. title. A sequel to his The Barber ofSeville, Beaumarchais's The Marriage ofFigaro
provides the opera's dramatic plot. First performed in 1784, the play is a highly charged
attack on the social and political mores of the day. Even more aggressive than Schiller's
vow to "avenge prostituted mankind" and "strike to the soul of a type of man the dagger
of tragedy, so far, has only grazed", Beaumarchais's Preface speaks of the theater as "a
giant that wounds to the death all it strikes." Seeing the vices of human nature disguised
"in a thousand forms under the mask of the ruling mores", he asserts: "to rip off this mask
and show them naked, that is the noble task of the man who devotes himself to the
theater". Labeling his The Marriage ofFigaro as "more infamous and more seditious"
than his The Barber ofSeville, Beaumarchais, sarcastically, exclaims: "Oh, how I regret
-
not having made this moral subject into a rather bloody tragedy" (Beaumarchais, 27, 28,
30).
7
�*
*
*
The difference between Beaumarchais's play and M_ozart's opera is, however, not
only due to the element of music. Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's librettist, certainly follows
the play's main line, but changes its tone from a highly political to a deeply personal one.
Personal thoughts and feelings, brought to the fore by omissions, additions, or simply
alterations of style, create an atmosphere where the characters' expression of themselves
is at least, if not more, important than their dramatic interaction.
With a rather checkered career, from ordained priest in the Veneto, to Court poet
in Vienna, to teacher ofltalian language and literature at Columbia College in New York,
Da Ponte, as librettist of Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro, adds a nice touch by poking
fun at himself in the figure of Basilio, always played in clerical garb, but with the role of
music master at the castle of Count Alma viva.
*
*
*
To pick up the thread back into our comparison, let us remember that Schiller's
Don Carlos presents us with the conflict between centuries, portrayed in Philipp II and
Marquis Posa, Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro with the conflict between classes,
portrayed in Count Almaviva and Figaro. In the one we are given the political goal of
liberating mankind from the oppressive rule of a mighty monarchy under the iron hand of
the Inquisition, in the other the personal goal of pursuing a marriage without the
interference of a lecherous aristocrat bored with his wife. The one stuff for tragedy, the
other stuff for comedy. A note at the outset: since there are five acts of Schiller's Don
Carlos to be compared with four acts of Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro, it seems more
fruitful to go back and forth between comparable clusters of scenes rather than to adhere
strictly to the more formal boundary of acts.
8
�Even though both works start early in the morning and end late at night, Don
Carlos starts in a garden and ends in a closed room, The Marriage of Figaro starts in a
closed room and ends in a garden. Implicit in the theme of the garden is, of course, the
story of the Garden of Eden. Imbued with the awareness of Good and Evil, and the selfknowledge arising from it, the theme of forgiveness, in Don Carlos finally denied, in The
Marriage of Figaro finally granted, is a powerful and moving reminder of that story.
A latter day Garden of Eden, complete with the fall of man and God appearing in
judgment, the royal gardens at Aranjuez, reminding the Queen of her native France (I, 3),
. become the setting for a passionate rendezvous with Don Carlos. Not willing to accept
the fate of having lost her to his father, he falls at her feet: "Let them, from here, come
drag me to the scaffold! I One moment, fully lived in paradise I ls not atoned too dearly
for with death" (I, 5, 638-40). The King, arriving shortly thereafter, finds the Queen
alone, without her Ladies in Waiting. Bearing out Carlos's earlier warning about
"suspicion's venomed serpent sting" (I, 1), Philipp, in the presence of his courtiers,
questions his wife's virtue. Alba's staunch: "Like God's own cherub before paradise I
Duke Alba stands before the royal throne" (I, 6, 879-80) only aggravates the emotional
tension of the scene.
Having been caught with Barbarina, the gardener's daughter, Cherubino, the "little
cherub", stumbles in on Susanna to ask the Countess to intercede for him with the
angered Count (I, 6). Flustered by Susanna's presence, the young page, in E-flat Major,
the opera's key of unhappy love, gives voice to the first stirrings of his heart. Aflutter for
all women, he confesses speaking of his love to nature, to the mountains, to the meadows,
to the winds, and finally to himself. Compared to the unhappy rendezvous between Don
Carlos and the Queen, past, present, and future weighing heavily on their hearts, and
presaging tragedy for both of them, this charming interlude between Cherubino and
Susanna is the more charming, as the Countess is not there and, therefore, there are no
constraints on the boy's outpouring of feelings. The transfiguration from Beaumarchais's
9
�prose text to Da Ponte's rhyming verse pulsates with shimmering light in Mozart's
music: the breathless first stanza (the experience oflove) repeated after the second stanza,
climaxing on the word "desire", and the third stanza (the experience of love taken out to
nature and back to the self) trailing off dreamily.
A farcical version of the King's coming upon his wife, with Don Carlos fled from
the scene only minutes before, the Count's coming upon his wife's chamber maid, with
Cherubino taking refuge behind a chair, leads to a series of hilarious moments:
Interrupted in his amorous advances to Susanna by the arrival of Basilio (the nominal
"King" of the place), the Count has to hide behind that same infamous chair, with the
young page barely able to jump into it from behind, the Countess's gown spread there
coming in handy as protective cover. Roused from his hiding place by Basilio's
suspicions about Cherubino and the Countess, the Count, in a dramatic B-flat Major, the
opera's key of intrigue, calls for the boy's dismissal from the castle (II, 7). The
subsequent discovery of Cherubino in the chair, and the Count's realization that the "little
serpent" (p. 96) must have overheard his courting of Susanna, make him convert the boy's
dismissal into a pardon to join the army.
All fired up by Marquis Posa's grand plans for him, Don Carlos vows to ask his
father for the
comm~nd
of the army to Flanders (I, 9). Like a parody of this solemn
scene, both at the end of act I, Figaro's send-off-march for Cherubino, in C-Major, the
opera's key of resolve, makes mockery of the page turned soldier against his will. The
irony is that neither Don Carlos nor Cherubino ever reach their destination. Don Carlos,
because Philipp, suspicious of his motives, denies the Prince's request, Cherubino ,
because Figaro, teeming with intrigue, means for the page, dressed up as Susanna, to go
to a rendezvous with the Count in her stead.
*
*
*
10
�After his unsuccessful audience with the King (II, 2) the Prince follows a secret
invitation to what he mistakes for the Queen's apartment. A counterpoint to his meeting
with the Queen, in the royal gardens, this meeting with Princess Eboli, in the royal palace
(II, 8), comes close to an expulsion from paradise. Believing Carlos to be in love with
herself, the Princess tries to elicit a confession from him, only to have him own his secret
love for another. Disappointed in Carlos's love, and an object of Philipp's lust, Princess
Eboli confides in Domingo, the King's solicitor with her (II, 11 ). The plan hatched
between the two of them, with Duke Alba in the wings, is for her to break into the
Queen's jewelry box in the hope of finding letters there from the Prince (II, 12).
Like a release of the Queen's unspoken sorrow, in act I of Schiller's Don Carlos
(I, 3-4), the Countess's first aria, in act II of Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro (II, 10),
strikes a tragic note. Echoing Cherubino's E-flat Major, the Countess calls on the god of
love to restore her loss or to let her die. The orchestral accompaniment's constant
slipping in and out of harmony with her tune painfully expresses the vulnerability of her
feelings.
In his earlier attempt to see the Countess Cherubino had entrusted Susanna with a
canzonetta of his (I, 6). In contrast to the young prince who stumbl.es from one tragic
encounter, with the Queen, to another, with Princess Eboli, the young page, trembling but
happy, gets to sing his canzonetta before the Countess (II, 11). That he is here to be
dressed up in Susanna's clothes to go to a rendezvous with the Count --this brainchild of
Figaro's, of course, taking place in G Major (II, 12)-- will make for uncomfortable, but
also rather comical moments. Like a come-down from tragedy to comedy, Susanna
accompanying Cherubino on the guitar is a comical version of Princess Eboli
accompanying herself on the lute awaiting Don Carlos. A far cry from the hopeless,
wavering harmonies of the Countess's aria, Susanna's playful upward figures on the guitar
fully support the boy's melody. Now part of an intrigue, however innocent, Cherubino's
encomium on the painful bliss of love, is in B-flat Major, the dominant not only of his,
11
�but also the Countess's (II, 10) first aria. Listening to Cherubino's lovely song, the
Countess is lost in her memories of the young Count, from their early days of courtship.
Like the King's appearance in the royal gardens, with Don Carlos barely fled from
the scene (I, 5), the Count's arrival at his wife's locked door, with Cherubino barely
escaped into a closet, unleashes a storm of suspicions (II, 13). Singing in C Major, G
Major, and back to C Major (with Susanna's counterpoint from the sidelines), husband
and wife engage in a battle of wills over the opening of the closet, the Countess
protesting Susanna, the Count suspecting the Countess's lover to hide there. The flare up
of temper is the more ludicrous as the Count, not too long ago, had found himself in the
same compromising situation as Cherubino now (I, 7).
The Count's idea of leaving the room, to fetch some tools for breaking into his
wife's closet, but relocking the doors against any escape, gives Susanna and Cherubino a
· few precious minutes to find a way out. With more than one marriage at stake, their
frantic little duet is sung in a hilariously funny G Major (II, 14). Instead of Don Carlos
fleeing out of the garden, leaving footprints and losing his handkerchief, noticed by the
gardener and later reported back to the King by Duke Alba (III, 3), Cherubino, ready to
jump even into the fire to save the Countess, finally jumps from the balcony into the
garden. A fall indeed, but a fall to undo the Fall!
A follow-up on the King appearing in the gardens of Aranjuez, the confrontation
between Philipp and Elizabeth, coming to demand justice for the break into her jewelry
box and the removal of letters and a medallion of the Prince, ends with her finding them
in the King's possession and, after a deadly argument over her rights, swooning and
bloodying herself in the fall (IV, 9).
Very much in the same vein as these scenes from act IV of Schiller's Don Carlos,
the Finale of act II of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (II, 15), echoing some of the
more menacing strains of the Overture, moves at a high pitch of emotions. With a
noticeable exchange of F Major for G Major, it progresses from E-flat Major (unhappy
12
�love) to B-flatMajor (intrigue) to G Major (marriage) and via C Major (resolve) through
F Major (standing one's ground) to B-flat Major (intrigue) and back to E-flat Major
(unhappy love). As if modeled on the tense altercation between King and Queen:
King: Then blood may flow for all I care -Queen: So far it's come -- oh God!
King:
I know
Myself no more, no longer pay
Respect to custom and the voice
Of nature and the pacts of nations (IV, 9, 3785-9),
the Count, with his sword drawn, is ready to kill the page hiding in his wife's closet.
Demanding the key for it, he threatens the Countess with expulsion from his house. To
an insistent call of horns in the background, the opening of the closet door, revealing
Susanna, throws not only the Count, but also the Countess into confusion.
Shifting from E-flat Major to B-flat Major, this second stage of the Finale brings
the Count down on his knees, asking for his wife's forgiveness. A more genuine version
than his earlier pardon for Cherubino, the Count's confession of guilt, over an altered
seventh chord on E-natural, containing G-flat, giving way to his expression of
repentance, over a plain seventh chord on E-natural, containing G (mm. 303-6, p. 187),
dramatically prepares for the arrival of Figaro and the musicians to play for his wedding
with Susanna. With the move heard most often in this opera, back and forth, Figaro's
arrival, once more, turns the music scene from B-flat Major to G Major.
Taken to task for his anonymous letter about the Count's upcoming rendezvous,
Figaro, echoing his own music from the opening duet with Susanna, but now in a pivotal
C Major, deftly avoids the issue by pointing to the theater practice of ending a farce with
a wedding. The sublime trio of Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess, begging the Count to
fulfill their wishes, is undercut by his counterpoint, calling for Marcellina to insist on her
marriage contract from Figaro.
To make matters worse, the gardener, showing up with a crushed flower pot,
13
�bitterly complains about the fall of a man from the balcony. To save the day, Figaro,
exchanging F Major for G Major, claims to have jumped from there himself and, in the
fall, musically expressed by a painful chromatic descent, to have sprained his ankle. An
ironic reminder of Figaro's earlier F Major stunt (I, 3), offering to teach his master to
dance, the Count cries out: "Enough of this dance!" (mm. 581-2, p. 211).
Yet, like Don Carlos, fleeing out of the garden, Cherubino, falling into the garden,
had lost something. Now in B-flat Major, Figaro, with a bit of help from the women,
identifies the papers found in the garden, as Cherubino's commission still in need of the
official seal.
Returning, once more, to E-flat Major, the Finale comes to a furious climax, with
Marcellina, Bartolo, and Basilio joining the Count in his opposition to Figaro, Susanna,
and the Countess, over the contested marriage contract between Marcellina and Figaro.
Providing no way out, on either side, the first half of the opera ends with all the voices in
unison on E-flat, and all the instruments, except for the flute and the clarinet, on E-flat or
G. The flute and the clarinet, with their B-flat, the dominant of E-flat, seem rather weak
over and against the clamor of all the others on E-flat and G. Translated from the musical
into the moral language of the opera: "Intrigue", however dominant throughout, is likely
to get lost in the final struggle of "unhappy love" for the fulfillment of "marriage".
*
*
*
Bearing out Schiller's claim that the tragedy of Don Carlos would have to tum on "the
situation and the character of King Philipp" (Dokumente, 142), the King, after the
judgment of his wife in the royal gardens (I, 6) and the rejection of his son in the royal
palace (II, 2), more and more emerges as a tragic figure. An older Carlos , warped in the
harsh school of political life, he feels exploited by schemers like Alba and Domingo (II,
10-13; III, 3-4). Appealing to Providence for a human being, for a friend that would give
14
�him truth, Philipp, in the center of act III, which, at the same time, is the center of the
play as a whole, comes upon the name of Marquis Posa, specially noted for his services
to the crown (III, 5).
In a riveting sequence of scenes, Medina Sidonia, the admiral returning from the
loss of the Armada, is shunned by all the courtiers except Don Carlos (III, 6). The King's
entry, ignoring his son, but after a long silence, pardoning the admiral with: "God is over
me -- I've sent you I To contend with men, not storms and rocks -- I You're welcome in
Madrid" (III, 7, 2878-81 ), presents us with a moving answer to his own appeal. A variant
to his earlier rejection of Don Carlos, asking for the command of the army to Flanders:
"You speak like one within a dream. This office I Requires a man and not a youth -- "
countered by the Prince's: "Requires merely a human being, father" (II, 2, 1174-6),
Philipp's overlooking his son who, together with himself, seems to be the only human
being in the room (III, 7), constitutes the tragic core of the play.
Farthest from their conscious mind: "You see two hostile stars that through I The
course of time do touch but once I In shattering head-on collision I And then forever flee
apart" (I, 2, 541-5), this kinship between father and son, nevertheless, shows itself in
many ways. Both Philipp and Carlos lay claim not only to the love of the same woman,
but also to the friendship of the same man. Throughout the play, in crucial moments of
decision or recognition, they both use the same characteristic formulations.
Called to a special audience with Philipp, Marquis Posa, envisioning himself as
sculptor to impart life to the rough stone, reflects on the opportunity of using the King for
his own political purposes (III, 9). With Philipp as strangely impressionable listener, the
Knight paints a picture of mankind, free from oppression and ready to govern itself:
"Man, sure, is more than you supposed. I The bonds of his long slumber he shall break I
And once again demand his holy right." (III, 10, 3186-8). Despite the revolutionary tone
of Posa's political panegyric, the King is captured by the spectacle of a man who
fearlessly speaks his mind. That, in the end, he will insist on employing him as spy for
15
�both the Queen and the Prince is sad proof of an inhuman world under the iron hand of
the Inquisition (III, 10).
With his eyes on the future of mankind, and his own role in bringing it about,
Marquis Posa, losing sight of the present, plays a dangerous game. Using Don Carlos
and the Queen, but also, unbeknownst to them, the King, as pawns in his grand plan for
the liberation of Flanders, the Knight betrays his own ideals (IV, 3-6; 12-13). On his first
introduction, the Queen had welcomed him with:
Many courts
You've come to in your travels, chevalier,
And many countries and men's customs you
Have seen -- and now, they say, you have a mind
Within your fatherland to .settle for yourself,
A greater prince in your own quiet walls
Than is King Philipp on his throne -- a free man,
A philosopher!" (I, 4, 512-9).
True to the first part, the invocation of Homer's Odyssey (Od. I, 1-3, (Berns, Greek
Antiquity, 21 and 115, note 4), but not to the second, the closing myth of Plato's Republic
(Rep. X, 620c-d), Posa's cosmopolitan moves smack of the idealist who, for the sake of
his cause, turns fanatic and ruthlessly tramples over lives (Schiller, Briefe iiber Don
Carlos; Seidlin, 34-40).
Acting like a god, accountable to no one but himself, Posa, now the King's trusted
minister, shares his plans neither with the Prince (IV, 6) nor fully with the Queen (IV, 3).
In his growing desperation, Carlos confides in Princess Eboli and, in the act of asking her
for access to the Queen (IV, 15), is arrested by the Knight himself (IV, 16). Confronted
with the choice of killing Eboli or sacrificing himself, Posa, after a moment's hesitation,
chooses the latter (IV, 17).
In his farewell to the Queen (IV, 21 ), he counters her "I fear you play a risky
game" with "I've lost it... I've lost it for myself1' (IV, 21, 4213-7). A tell-tale sign of the
difference between the two friends, Carlos, on hearing of Posa's influence with the King,
16
�had uttered: "Now I have lost him ... I have I Lost him. Oh! Now I am all forsaken" (IV,
13, 3973, 3977-8). His mournful: "He loved me, loved me dearly ... That I I know. Yet
should not millions, should I The fatherland not be more dear to him than one?" (IV, 13,
3963-8) will resurface in Philipp's reaction to Posa's betrayal of himself: "I've loved him,
loved him dearly ... like a son .. .This youth I For me brought up a new, more glorious
morning ... I He was my first, my very first love .. ." (V, 9, 5048-52).
Planning for the Prince to escape that very night, Posa, in his farewell to the
Queen, entrusts her with his legacy for him. With more and more overtones from the
Passion of Christ, he describes his vision of a future paradise on earth, a world worthy to
have died for. The Queen's rejoinder: "No! No! I You threw yourself into this deed I You
call sublime ... A thousand hearts I May break, but what is that to you, as long I As you
may feed your pride?" (IV, 21, 4379-87) leaves him utterly stunned. Too late, his last
words to her: "My Queen! -- Oh God! but life is beautiful" (IV, 21, 4393-4) throw a new,
richer light into the soul of this stem idealist.
Hoping to confound the King, long enough for Carlos to escape, Posa had written
to William of Orange, confessing his love for the Queen and his fear of being discovered
before he could get away to Brussels (V, 3, 4672-96). Well aware of the King's order to
intercept all letters to Flanders (II, 15, 2465-8), he had counted on Philipp's belief in the
villainy of human nature (V, 3, 4676-8). What he did not know, however, is the King's
reaction. As if in answer to Carlos's earlier: "Oh, force those eyes I That never yet shed
tears, to learn to do so, I While you still have time, or else -- or else I You may need to
make up for it in some I Dark hour to come" (II, 2, 1080-3, MacDonald, 337), Philipp, on
learning of Posa's betrayal, is said to have wept (IV, 23). This scene, in perfect symmetry
to Carlos's warning, is the more breathtaking, as it is witnessed but from outside the
closed doors of the King's chamber. The stupor of the courtiers assembled there, is
broken by Princess Eboli, rushing in, demanding to tell the King the truth about the
Prince's letters (IV, 24). With Alba and Domingo gaining the upper hand, however, the
17
�truth comes too late.
*
*
*
Compared to the tragic figure of the King, in Schiller's Don Carlos, the figure of
the Count, in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, is no more than a comic braggadocio.
While Philipp's affair with Princess Eboli remains off-stage, in the hands of Domingo (II,
10-13), the Count, taking things out of Basilio's hands, courts Susanna more and more
openly (I, 2, rec., pp. 38-40; 6, rec., pp. 76-77; III, sc. 2, pp. 249-50; 16, rec., p. 257). In
striking contrast to Figaro and Susanna's G Major duet, at the beginning of the opera (I,
1), the duet between the Count and Susanna, at the beginning of the opera's second half
(III, 16), overlays the Count's a minor with Susanna's C Major, both using the same key
signature, but different tonal centers. A rare event in this opera, the Count's minor,
already undercut by Susanna's Major, is openly contradicted by her text, however much it
rhymes with his. Their final agreement on a rendezvous, in a triumphant A Major, the
opera's key of selfish passion, uses the Count's tonal center, but a new key signature for
both of them. To make matters worse, it is further compromised by Susanna's utterly
. confusing "Yes!" and "No!" answers to the Count's arixious questions.
Reminiscent of Philipp, brooding over suspicions, roused by the Prince's letters
(III, 1-4; 1O; IV, 7-10), Alma viva, by himself, vents his innermost feelings (III, 17).
Singing in D Major, the key ofrevenge, but also the overall key of the opera, the Count,
in a stormy recitative and aria, echoing the more majestic strains of the Overture, rages
about the audacity of his servant, up-staging him in a conquest of love. A match for each
other, his fury recalls Figaro's earlier posturing in F Major, the opera's key of standing
one's ground. Professing a more playful art form than Posa who, in anticipation of his
audience with the King (III, 10), had envisioned himself as sculptor, imparting life to the
rough stone (III, 9), Figaro, reacting to Susanna's news about the Count's intentions, had
18
�vowed to teach his master to dance to his music (I, 3). Unlike Posa's visionary plan for
rebellion (IV, 3), Figaro's fancy of overturning all machines by using the art of "punching
here and teasing there" sounds like fun as well.
A farcical variant to Philipp's distraught remark about Count Lerma, the old court
councilor, likely to find his wife in his son's embrace (III, 2, 2518-44 ), Figaro's discovery
of Bartolo and Marcellina, the old councilor and his former servant, to be his parents (III,
sc. 5, pp. 271-2; 18) barely avoids the fate of Oedipus and gives rise to an incredulous
merry-go-round with the terms "mother" and "father" throughout the different voice
ranges (III, 18). The sextet, like Figaro's earlier and Susanna's later arias, in F Major,
clears the way not only for the marriage of the young, but also of the old couple. Much
toned down from Beaumarchais's play, where Marcellina's bitter harangue over men's
exploitation of women still meets with Bartolo's sarcasms, Mozart's opera, even though in
g minor, falling short of G Major, brings the case to a more or less satisfactory conclusion
(p. 295). One by one protesting their happiness, the scene ends with a flourish of
dissonances gloating over the Count's defeat (mm. 17-9, p. 296).
Apprised of the Count's offer of a dowry for Susanna's favors, the Countess, once
more, laments the loss of her love (III, 19). Transcending her earlier E-flat Major, the
opera's key of unhappy love (II, 10), to C Major, its key of resolve, this beautiful aria, at
first, C Major encompassing a core of emotions moving from g minor to G Major,
reminisces about the past. But, unlike the Queen, who, in her rendezvous with the
Prince, had evaded his insistent questions concerning her love (I, 5, 712-20), the
Countess, in the final part of the aria, trusts her hope in the future. A reflection of the
Count's a minor overlaid by Susanna's C Major (III, 16), the Countess, after an initial
wavering between C Major and c minor, on the words "to change the ungrateful heart",
twice overshoots her C Major triad, landing on A, only to cadence with that triad, the A
yielding to the dominant G, and finally, on the word "heart", coming home to a
triumphant C.
19
�A happier version ofPrincess Eboli's theft of letters from the Queen, the Countess
and Susanna, together, write a letter, secretly to be given to the Count during Figaro and
Susanna's wedding (III, 20). Superseding Figaro's plot of sending Cherubino, dressed up
as Susanna, to the rendezvous, the Countess has decided to take on that role herself. At
the rallying point for the opera's finish, the little duet between the Countess and Susanna,
an exquisite moment of friendship, has one goal, the Count's change of heart, and
therefore one music, though still in B-flat Major, the opera's key of intrigue (III, 20).
Stating time and place for the rendezvous in the garden, the Countess leads, Susanna
follows. After gradually closing the gaps between giving and taking dictation, the two
women, on the words: "well, and the rest he'll understand", start singing together. With a
partial reversal of roles, but now overlapping in the process, Susanna and the Countess
read over their letter. By singing the same music, but in staggered lines, that is, in
different places at the same time, or in the same place at different times, they, as it were,
enact the rendezvous with the Count.
Compared to Princess Eboli's desperate attempt to open the King's eyes to the
truth about the letters she stole from the Queen (IV, 24), Susanna's slipping the letter,
written together with the Countess, into the Count's hands during the wedding ceremony,
intends to do exactly the opposite. Adding to the contrast, Marquis Posa's lie about his
love for the Queen, confided in a letter meant to be delivered into the King's hands, will
be the cause of the Knight's murder (V, 3), Figaro dancing with Susanna and laughing
about the Count pricking his finger on the needle used to seal the letter, in the end, will
teach the schemer not to consider himself fool-proof (III, 22). Sung in C Major, the
opera's key ofresolve, the wedding ceremony, at the end of act III, officially seals the
marriages of Figaro and Susanna as well as Bartolo and Marcellina, but leaves the
problems between the Count and the Countess unresolved.
*
*
*
20
�After the Prince's precipitous arrest, in act IV of Schiller's Don Carlos, Marquis
Posa visits him in prison to account for his action (V, 1). Shocked by Carlos's
assumption of having been sacrificed for the greater political cause, Posa, too late,
realizes his arrogance in using a friend like a pawn in a game. With a pentameter, short
by one foot, he confesses: "My edifice I Collapses -- I forgot your heart" (V, 1, 4524-5).
In counterpoint to Posa, it is Carlos who, all through the play, speaks and acts most often
from the heart. Reminiscent of the pathos of Christ, in the garden of Gethsemane:
"Come, let us sit down -- I I'm weary and feel weak" (V, 3, 4114-5, cf. Matthew 26, 38),
the Knight outlines his plans for the Prince's escape, to fight for the cause of humanity
from Flanders. A conclusion to Carlos's earlier: "Now I have lost him," (IV, 13, 3973)
referring to his friend, and Posa's: "I've lost it.. .I've lost it for myself'(IV, 21, 4214-7),
referring to his political power play, their exchange in prison:
Carlos:
God! Then I'm lost!
Marquis: You, why you?
Carlos :
Unhappy man, and you
Are lost with me. This monstrous
Fraud my father can't forgive.
No! That he never will forgive!
Marquis :
Fraud?
Who would tell him
It was fraud?
Who, can you ask?
Carlos:
Myselfl
(V, 3, 4701-8)
leads to the Knight's solemn: "Prepare yourself for Flanders! I Your calling is the
kingdom. I To die for you was mine" (V, 3, 4717-9). Carlos's:
No!No! ...
I want to take you to him.
Ann in arm we'll go to him.
Father, I'll say, a friend has done this
For his friend. It'll move him. Trust me!
He's not without humanity, my father.
Yes, sure, it'll move him.
21
�His eyes will shed warm tears, and you
And me he will forgive -- (V, 3, 4718-28)
is answered by a shot through the prison's wrought-iron door and Posa's death. Part of
the tragedy is that neither Posa nor Carlos know that the King, to the awestruck horror of
his courtiers, did weep -- but at the discovery of the Knight's betrayal of himself. (IV,
23).
*
*
*
At the start of act IV, the last act of Mozart's opera, to be mostly compared with
act V, the last act of Schiller's dramatic poem, Barbarina, the gardener's daughter, in love
with Cherubino, but here on an errand for the Count, laments the loss of the pin that had
sealed Susanna's letter (IV, 23). In confirmation of the rendezvous, later that night, the
seal was supposed to be returned to the letter writer. Sung in f minor, the darkest key in
the opera, and the only other minor besides the Count's a minor, at the start of act III, the
opening of the opera's second half, the little girl's "I've lost it..." bewails more than the
loss of that unfortunate pin. Echoing the Countess's earlier "Where are the beautiful
moments ... " (III, 19) Barbarina's sobbing "ah, who knows where it might be" is set in
mock tragic style. Compared to the tragic loss Marquis Posa and Don Carlos mourn, this
is, at best, tragicomedy. Figaro, coming upon the scene with Marcellina and being told of
the Count's commission, quickly finds a pin in Marcellina's bonnet and sends the girl on
her way. His reaction to the disturbing news: "Mother -- I am dead .. .I am dead, I say"
(rec. p. 342) not only sounds like a comical take-off on Marquis Posa's death, but also
like a re-enactment of the scene between Achilleus and Thetis, in book I of Homer's Iliad
(I, 348 ff.). Outdoing Achilleus, who complains to his mother about Agamemnon having
taken his girl, Figaro is angered with Susanna as well as with the Count. In Bartolo's
phrase, from his earlier revenge aria (I, 4), Marcellina's "the case is serious" (p. 342)
22
�advises Figaro of his right to be on his guard and entertain suspicions, but no more. Her
use of" a right", recalling the Count's "right of the first night" to be acted on presently
with Susanna, has an ominous ring in this opera. Yet, the fact that Bartolo's aria, in D
Major, was in its overall key as well, suggests caution in taking the theme of revenge too
narrowly.
A late repercussion of Beaumarchais's play, Marcellina's aria in act IV, defending
Susanna against Figaro's suspicions, pits the free and easy lovemaking of animals against
the cruelty of men (IV, 24). A revision of her cat fight duet with Susanna, in A Major,
five numbers from the beginning of the opera, this aria, in G Major, five numbers from its
end, not only makes G Major, the opera's key of marriage, triumph over A Major, its key
of selfish passion, but also adds a human touch by letting Marcellina express her feelings
in coloraturas reminiscent of Handel, the style in vogue when she was young. Her
insistent rhyme between "liberty", for the animals, and "cruelty", for men, whether true to
life or not, hints at the tragedy hidden behind the comedy.
Unaware of the women's change of plan, from Cherubino to the Countess,
dressed-up as Susanna, to go to the rendezvous with the Count, Figaro swears to take
revenge for all husbands (I, 26 cf. p.343). With an aria in E-flat Major, the opera's key of
unhappy love, and the call of horns in the background, the newly-wed husband rails
against the heartlessness of women.
As if to give the lie to this tirade, Susanna, in F Major, the opera's key of standing
one's ground, sings a beautiful aria about her expectation of the fulfillment of love.
Unlike Princess Eboli who, after her theft of letters from the Queen, and her affair with
the King, had been punished with exile to a nunnery, Susanna, after writing a letter
together with the Countess, changing clothes with her, and fooling the Count about
agreeing to a rendezvous, revels in the loveliness of the evening (IV, 27). Reminiscent of
Cherubino's first song (I, 6), his heart aflutter for all women, and speaking of his love not
only to nature, but also to himself, Susanna's aria, describing the romantic resonance
23
�between herself and the balmy night, more maturely, is meant for but one beloved. Even
so, I suspect that her words have more to do with her own feelings than with Figaro.
*
*
*
In his devastation over the betrayal of Marquis Posa, the one man from whom he
expected truth (V, 9), the King is further crushed by his son's confession that he and Posa
were friends, nay brothers: "Yes, Sire, we two were brothers, brothers by I A nobler bond
than nature's crafting" (V, 4, 4791-2). Taunting Philipp with his paltry attempt at
friendship with a man in love with the whole of mankind, Carlos exclaims:
Oh no -- that was no man for you!
That he himself knew well, when he
Rejected you with all your crowns.
This finely stringed lyre broke
Within your iron hand. You could
Do naught but murder him (V, 4, 4816-20).
With a deeper understanding of Posa's character than Carlos could fathom, Philipp's
disappointed love turns to savage hatred: "Let him have died a fool. And let his fall I
Bring down his century with his friend ... I He sacrificed me to his idol, mankind, I Let
mankind, therefore, pay for him" (V, 9, 5075 - 86).
No match for these dark scenes with the King, in act V of Schiller's Don Carlos,
the Count's flare-up of temper, vowing to be revenged on Figaro for upstaging him in a
conquest of love, lies as far back as the early scenes in act III of Mozart's The Marriage
of Figaro (III, 17). In keeping with tragedy, Schiller's play, towards the end, turns darker
and darker, in keeping with comedy, Mozart's opera lighter and lighter.
A farcical counterpart to Domingo, the King's confessor, present at every turn of
the dramatic action, Basilio, the meddling priest, masquerading as music master at the
castle of Count Alma viva, finally gets to confide his own personal Credo (IV, 25).
Rather unmusical, with plain quarter notes stalking all over the place, and cheap sound
24
�effects thrown in here and there, his aria, no surprise, is in B-flat Major, the opera's key
of intrigue. Created in the image of Mozart's learned librettist, Basilio recounts a
dantesque scene, where Lady Flemma, his Muse (alias Vergil) presented him with the
smelly hide of a donkey to ward off the vicissitudes of life, be they stormy weather to
hide from, or wild beasts to repel with the nasty cover. That cover I take to be Basilio's
clerical garb.
Emerging from the cover of Domingo, the Grand Inquisitor, at the end of
Schiller's Don Carlos, asserts his authority (V, 10-11 ). A perverted form of Teiresias, the
blind prophet in Sophocles's Antigone (Berns, "Idealism us'', 71-2; "Idealism", 51-2), who
urges Kreon to restore the dead to the dead and the living to the living, the Grand
Inquisitor demands the dead to be called back to the living and the living to be
surrendered to the dead. In his outrage over the murder of Marquis Posa, a sacrifice to
mere passion rather than the greater glory of the church, the Grand Inquisitor condemns
Philipp's illicit involvement with this heretic. The reason behind the summons of the
Grand Inquisitor had been the King's indecision whether to let Carlos escape or have him
die. His question: "Can you create for me a new religion I That would defend the bloody
murder of a child?" (V, 10, 5265-6) the old priest silences with: "To expiate eternal
justice I The son of God died at the cross" (V, 10, 5267-8). Philipp's retort: "I outrage I
Nature -- this mighty voice as well I You want to stifle?" elicits only: "Before the faith I
No voice of nature counts" (V, 10, 5270-4). The King's final: "He is my only son - for
whom I Pray, have I gathered?" meets with the Grand Inquisitor's inhuman: "For
moldering decay rather than I Freedom" (V, 10, 5276-8).
In order to facilitate his escape, the Queen had asked Carlos for a final farewell, in
which she could impart Marquis Posa's legacy to him. Midnight approaching, he _
was
supposed to come in the mask and monk's attire of Charles V, whose ghost the guards
had seen more than once and let pass reverently (V, 6; 9). As if in keeping with his
earlier notion of political life as a masked ball, the masks of conventional inequality
25
�belying the natural equality of the faces hidden beneath (I, 9), Carlos had agreed to play
this role chosen for him by the Queen. Their meeting, holding each other in a solemn
embrace, comes to a close with the Prince reaching for his i:nask. In the background,
without their notice, the King, together with the Grand Inquisitor and some of the
courtiers, had entered the dark room. The Prince's: "I go to challenge Philipp I To open
combat... I Let this have been my last I Deceit" is answered by Philipp's: "It is your last!"
and the Queen's dead faint in Carlos's arms (V, 11, 5361-6). The play ends with the
King's (coldly and quietly to the Grand Inquisitor): "Cardinal! I've done my part. Do
you do yours".
*
*
*
Even though both works start early in the morning and end late at night, Schiller's
Don Carlos starts in a garden and ends in a closed room, Mozart's The Marriage of
Figaro starts in a closed room and ends in a garden. Beginning and ending in D Major,
the key of revenge, but also the overall key of the opera, the Finale of act IV is, at the
same time, the Finale of the work as a whole (IV, 28). With a symmetrical sequence of D
Major, G Major, E-flat Major, B-flat Major, G Major, D Major, yet with the middle
apparently disturbed, the Finale of act IV, gives us a panoramic review of the opera. Two
by two, its major characters pass before our eyes, with the others hidden in the shadows
of the garden, ready to emerge at more or less opportune moments.
Instead of Don Carlos, asking Princess Eboli for access to the Queen, and, in the
r
process, being arrested by Marquis Posa (IV, 15-16), Cherubino, on his way to Ba_barina,
stumbles in on Susanna, or so he thinks, sitting in the evening breeze under the pine trees,
as agreed upon in the famous rendezvous letter. The lady sitting there is, of course, the
Countess, dressed up as Susanna. Unlike Don Carlos who, at the end, appears in the
mask of Charles V, the historical exponent of the Holy Roman Empire, Cherubino, at the
26
�end, is himself again. Even when dressed up as a girl, at various points in the opera (II,
12; III, 21 ), it was never his face that was disguised. Deathly afraid that the Count would
find her in this compromising situation and still tum the co!11edy, in Beaumarchais's
words, into" a rather bloody tragedy", the Countess tries to repel the amorous advances of
the young page who, taking her for Susanna, complains: "And why can I not do what the
Count, shortly, will do with you?" (p. 384). In hilarious, multiple confusion, the kiss
meant for Susanna, is intercepted by the Count showing up at this moment, the slap in the
face to pay for it, by Figaro, sticking his head in to see what is going on. Different from
the tragic consequences of Princess Eboli stepping in for the Queen, or Marquis Posa for
Don Carlos, the Countess, stepping in for Susanna, or Figaro for Cherubino, has
uncomfortable, but never more than comic consequences.
Changing from D Major, the overall key of the opera, to G Major, its key of
marriage, the dalliance between the Count and the Countess, the husband taking his
wife's soft skin for that of her chambermaid and meaning to further his affair by slipping
a diamond ring on her finger, is more heartrending than apparent to either eye or ear.
With a drastic switch from G Major to E-flat Major, the opera's key of unhappy
love, the scene turns to Figaro musing on his role of the new Vulcan of the century, lying
in wait to catch Venus and Mars in his net. Coming upon Susanna, dressed up as the
Countess, he means to lead her to the compromising scene as well. Doing better than the
Count, with his wife's soft skin, Figaro catches on to Susanna's voice, but, for the fun of
it, takes advantage of the dark and proceeds to court his lady. After a sally of slaps in the
face from Susanna's hand, and his confession of having recognized her voice, their E-flat
Major, happily, but still cautiously, slips into B-flat Major. As if in answer to the Count's
earlier: "What is this comedy?", meaning Figaro's appearance with the musicians to play
for the wedding (I, 8, p. 100), the young couple, expressing their newly won delight in
each other, finish with a frolicking "Let's put an end to this comedy, my darling" (p. 411).
For the last time returning from B-flat Major to G Major, Figaro's act of
27
�shamelessly courting the Countess is stopped in its track by the irate Count. Deaf to the
entreaty of the whole cast, emerging from the bushes, he, with a dozen savage "No"s,
bluntly refuses any pardon for Figaro. More genuinely thai:i in the Finale of act II, the
Count is brought to his knees by the quiet voice of the Countess, once more speaking in
her own person. His plea for forgiveness, with an unstable rising 6th, from
'5' to .~
followed by an even more unstable rising 7th, from S'to ~is answered by her stable
I\
A
rising fifth, from 1 to 5, which, even more stable for being sung twice, comes to a
cadence on words reminiscent of the marriage vow.
Compared to Schiller's Don Carlos, where the only moment of forgiveness,
Philipp's pardon for Medina Sidonia, the admiral returning from the loss of the armada, is
tucked away in the very center of the dramatic poem (III, 7), Mozart's The Marriage of
Figaro, from act to act, presents us with more and more genuine forms of it. A touching
reminder of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Cherubino, cursed by the Count as "little
serpent" (p. 96), but made fun of by Basilio as "little cherub of love" (p. 79), in the end, is
openly paired with Barbarina, the little girl who wanted him for a husband, and in return
for the favor, promised the Count to love him like her kitten (III, 21, rec.). In contrast to
the close of Schiller's Don Carlos, with the Queen in the arms of Don Carlos, in a dead
faint, and the King collaborating with the Grand Inquisitor, all the characters in Mozart's
The Marriage ofFigaro, except for Basilio, by the Finale, are paired more or less
happily. Basilio, a far cry from Domingo, grown to monstrous height in the figure of the
Grand Inquisitor, at the end of the opera, simply has melted into the crowd. Count and
Countess reunited, at least for now, the confusion felt by everyone gives way to a
sublimely beautiful chorus of universal contentment.
Very different from the last scene of Schiller's Don Carlos, where the icy silence,
surrounding the Grand Inquisitor, fills the dark room more and more with horror, the last
scene of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro erupts into a happy rush of revelers, off to a
grand feast, the fireworks in the background lighting up the night over the dark garden.
28
�A moment of suspense, the transition between the solemn G Major of the Count and
Countess's reunion and the exuberant D Major of the happy crowd at the end, once more
reminds us of the pain lived through to reach this point.
W~th
a halting descent,
pianissimo and in unison, except for the flute and the oboe, hovering above, a dominant
7th chord on A, over the words "this day", lands us in d minor instead of D Major. A
scream of dissonances, however fleeting, an inverted 9th chord on G-sharp, the seventh
degree of A, highlights the grammatical link "of' in "this day a/torments, of caprices,
and of madness", expressed again in a tensed minor. The completion of the sentence:
"only love can end in happiness and joy" finally allows for the transition from the darker
d minor to the brighter D Major.
Like the effect of a Deus ex machina, in Greek tragedy, forcing a solution to
unsolvable human predicaments, this transition makes for the happy ending, but does not
do away with the painful personal and political problems of the opera. A skeptical
reminder of the contrary to fact condition in Schiller's: "If comedy ever were to reach its
goal, it would make all tragedy superfluous and impossible," the all-too-happy rush from
the dark garden to the lit up castle, musically expressed in hurtling towards a cadence,
has a hollow ring to it. Knowing full well that "his whole being" was set on "writing
tragedies", Schiller himself (with the possible exception of Wallenstein's Camp) never
wrote a comedy. More in tune with Socrates's notion, at the end of Plato's Symposium,
that a poet of tragedies should be able to write comedies as well, Mozart, in this comic
opera, subtitled "The Mad Day", lets the serious shine through the ludicrous, and thus
creates a sublime version of that rare marriage between tragedy and comedy.
A lecture (with music) delivered September 17, 2004 at St. John's College, Annapolis,
Maryland.
29
�REFERENCES
Schiller, Friedrich. 1974 5 . Samtliche Werke, ed. Gerhard Fricke und Herbert G. Gopfert,
Hanser, Milnchen.
_ _ _ .Don Carlos, Vol. II, pp. 7'.'"219.
_ _ _ . Briefe iiber "Don Carlos", Vol. II, pp. 225-67.
____ . Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, Vol. V, pp. 694-780.
Schiller, Friedrich. 1976. Don Carlos, Erlauterungen und Dokumente, ed. Karl
Pornbacher, Reclam, Stuttgart.
Schiller. 1998. Five Plays, translation by Robert David MacDonald, absolute classics,
London.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. 1979. The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) in Full
Score, Dover, New York.
Beaumarchais. 1977. Le Mariage de Figaro, ed. Pol Gaillard, Bordas, Paris.
Heine, Heinrich. Die romantische Schule (1833), in Samtliche Werke, Vol. VII, Hesse,
Leipzig.
(Unless otherwise noted, translations are my own.)
30
�Berns, Gisela N. 1985. Greek Antiquity in Schiller's "Wallenstein", Studies in the
Germanic Languagers and Literatures, Vol. 104, Universitv of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill.
- - - -. 1990. "Moderner und antiker 'Idealismus': Schiller's Don Carlos und
Sophokles' Antigone", in Zeitschrift far deutsche Philologie, Vol. 109,
Sonderheft: "Schiller Aspekte neuerer Forschung", ed. Norbert Oeller, pp.
41-76. (An earlier English version: '"Idealism'; Ancient and Modem:
Sophocles' Antigone and Schiller's Don Carlos", in The St. John's Review,
Vol. 39, Number 3 (1989-90), pp. 51-9.
Jamison Allenbrook, Wye. 1983. Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro and
Don Giovanni, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 71-94.
Farrand, Max, ed. 1966. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. II, Yale
University Press, New Haven.
Kammen, Michael, ed. 1986. The Origins of the American Constitution, A Documentary
History, Penguin, New York.
Morris, Richard B. 1985. Witnesses at the Creation: Hamilton, Madison, Jay and the
Constitution, New American Library, New York.
Seidlin, Oskar. 1960. "Schiller, Poet of Politics'', in A Schiller Symposium, ed. Leslie
Willson, University of Texas, Austin, pp. 31-48.
31
�NOTES
For the deepest commentary on Don Carlos see Schiller, Briefe iiber Don Carlos, and
Oskar Seidlin, "Schiller Poet of Politics".
For a beautiful, comprehensive study of Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro, see Wye
JamisonAllanbrook.
32
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Towards "a new birth of freedom" - Tragedy and comedy, 1786 Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's The marriage of Figaro.
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 17, 2004 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Berns, Gisela N.
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2004-09-17
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Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805. Don Carlos
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791. Nozze di Figaro.
Tragedy
Comedy
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Berns, Gisela N.
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Time and nature in Lucretius' De rerum natura
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1974-03-08
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on March 8, 1974 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Bib # 10010
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Lucretius Carus, Titus. De rerum natura
Philosophy, Ancient
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Annapolis, MD
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sound
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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01:21:45
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Berns, Gisela N.
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Schiller's Drama: Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
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1982-02-26
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on February 26, 1982, by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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LEC_Berns_Gisela_1982-02-26_ac
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Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805--Criticism and interpretation
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Annapolis, MD
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English
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sound
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mp3
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<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1089">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
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PDF Text
Text
't'!MF. AMP NATURE
IN LlTCRET!US
1
"DE RERUM NATUR!\ 11
GiselA. B�rns ·
· St.
·r
John's ColJP�e
...
Annapolis,
MarylRn�
�Revised version of R lecture,
�1ven
at
March
1974.
St.
John's College,
Translations of the Latin quotes
appended
at
the end.
�1
I:
In bno'k one of •n�
a.
niscnssion or
.
'T'hemP.
r e ru m
.
n.'l tnr::t" , · 1 n th� context of
thin.rr:�, Lucre-
properti�s ann accinents of
tius �ef1 nes time as a�ciitent
of
motion ( 1., IJ,t;Q-82):
tempus item pe:r- se non est,
serl rebus ah fpt=;iS
con'3equitnr sP.nsus, transactum qntd s1. t in n0vo,
tnm qu�e res 1..nstet, quid porro deind� sequrttur;
nee ner se quAmquam temptl's sentir� f'at�ndumst
��r.1otum ab rernm motu placid::1que qulete.
{1, 459-63)
'rh� ttoro distinguishable aspects of time are:
net'cn,�nce on motion a'ld rest of
thin�s, aml
�P.n'"'n�ence on human perception.
Epicurus
fh I
�, u G �
w
.
S
,
.a
A
han {1e fi nfht time as
s/s K«-T�7:e1·r:ll<-?.
::tn:v
mot.ion"2.
"�n'1�1t�" f.ln.d
as
·�
J
1) its
2)
. �c<.'ll"z;"o(. 6'c...dll(.
I
tn t.ucretius• df"fi.n1t.ton,
1. ts
in his l'TOrl{
cert::tin mea!-':!lrinf""
.1
I
rLS
.
·
.
Tte�
I
I
l.(.tv·"t�·f.l-()5 ""'
n�rc�rtton of
.
hm-mv0r,
l•rh�rn
"s�ntire"• l'ther� "fe�l:tnr:.. "ta.'kes·the place of
,
or
11 a c�rtnt�
1m11� tl;rr-P. t�rm�:
"tf'":'mnnG11, •aetnl=l", 118.P,rum", 1V"'0M to lJr
.
1Yl �t��h n Nrty t:hat 11tP.mpuR" t1enot0� th .... r.ost Flht::t:"'JC:t,
11RP'VI�m11 t'l-10 mo�t concr�t.; !'l�pe�t of ti.11e, while· "nt=-t.""r;" �rw('rs
r- ..1th, !ll,rd:rnct arid concrete mc1ni n.n;.
n ... .... f'l
?p�n. H�rc. 1413, Pr. 55, A. BA'PI('-.\'?.7,1, eel. and. c0rnm. , T1
concPtto del tempo nella fisj ca r1tom:t�t icll, Epimn ,.n. i.n !!!P.M.
..
u. T>11'1'V')()'m�, Genova, 1959, 25-59, p.
JR.
��t')mp'1�t.l�! tn
r.t')mmntnt
(l�(�):
l1l1f"' Of h001{ r1Vf"'
A.
t.r.mrortl
rot:"
rum�" "t�un
"�tc ,T01V�l1'h. 'lr>t�.R
roll tn� t imP. rh'ln.r-:r:r: thr> t 1 m"!1
· n r ·:th1Yif':�."
Tn th�
·
1)
thr:-�"
P.r.tm.sr, two
of thi.s
<1our��
·
r,p�ce,
t1.m�
of time, ·h�bmrm
'
afl motion and.
for
common .r:rourH1
·Lncret inA 1
-
\•- .
-�
�
�nd thC' phi l.o.r.:o
...,
The
Aef!m�
.
·'
their youth,
.
.
be
transformed
bP.h·u�en sp:r:ttially extenncd
phor1cA.11y as spnce of time
as sp.-"l.ce,
1;.
of time
"-
,.,
.. .
·"·
depf')rHi.ence
to
'
..
A
.
of time
their mn.turity and
on bottle:=:
1 nto
a
tn motion
corre!1ponot:mce
motion a.nd tim0. 1 expressed. meta(cf.
w�th
6, JOO-J; 11 326-?).
most p.'lra
doxlclllly from the 't>�holc of time t o the point of time,
th11r: mtrrorr; thr'l �urn
of thinr;£ 1
Th(>.
mere_ qm1ntitative meani:n�,
a
·l"Fll1f':E'!!l from infinitely r;reat to infinitely :-::mall,
r:nm(>.,
1� thP.
in mnn.ller or 1:-trr;l')r nmo1mts of t l rr.r:-,
or.thinr;s hi:\ve-their times,
space
l-Jhn.t
2)
spn.ce rnnl"('r. from .r:rm�rfil
A.s
;.
...
0
thro1ir:h
ar;
from quantitative to qualitative mnrm\n�:
th1 nt:1'r.: h'O'!pp(-)n in time,
th�ir old F.l'(e.
And
timP.
!lccirt.ent of motion?3
f!s
of t 1me
accm\nt
A.niJ
to p'1T't1cu1A.r,.
force?
time ns
this poetic v1.el'r of timP.
nh1. en) .rtofini tion or 1 t
notion
1.n 'th� conncct1 on hetw��m
Nha.t
thra� . d1f.ferent"mP.t:'lphors
�
r�lntPd -quf'stlonr.: Nil.J.
.
nhl?YS
th�
same
nnd not
and.
th0
1..nf1.n1.te mnttcr .1nfin1.tely in motion throutr,h i'nf1 n1tc
JTi'or
a moT'e extensive study of the eptcurean <1oncept of time,
my Diss., G. NECK, Das Problem n11r Zeit im Epikuretsmus,
Heinelber�, 1 964, ch. 1, �eitbe��iff. pp._ 14-?4.
r.f.
·
�J
��
r:natHL.
n
Time
as
Gpnee-,
is mor:tly conr.�1.vr!d 1r1tth
how�ver,
q1inltt�t1.ve n.r; well as qnn'rltitative mcan1n�.
only hapr.>en in time, in
smaller or lnrr:er nmmmts
t.h�'>Y n.lso hAve theiJ;" times,.their
and th�lr
old a�c.
The
youth,
not
of timn,
their maturity
most strlkin� example
is th(' account of the birth
for
this u�ar:e
'
(2, 1105-6), p-rowth (2, 110.5-30,
1120-1, 1123, 112?), maturity (2, 1130), decay (2, 1131-
esp.
71�, esp.
l�)
Th1nr:n
11'31-?,
of our worl�;
nl'3.tnro;..
If
\'7e
111�5), and death
at the end.
or the
(2, 1.1.50, 1166, 11()9, 11?2second book of
.•ne
rerum
keep in mind that time had been defined ns
accident. of motiot:L and that,
in the expression space of timr-:,
1 t hA(1. be en substituted metaphortcally for the spnco measured
th:roup;}1 by .m ot ion ,
..
.
tative .. meanin�
lienee
ann
.
. .
the coincidence of quantitative and qua1i-
of time has to be understood a s
between·a phase in
th e
but now
.
'"
.
-r :•
this
pha�e of the motion,
expresse� as phase of the movlnr;
accin.ent time for
the
p
corres on-
the mot i on of a body through space,
space of time,depending on
The safeguardin�
a
•
condition
body
for this
in motion :l.s
body
itself.
suhs.t1tut1on of the
the
occurrence
of'
.
�In thA eni curenn 1.mder-standinr; of tnfini te matt�r infini.tely
in motion throup:h inf i nit e spacA, t.tme, be1.nr; an act:!id.0l'Jt of
motion, 1s ::tlso inf1nit�.
The p."lrarlox 11t.rhole of t ime" han to
hA tF.�1u�n as a con���ston to man • s d e s i re to compreh�nd the
object of his thoua;ht and �peAch (cf. my Diss., op. cit.,
pp� 17-lJ.O; for the t h n m e of infinity in all 1 ts differ-ent
.'l.�n�cts '\ cf. R. 1-TONDOT...FO,. I�' 1.nfini to n8l pensiP.rO dell 1
nnt:ich1tA. clnssic:::t, Fi.rem>:e 1956).
The other Jk'lradox "point
nf. t:l ml'.'11 has to n.o with the connection of continuity and
infinitP. divisibility of time (cf. my Diss., op. cit.,
pp. 10-20, 39-L�O; cf. J. MAtT, Zum Problem des InfinitesimaL"'n
bel den antiken Atomlsten, Berlin 19.54).
l
�4
mot J.on
lnN�:
1n accorflnncP 1'11. th fi x:eo
rloceo rHct1.s, '1.i.tn quRequ0 cre_.'lta.
1'n0'l0l"f:' �tnt., 1.n eo qun.m �it nul"rll"A :n���ssnm
nee vnlidnn alennt aevi·rccctnltct"c le_n;0n.
v
(5� 56-A,
'rh�se 1m'1s,
th0 1:1t'1S Of time,
of
determine
lie of a body
f
phases, within
phnSP.S
the
in moion.t
bony, at
motion
example
time a.ppen.rs most
The perception of differ
natl.Jrally
where
o the
t
in connection l'TJ.th
,qt .times the hoavenly
other times the time d.etermineit -by it, is seen in
(�,
692;
1,
31 1 ;
.5t 1183-.5).
::�b�ms from the account of
orce:
f
11sic
The.other most striking
man
nnd combines all three m(,'!taphors of
1 s·
c u l t :ura. l development,
t ime,
time as space,
volvend.a a e tas commutat tempera rermn,"
rolling time changes the times of thinGs�
The naturn.l or cnltur,:1l
1)
thr�o aspects:
change of things
the different
the
nynnmic
be t;r-1-spcd
cau_o;ht,
A.r:
"rollin,:, time,"
in
the nature of
tiMe,
and J)
of the development
phases
t h ings ,
is
cause of
as
different phnscs
1'volvendn n�tas, 11
chanr;e,
inherent
times
of
things."
in
inthc metaphor force
reco!VliZerl,
as 11volv(mda af!tas commuta.t tempera rcrttm,"
time chan,n;es the
the meta-
-"tlr.-tcs of thinr:s,"
motion of time,
the
•
1172
tn
of the succession of
the metaphor
ts
''thu�
2,
can
"tempora. rerum," ets
character
motton
(5, 1276; cf.
determined quantitativoly and qualitatively by
phor spaceof t me 'as
i
?.)
sp.,.ces
to time a.s not only space for motion,·
he motiOVl. of heavenly bOdies,
t
are
d 1. fferent
Also motion it se l f .
Motion of
R:nn.
Of
r:ometimes
lietie of a movinrr body,· leads
f
m
he
t
s�?.nond metaphor or t:\me,
but
the
of natur0,
2,302)
time, \'lhich·quantitatively and qualitatively dintinr;uishnhle
mnke up the
ent
called the laws
soetieFl
m
m
cf.
as
''
of
rollinr;
This me ns that the Nhole
a
�5
. phcnomP.non chiln.oop,
hoin�,
nnn
�tme
irt 1. ts
�rrnct,
��
mirrored
is
f or c e
thrPo n spccts:
as
ti�e.
to bo th� one metnphor most
sncms
from the epicurean understanding of time
Tt., nevertheless,
Lucretius'
"Ne
then 11time,
,
utterly destroys,
sir;ht"
( 1, 225).
first,
from
that
shows
a1..ray,
caused
as it l'lere,
as ar;e td thdraNs them from our
(2,69�70} a:nd "if time
q·notes
Chant:,e appears to be
pe�ceive all th1.nr,s flat�
it takes
accidr-mt of motion.
inherent in thln.rr.s and c.'J.used hy the force o�
lnn� lRnse of time,
a�e,
As
remote
the one which occurs most frequently in
"De rerum natura."
both by forces
time:
is
mone of
�aur:n,
11a�e,
in
seems
to effect
throup.;h a.�e"
•
in the
st{';ht"
whatsoever, throut;h
The con)parison of th� two
the
lon� lapse
chanrr,e
of t ime11 ,
in thin:';s.
'f'hP space of tirrie wh ich has to be measured throw;h by thir.r;s
subject to
chan�e is �onceived as having chAnging influence on
them:
omnta enim debet, mortal! corpore quaA sunt,
tnflnita aetas consumpse ante acta dicsque.
quon si in eo �patio atque ante a�ta netate fuere
e qutbus haec rerum consistit.snmma refectn,
1.mrnortali sunt n atu ra praedita certe.
(1, 2J2-6; cf.
551-64)
This po�erful influerice, �ometimes called "the forces of
rneA.s1a"eless time"
( 5, 377-9),
irnnf-l�t on thin�s,
as
also as R. particular
time as
"ante
force of time,
to
ls
not only seen as a r;enerc:tl
11infinita aetas,"
as
impact,
in successive
,.;raspable
"infinite time,"
acta dies,''" as "the r;one by da:,r.
11
but
moments of
The destructive
appears t o be so st ron � that th in �s are imagi neo
suffer under· the "torments o f ·time":
Denique non lapides quoque vincl cernis ab aevo,
non altas turris ruere et put e j cer e saxa,
r
�OP.lHhl":t nP.Hm �imu}:l.Cl":lf}ll�- fA:=:8:::t fntj :1Ci
nrotollP.l"e firiis
por-:t-:e nnqu0 a(lverims natur.'lP. foeclP.l".'l· nit1?
c'l0'111.Clu,.. non monimenta virum rliln:rsa. vi<icmu�,
(quaerP.re pronorro, s ihi cumque scnescere credas,
non ruere avolr,o� silices a montibus altis
nee va.l ioas aevi v ires perferre p!l t iq1te
fini ti ?
ncqw:- enim cn.d.erent avolsa repente,
ex inf1n1to quae tempore pertolerassent
omnia tormenta aeta.tis, privata fra�ore.
.
.
- nrm
._
�Ac sRnctum numen fati
:
)
( 5, )06•17)
l'f'lhe force. of rollinp.;- time chang1rp::· the. times of thinp;s .
( _t;, 1 ?7i1)
is
finRlly spoken -of as chan�inp; the nature of
the WOl"lC'l:
1"111tnt . en1.rn munni nc'lt1.1ram tot ius aetas .•
ex nliC''lH� nl.ius status exci.pore 0mni11 c'l.eb0t
omnir-t mi�rant,
nee ma-n c t nlla sui sim\.lis rAs:
omnln commut::tt natura 8t vertere �Or,'it.
n�mque a1iun. rmtrcsc it et n evo nobile lal'l,cr,net,
norro al1un (sue) crescit et (P.) contempti�'o exit.
�tc lt";'i tur muncH naturam tot ius n.et�s
mut � t , et ex aliO terrnm s tatu s CXCipit altAr,
quod potu it nequeat, posstt quod non tulit nntc.
(5, 82A-36)
II:
In
· · ·· .
order to
1)
Devel opment
clarify the con·nection beb1een the
thr�e different metaphors. of time'
ann
discover tht� �om
2)
mon r:round for the poetic view of time and the philosophinnl
�efinition of it ,
we will have to consider the relation of
t ime to nature , the key · te rm in Lucr et i us
'
"De
rerum
natura."
Inextricably connected with change of thin�s,
ti�� .1n motion of time throur:h·
s
lite
or
a_p;ainst n.nture
( 2,
space
297-307;
of thin.�;s, whether �rm.,.th or decay,
both:
t i me and nature:
.•
force of
of time cannot act out
cf.
5, )06-10).
- ·
occurs under the
Chanr:e
laws
of
�7
rloc�o diet i n, quo '1Ut'li1C1U0 cre�.tn
sint, in eo qunm sit r h r rr.t re n�n/3ssum
nee val1das valeant nevi rescindere lP.�en.
foec
h'!rA
·
(5, 56-8; cf. 2, )02)
Hhnt.rloes it mean to speak of time, ch�n�in� the nrltur� of
the
whole world.,
of time,
chanp:inp:
:8ptcurus,
anct to
.
1-torld
of nature,
darinr; to rr,o heyond
break open
to be, what
c om e
thinr:s,
all
t.he nature of the whole world
(1, l,f..-77), cttme h::tck
Crln
�lterinr:,
the·
t ir;ht
locks of the r;n. t e n
out of
bei.nr:,
of
victoriously Nith th� kno'tiTlP.nr:e of
cannot,
.
finally how each thine has
totality of be in� and non-beinc.;,
f';'Oinr;
(5, 828-36)?
the flam inc; Nails of the
.
pm1er c:lefined and. it s deep-set boundary mnrk."
.the
n..rr:.�in,
and,
rm.tur-e
11\•rhn.t
it::::
�ratnr�,5 ns
of comin� into bein�,
is matter in motion throur;h SIJc'lCe
21), which hrinr.; s forth hirth ann death
( 1, hl9-·
of thin,o;s: .. .
Nnn� nr,-e 1 quo motu ,cr,enitalia m:1teriaL
corporA. r�r: vt:t.roiaf: P:1 ,ry.ant: f:eni tnr:qne resol vnnt
0t f111:1. vi facerc id �op:anh1r
r.tt ol_l i s
r���ibi mobilitFt� map.-nnn per in::l'Y'\h rrten.nd1. •
PX'f'Ptliam:
tu te nJr.t1.r: prn.ehr.rp mP.m""nto.
n::tm r.r>rte non 1nt�r :1e �t l rn.tn r.0hn�1"et
T:'l."'lh')riP.s, q110n1Am mlnnt rP.m q,,·:rnq'lf" v1t1P.mns 1
f't. f11Jfi.Rl lonr:inqvo fln�r"' OIT!nir-1 CP.rni!T!\1� n.r>vo
P.X
CUlisquf' Vetl.lStr-ttP.!Tl �ubti,_lCPT'e Tl0'itr1.� 1
r.nrr t��P.'Y'\ 1.ncolumts vtt10.atur spmmn. mn,,er0
l"):r-')nt,.,.,..oa qn 1.8, quae �.ecedunt cor1)or� en jrpH� 1
,, ..... ,c r�.br.nnt Mi nnnnt, ·CP.l,., veY!er� :111ro:n:l TIP t'!onn�t.
11.1.., ��:rv��f'.�rP J A.t
fl1'1rf'C'f'cn.,.,. co�mt,
,.,�r. l"P'110rnntur ibi.
slc r e rn M �nnm�. novntm-
quilf'qur>
O
haP� co'Yltrn
1 ntPr �e m0rt<=�.les Mlltn:=� \·i.vFnt.
i. r�.e ��ntes, n 1 iae m1 n'.ll1Yl b.J r •
j "11jll0 hrovi. rmnt io mutnntur s��cl.n a rd. nnntl :rr:
,..t 111l�.st cnrsores vita.P. 1c=tmpnnn. tr::�r'!,1r1t-..
.
�..-�mn,.,,..,
"�
et
, , r�P :-:c11n t
a1
(?, �?-70)
0n
t"lc hn.�is of thls creattve. . and n.ostructive form�,
.
�nd
nr:1t11r0.
('P0"' n �"'0mn.,..,...henr:i.vP. stuny of the 00!1C'f'nt nf ,,...,t:n:rn. 111
V1��nt.i11!i 1 "D') rcrnm nn.t.J,r-r-�:,11 �f. Y . • sllj,L'!"'/'.�PT, St-.�1dirm ::":1Jr.1
nl-. � 1 1'1ronh l �r.h�n N� tnrhen-,:ri ff der P.grner- rni t hC!r>onderr.r
I>
h
�
Pf."!T"l�lrr:i.chtlr:un� (ler, T.ukrez, Archiv fur Re�ifff1f;€'!SchichtP.,
7, 1Q(?, 140-284
�H
thi�
llf..
..
1mr:rr t:>��'ion m L n;h t he,
of tho truth
thnt, nn.tltrr- only expl io:ttcs th0 hi flo on oh�rr-:��
t0r'i�ttr.� of mAtter.
hnNe,r'"'r,
Lucr�tiw� nev0r tire� of rr:-m1rHnn.•--:
tn rl�fin.i te
or "n:"lrt� f'l.�blr'�e,"
··Matter in m ot inn thl"Ollrrh �p1r.�
wnys
"p::tcts
of
r,rooNth
llnr'l ·decay
t
a
resul f:s,
fact whi0h
or nf!.turc":
.I"J. U.'l !'r'onter quo nun� in motu r>rtn�i pi(lrum
onrpora ::;1_mt, in eodem ante a�tn aetntr· fuere
r--t nm:t hn.l"'c n0mper stmtli ration" fP'Y'rntur
pf: qn!:i� �onsuerint r:1r;n1 ..;ir;nenh1r er'!nf'm
r.onr'licione et erurtt et cret.:c.ent: vlr:tuo vGlohunt,
qnn.nt11m cuique datum est per focclera :nnturni.
( 2. 297-302)
't'hP. _pr"oblcmatic
w::ty"
and
t1,e
er
of expressions
"such .·things as have been wont
be bron.�ht
that·
c ha ra ct
to birth under
"honds of
experi.mentation of
nature"
likn
to
"in
a
come to
the same condition"
similar
being,
ind.icates,
will
hO\ITcver,
provid.e no More than a 'framework for
matter in
m ot i on . through spa.ce:
cert e neque consilio primordia rerum ,
oroine se r.uo quaequ� sa�n�i mente 1ocarunt
·
rH',� quos lJ..ltA.P.qne (darf:mt rnotvs pepir:ere profecto)
sP.d quia mnlta modis muJ.tts mutn.t<:!. pe� omne
�x i11fini to v�xa.ntur -perci ta plne;is,
onme C'l'enu.s JT!otus et coetus exncri11nd.o
tannem del.reniunt in tal:l.s c:UspositurR.f.:,
qualibus haec rerum consistit summa creatn,
et mn l t os etiam magnos servata per. :-:tnnor'lt F:0.mel in motus coniectast convl':'_ntf?ntls' J
.
effictt ut largis . avidum mare fluminis tmn 1 s. . .
.
(1, 102i- :n; of. 5,
nam
·
�·lhat
can
be
the
too faulty t o
criterion for
abl�
to
in a
"convenient mov�ments"
world
be crea ted. by r;ods (5, 1B7-2J4) and continually
P-nrrar:ed in a l'lar' between
r0neated
ln_6,1�2)
l ife and death
The
( 2, 569-80)?
example o� nat ure trying (5, 837-924), but
bei�� nn
cre at e monsters (1, 199-2QL�; -2, 700-29) suggests
"conVP-l"lient movements"
.
must mean stability of growth,
that
.
maturity
�9
n.n�
�r-�r1.y.
'•rhat.
The formuln for nn.tnro:
not,
c:::m
finR.11y how
ann
it� <'!cep.;..Get boundary
thf>
account of
"certain matter,"
1 nto be1 nr: and. n:oint';
214-).
out of
1s
�1ost. compactly. it
motus, ordo,
cnch thi nr: hns
mark''
positura,
position and shapes of
is explicaten ln
"certain times"
as
as
matter" (2,
realfty
min� uncovers
Olll"'
in
ve ·the
"meetinp:s,
1020-2;
cf.
1,
ordr=>r,
675-8}.
process
The
of rr;co(�-
our
Bf')nr.c-s
of motion and ref:t of thinr;s; · this rP.'1] i ty,
ntoms censr;J.ess1y
as
as deceptive appearance,
an� e�tahlishing the conditions
venien.t
·
motions,
simple stability:
The true res t however,
motion.
( 1, 159-
"materia! concursus,
orn0r of these terms follows the ord.er of tho
-ncr�ci
to bn,
responsible for thinr:s cominr.
stated
nition from complex mobility to
r.rmn
its pm-11er dnfinl"!d
(1, 75-7)
beinf: at
fi�;ttrae,"
cnn
11Nhnt
underlyin� that restlesGness
for the
achievement of
"con-
movements" is to be found in the "shBpe" of atoms.
That
"shape" of atoms bears special importanne for the ::nnture
of
thinp; can be
a
seen from 1 ts central
the hook about motion and rest:
motirm and. rest in
trc:1.tm0.nt
terms of
turn
p:ivcs Nay to
in atom�
body and minc'l
{ 2,
a
11
shape"
730-1361-J., 856-990).
of atoms
nyi:n.r;
1").-"J.l rs
(21
but noN not
(motion ann.
rme bP-in� "shape"
(2, 6?.-JJ?) leacln
( 2,
333-729),
Hhich
•
•
ln tei'ms of atoms,
COrro"'!SpOndil1[':
but,
in terms of compounds,
991-117L�)
a po::;iti·t,rc
The Fir.ale describes the ::urn
1 n the three main pa rt s Of the bOOl< 1
tothA Pl"'ooemium,
n nn
(2, 1-61),
ne.1;ative treatment of colour and fcclin/3'
of t'-lin,r,;r, in motion and rest,
rl.�.
After the Prooemi mn about
of motion and rest in termr: of a.to�s
over into the dJ r;cussion of
in
position in boo k t\.'10,
of
worlds bcin0 born
Thus, hool< hro s hol'l s
rest), gronped. around
•
of atoms,
a
one
a
syr:1mctry of
{rest):
the
the pairs b ei n� motion and r e s t
in
�10
terms of compounds b1.
ro�t:
th e
in terms
of atoms· in the first and_
The special importance of
book.
·nature
Prooemtuni nnd Ffria le,
birth
�escrintion of the
·
third
shape
of
of a thing is shown in a·quote
and mot.i.on :md
mr-:tin part::; of
ofatoms forth�
book five,
from thn
bur world:
of
�"d·nova temnost:1.s '}naedam mol�sque coorta.
d 1 ff,t("ere inde lo�i partes coepcre :nnr·esqun
'"�tlm nnri bus ·hmf""i r
'
e
s l":t cliscludere muYlnmn
mr.mhrnl']ue divldere
magna s disponerc pnrtes.
omnir;enis e.'prlncipiis, discordia qnorum
lntr.rvalla vias conc xu s poniiera. plap;as
r.oncursus ·motus
ia mfsc�ns
propter d.lssimilis formas varin�qne fir;urns,
quod non omnia sic· potcrant �onhmct�- rn::mere
nee motus inter sese dare convenir.ntiG, ...
-·
r:!f.
·
9t
·
tnrha.bat proel
·
(5, 4J6-h5;
.
Diffnrently from platonic or aristotelian
Nhr.rc shape
for-
.q,
< ELcfos
thin,;,
"mnt0:ri.a:t
ln
the
concur,,�,
>J/IX.
�
li ' (..
.·
J
Or
I
motui,
ordo;
The inquiry
of Lucretius•
shape ()�
or
a.ll the factor:-;,
positura, fic;urnc,"
their p.:'l.rt in determininr.; ·the appearance
III.
uiace thour,h,
mcn:r.c
f'-Oe 'f ?') )
cpiCUI'(!rtfl contPxt,
Lnt1-lt-2)
of
a
plny
thin�.
Recapitutation
into the· mean in�
"De rerum natura",
of
"nature,"
the key t��=r
aim�d at clarifying th� r0ln
tion of nature and time,
and consequently the relation of the
philosophtcR-1 definitlon.
and
the poetic
met11_phorn of tim0.
The relation of nature and time be com e s espe�ially poi�
n.'lnt
in a passar,e from book o:r: e, i>Thcre both con�epts, tim� and
nature,
are. coupled
into one: .
Postremo quae cumque dies naturaque rebus
paulatim tribuit moderatim crescere cogens,
�l1
ocu l o ru m a c i e r. c ont r:;n t a t u 0 r1. ,
porro qune . cumqn e a evo mA. c i equ 0 r; �;1 r:. s cunt ;
n e e , m:lre qu� e impend ent , v e r: c o s ::rl 0 saxa p� r c s a
qn :t t:l C'pl oqu e a m t t t:1nt i n tempore c crnc r c po s s i s ,
c orpor i bu s cne cis i r; i tur natur.:1 p;er i.t r e s .
( 1 , 322-8 ; c f . 628- )1�)
· m 1 l ln !)o t e c t
nee
·
·
If
ment ,
at
c on s i de r s ;
one
" �rhat ever
be,T, inn i n s and end of th i s
first ,
day and na t ur e adds
i s r � s tated in ·
11 by bod i e s
( cf . 2 , 127..;:B ;
129 ; · 132 -llH ) .
nat nrc "
r o rcc ,
t o t h i n ,n; s
.
Th€7 double forc c;
" natu re , 11
us
'' boi! i e s uns e en , '' · in ord e r t o effect
t i me ••. · and " thr ough
pre s en t s
" n a;r and
inr: the o t h e r
C hanr_�e of
chanrr,e .
t ime ::mn_ o c cay , "
" D ay ,
both f rom l'li th i n and from '\'T i t h out .
ccmt " clay and nature , "
l it t le by l i t t l e "
un s e en t h en natt.1 re t reat s t h i n rr,f-l "
c orres pond s t o one force ,
th in r:Y.s occurs " in
i t s elf
11
n�.ture ,
s ince
it
is
ch ang e
the
of
be f o!' e
" nature ,
appearances
us r e f l e ct about the permanen c e of be inr;·.
impiyinr:
a s ma l l ,
un i t of t ime ,
o c curs
in sma l l · s t eps ,
sum of t h in�s .
by t h e
in ' th� s u m of t h inr;s ,
s c;:�. l e
is
of nature ,
erni.nr� t he world ,
th� world ,
a n a c c lc'l. e nt
t o the
t h e same truth :
defineo
di es
,
11
i s h e ld
of
the
in ba lanc e
re f l e c t inr.: chanr;e w i t h
As
such ,
creat lve and d e s truc t ive powe r ,
law s of
therefore ,
"
the part s
o f mot i on .
grm'lt h and d e cay ,
der ived from t h e movement s
" rh1.;r ann. nature , "
the forc e '
it
s inc e nature c ompreh enn s the Nhole
the.
of me�nings from
T i me ,
s in c e
chanr;e of th ines
cont in1,1al l y a l t e ri n g
laws o f nature .
c on-
The t erm " d:1y , "
The sum of . things , h owever ,
permanent
i s P.n �. c c i d�nt
o f t h e fac t that
11
1 :::; ,
wh i ch make s
quant itat i ve ly and. qua l i tat i v e ly
rem incl s us
t h at
in the double
l t i s t he force o f t ime wh i ch make s u s r e f l e c t about
of
� t , te
of at om s .
repre s ent s
" day , 11
s tand :J
two
gov
d e t er m t n inrr,
u n i e s natura qu e ,
a s pe c t s o f' one and
f or the
changeable a spe ct
�12
of appearan c e s , · the m ea su rahl e actual i zat.ion of · in fin.i te
.
.
·
m:'l. t t � r in i n f i n t t e mot on throt�eh inf ini t e s p. � ;
'lc
i
" n:itnre , "
· fj rm laNs
infin i t e
s tands. for the un ch�n�eable a spect
nat1i ra : "
be i n
r;
t
,
he
i
s pace . 6
three a spec t s
The three met aphors - of t im e :
of nat ure :
i :n t er�hAn,�l'!ab i l i
An� Rcc 1.1lcnt ,
cnrno� wt th
�Y
mat t·e r ,
between
explA ins
mot i on ,
of
corre s pond t o the
- The
and s p.-=tc e .
natur e and t ime ,
chnn�e than w1 th pcrmnn�nce ,
·
·
cay and deat h ,
_
force
betwenn suhs tanc�
i t s e l f throu �h mnn 1 s bP. 1 nr: mor�
t irne , than with nature
with
"
of in f i n te mat te}" in in f in i te mot t on throu�h
mot i on of t ime • and r:: pa. ce of · tlme ,
t i me ,
of
.
.
m,orc
and thA-refore
S i m i larly , ·_ b i rth ann
con -
r;r owt h ,
de
a r e not pre s ented equa l ly und er . the influen c e
o f nature and t ime , but bi rth and growth more under t h e 1. n
f1uence of nature ,
of
time .
its
with
de cay and
neat h
more unde r-
the influenoe
· Once 1 1. f e . has be� , man s eems to be m o s t c oncerned
·mean in·r.:ful compl e t ion and therefore with t ime effe c t in,
chan e t oward s ·that end. .
�
The, re lat i on of t i m e and nature ,
ph i cal poem ,
t erms ,
can be gra sped
in Lucret i u s •
ph i l os o
:ln . another c omparabl e pa i r of
in the re l at i on of . 11 fortune " · and 11 nature . •
· Subs equent
�A'qX , i.n h i s n i ss .. , D tfferen ?. . fl.er d emol � r 1. t l s c h<"n u n d
1..., , "� 1 � ch cm N�t,.tr.nh i l o s onh t � ( M�rrA 1 , 1 , F'ran trf'prt · a . M .
1 0 -:::! 7 ,- 1 ..:.. ')? ) , T"!1 t. h �r. htwi l 1 innt:1y port. .,..a .y� th i � � nnn0c t 1 o"' of
"1 � t1 l r'0 rmrl t 1 mP. : 11 n t e � l l S:\J"11 � fY!1fH� i: ?. tl'Ylf': . i st 0 ie hl n � � ;'1., :"' � 1 ,,.rT.'o"T"' . ii t:"-r Jl':r:ml<'ret �n 1Tatm · • -· di e Z ei t ihre ald:u o � e Fo'Y"m
Di �
": 0 1 t r'f...... rr:� f";�n i st. n a s Fen·� r r'f e s He r: rms , n�f' i U e F.rsche innn.�
0•·r i � VPl"� ehr-t un� i h r n 0n S tenmel iter Abhti.n n:j ":k8 i t tmd H e
·
� 0"1 l0 si l!k�i t
aufclr1'fckt . 11 ( n:o . · 1�2- 3 )
tti\R:X i n · c �ptn re of th o;
0 r- � t'l!n t: l ."l.l:1 ; thou�h , lacks s upnort from \<Tork l:�r: l·Ti th t: h e t. P. xt s
N"'l i r. l't Nnn l n. h ave prev!"lnten h i m from i d cnt i fy1 np: 'Rp i cnru n 1 '1 nd
L1 1 �r,.t:l n s ' . not i on of time , ann led h i m t o i" oticP. t he , · crHci n l
c o -0:v:t st�nce o f n.e f ini t i on and metaph qrs of t i me i n Lucrct t u s >
t-rorl-:- .
4v .
en�
•
•
•
·
•
•
�RR
the
�overn in�
( 5 , 77 ) , t h �n
f i r r-: t na t u r e
rp t o t e � dl"'� cr ihe ,
T he � on t e xt ,
world .
an
t h:'\t
prov i o e s
fortune " :
nnture det erm tne s
S i m i ln.rly �
the
� l �nr
it
t h e een err.t.l laws · of
the
No.rln ,
po s s ibl e w i th i n t h o s e
relat i on of nature and. t i me ,
aml r�.c c i n ent , was s h own t o c on s i s t i n the re l ::tt
.
1 on of
t hrou Fr,h
The conn ect i on bctl·reen the t h re e
of na tu r e ,
pe ct s
behmen
d ence
forc e ,
fo!'ce
the
unde!" the
expl icat es
r;round for
a.e f i n i t i on ,
metaphors of
three
under . the
is
t i me R S f orce ,
ln mot i on of . t i Me
fo�
there f ore , . bec omes t h e key
the three
of
mat t e r ,
m on
t ime .
of
the
i ndi c at e s
pa i r s
aspect . of nature ,
a s pe c t of
mat, e r ,
t
t ime ,
the
spe c lal
chan{!e<'lble .
a
nd
t he common
m o t i on , and
of
�
groun
space ,
t i me
of
The fa ct t hrt t
a s t im e expl i c,a t e s na t u r e
the po e t i c viel-t
c orre s pon
impo rt anc e of
the pe r�anent ,
the
,
is
the
c om
and i t s ph i lo s oph i cal
.
for the m e taph o r i c a l use
and
as
conne ct i on ·
one t o one
The
t ime .
·
mnt' t � r·
and f o r c e
of t i me
l:nm .
of sub s tan c e
in m o t i on throur;h space
space
h1.t t
to nnt11ri"'l ,
framework for " �ovcrn i n �
the
only t h e part i cular move s ,
f ortur P.
��k c �
however ,
equa} n o r r i va l forc e
thr:� t; f ortune is n f) i t h c r
" �overnin� nnt u re "
fortun� ( 5 , J O? ) ,
de f in i t i on as
its
of
ac c i
den t o f mot i on .
'T"hP-mA ,
Dev e l opment ,
ann.
.to lm� erRt:=m rl h ow t tme ,
ac c i d ent ,
�"11 th l'l � tnre ,
of t h e world ,
th�
�s
th8 subs tance
be c omn s
d oe s
not ,
h m'l�ver ,
vThi ch
th i. s subs t i tut i on takes place ,
c on � i n �rtn.�T,
the
d e p�l"ln en c e
s e c on d.
aspect
mean to
e s R::ty t r i. ed
intt"?. rchnnr:eab l c
�1.1h s t i tu t i on of th e o.ef i n it i on by m e·taphors
1 m n ers tanrl " h ow "
its
of th i s
Recapi tulat i on
also
of
e n ta i l e d
t ime .
under stand
To
11 Nh�.r "
a que s t i on t o be ansi'mred by
of Lu c re t i u s
on human percept i on .
1
d e f i n i t i on of t ime ,
�r u m�>�t of T.l l �rr.t 1 u s ' f1 P.f 1 n l t i on
"''-1 n f i r r. t
��n�n� Pn c P
on
mot t on ami
r� r: t
Ntl f.l
t l r:'l'� ' r.
of t h j nt,_;!C :
t. � mpns i t �m p�r ::: 0. n on � s t , r. r n rP.hu n ah i p� :t �
c nn r: � q, t i tiu• s �'l"l stt s , trrmsac t n m qq i.� s i t i n :v: v o ,
tnm q1 1ae ros 1 nf1 t �t , 'l.U io. porro n P- lnn c r-:cqu-:1. tu r ;
n r- c !)�r s e quer!'iquam · tempus s r-mt l rc · fl'lt endum s t
� em otum ab rerum motu plac id.aque qu i At P. .
·
-
'T'he S t:! c on d as pe ct .
( 1 , h.59 - fl ) }
t i me ' s d�pe!lden c e on hum�n pr:!rcept i on ,
imnl t e s both man ' s awarene s s and. man ' s- ""v�lua t i on of t t rne .
M::l.n 1 s
of t i me , . com inP-:
::\Narfm� s s
� t �mr-: . from
hetl'leen
rea lms i s iTIA.n 1 s d1 f ferent
1
·
, 1 0 08;,.9 ; 2 , '3 07 ) ,
(5,
R2B - J 6 ) ,· and
t'lrilln�
TT1 0 re
-
th rough
{ 2 , 5fl9 - 8 0 ) , i s
n e::t th
a lways
h�mG\n nnt u r � .
t ou�h c on
�
of t i m e ,
wh r! t h e r
7.
c on s tant cyc l e of
the
( 2 , JOJ ,
lt fe
and
�:'!me and always not the
wh ere deve lopment
R ame
in time eventual l y mean s
t i me s e ems t o he c om e more a nrl
the more . one m oves
from t h e part s t o thq
8
?r. f . P . n�JA. GY , Proc c R s ann Value :
rr � Ph " , A A , 1957 , l�L�-2t1 .
0
, "
, where the, sum .. of .thinp.:s
the
back t o the he r;inninp; ,
ne_p;l i ,cr.ibl e ,
l•Th o l e .
wh o l e
the s e tlfro ,
evaluat i on
· nature or human nature · t s · concernen .
· ,
- · 1\fi t h in nat u rP , :1s a
trwm s e l V P- �
well a s · t h i nrrs of
th in�s of nature n s
'T'hP. rPa s on for d i s t fngu i s h inp;
"'V>. c tert ,
from · 11 t h in�s
An epi cur0an d i l emma ,
J,�OP.'\ RDI , TJA. p: ine R t ra , 11 . 292-? :
" c o s i 0 () 1 1 1 -u omo
i l"l"l"' fl. l""::l. , e d P. l l 1 etad:t ch 1 e i ch lnma ant i ch e , e fiel seguir che
f�.YJ.V1.o f! r.mo r;l i avi 1 ne not i , sta n11tura oenor vert:'te , anz l
p�occ n � p�r s i lun�o cammino , che s emhrn a tar " . cf . S . BORRA ,
� n1 r i t i e f orme affini in Luc rez i o e Leopa rd i � Bol ogna ,
· ·r f .
19 )4 .
11 .
'
1
�1.·ii t.h :l t1 t. h n
At
c on t � xt
of nn.tur� :
qun r. i · 1. nn � :l.nqn o · f 1 u e r e
omn i !"t
�ern t mu r.
n.ev o
o�•J l i s qn c v e t u s t a t e rr. subd u c t:: re n o r. t r i s .
c1 i in tnmen incolum i s v i dr"at 1 1 r s u r'Hna man e re pronte :rr-m qu i a , qw1e d e c� rl u n t cor�or!:l cn l qu e ,
1 mn i-1 n h0.1 m t m innunt , quo vennre anr:m i n e (lon�nt .
· i l lr:t r-; en e- s c ore , at ha e c c on t rn. flor� r: c e r e cor,unt ,
n.ric remoran t i t r i b l ; s i c r e rum summa novatur
s emper , et . . i n t er se mo rta l e s mu tu� v i �Jnt .
m.t r;e s cnn t a l i a e p:ent e s , al i ae m i nuun t u r ,
i nrtu n brevi s pnt i o mut an tu r n r-� e c l a rm i mnntum
et q11a s i cu r s o r e s v i t a l 1ampaci::.t t rnd unt .
ex
·
( � , 69 -79 ;
Th i s i na t ff erence · df 'tlme and. nature ,
man c ont ent of l i fe ,
.of . 1 1. fe :
cf .
w i t h re s pe c t
) , 9 71 )
t o any hu
move s man t o re s i s t nature for the
sake
9
Qu od ( s i
i am rerum i F.;n orem pr i mord i a quae s int ,
h oc tame,., ex i ns i s ca e l i rat i on i bu s rm s l m
conf i rmare a l i i sque e x rebus redCi e re mn l t i s ,
nflCJl l P. quam nob i s ci i v i n i tn s e s s e r.mratam
t ant a s tat prae d i ta cu l pa .
na t u rn m rerum :
pr inc i ni o qw = tn t u m cae l i t e ,:;i t i mnetus i np;en s ,
inn � av i d a m JX rtcm mont e s s i lvneque ferarum
'l
:r}o ss fl dere , t �nent rU TIA S · va s t :18qu e palude s
et mar0 , quon l �t e t err�rum cl l. s t :i. net orn s .
1 n c'i n n u :1. s porro nrope pn rt i s - fArv i 0 u s nrd or
n.c'i s i nuus que r:e l i casus morta l i hu s a u f e rt .
quod super e s t :=t.rv i , tamen id na tnra sua · v i
s ent i.bus obducat , n i v l s . humana rc s i s tat
vi t n i cau sa. va l id ·o c onsue.t a b i nenti
in�emere et- t e rram pre s s i s pro s c ind ere rtra t r i s .
.
)
·.
( 5 :;
The d i f f e r ence betwe en the de s cript i on of
cry i np.: in 1 t s he l ple s sne s s
la.r�e ly t a ken care
mAan
(5,
of by na t u re
re s i �at i on be fore nat ure
f o r ilevel opment
.
t o �ff l rm
..
•
.
.
:
222-7 ) ,
,
195- 109 )
the newborn c h i
ld ,
and t he youn� ani mR �_ s ,
hers e l f ( 5 ,
2 2 8-34 ) ,
does not
but rec ov1i t i on of t he ne�d
i n t h e ca ? e of man :
" One
s o small are t he trace s
..
th int; I fe e l abl e
of nature
left ,
wh i ch
9"'or a more extens i v e s tudy of the e p i curean v i eN of man t s
e xne r i ence of t ime , cf . my D i s s . , op . c i t . , ch . 3 , Z e i t e r.
fahrun� , pp . 140-9 .
�t
rr>rt. � n..,., �on J r! n ot di�pe l for u n ,
f"rom l i v 1 n o:
m !'l.n
a
th�t. n ot h tnr; n tn t'J �rs
l i fe l•rorthy of �od � "
{ J , 3 19-22 ) .
t o ov e rc ome . tbe 1.no i ff e rence of
on� 1
man 1 s
�
· the
l i. fP.t ime ,
t n :-r l.t: of"
t hourrh r e. latcrl ,
rorm s :
detachment from t �mpor3.l th ings t•ri th in h i s ol'm
o t h er
man
1 i f� by s e e int-:. h i ms elf
of h i r- 01'1!1 nat ure
IT'-'ln .
Th i s ·
t i me nnd nn.t u re , l'T i t h
.
takes on two ,
t o human- l i fe ,
r � � pP.ct
1H l
a. �
1 s o.vP.rconi inr: t hP. t f'mpora l i ty of h t s
as
p.: rt or mn.!lk ind , a11n. the o evcl opm0.nt
"l
fi vP of " ne rernm
·
of
part of th e d evel opment of the natur�
_d e s cript i on of the dev e l opment . o f
Lu cre t iu s '
n P. t u ra "
c omr>l t cat ed. s tate � �nt of
.
m·m
end s Joti t h
( 5 , 92.5-lh57 ) ,
th�
man ,
a
in
bo 9�
rather
'princj.:Ole� nf chrmee : 1 0 .
.
.
c t i mpin;rn.e s i mu l e xperiP.n t i n m ent. 1 :=:
'f'rt.n lrl t 1 m docu i t p�o .e t empt i m :prC"'jl"efJ :\. P.nt t r.-; .
s i c nnnm · qu i cqu i ft paula t im prot. r:1 h i t
rat i oque in lu m ini s eri;'3i t ora � ;
, , r;u s
n.P.tl'l.s
in : mcd.ium
.
.
1\ r:-
rt.
f 1. r R t
.
.
qu ote from book fou r shm·rs
. ..-.
1.mpP. J.1. inr:
force . t ol'mrd-s
h"! t:11 � � f'r u': e 'of both ,
Rlt.l , R J)2 ) .
. ( 5 , 1 1-1-52 -.5 )
('4., 822-5-? L
pro�r.r"' B S ,
" u s �J s " ,
" pr::J.ct i c e "
mer-t n s
�ot i on and !'"--'-'!. �t t on
1-t- , R ) l , R 3 5 ,
( cf .
" i mni r;rn� e x:nnri ent i a nent l s "
� im:l. lnrly ,
th�
rn e n 11 �
: �·: .
t: '1 Yl c � of h.n man rea s on - in the pro cP � t: o f ch�n.� e .
1 h 1 o r of
t h i A s t n.tcment
t h � r i. r !1 t t\·10 l i n e s :
-� ,.,n " ,
!l.r�
" aeta s " and
re p�nt
" r�t 1 o " ,
" reas on "
the p:J tt ern o f
" t ime " ana
coupleO. .a s . f orc c � t m;1ard s pro�:re s s ,
nJ. n c � of · " p:l'a.ct i �c , "
1 0 ::-' or
of prin c i.pl 0 s
Th e las t t'·ro
in t h e place of
" t j me "
" r�n
i n thr!
" the experien c e
more ext ens ivP s twly o f the eni eurcan unfl crs tann 1 n f" of
'· '
t i m e :1. !1 f orce of o.eve l opmcnt , iri .natuPo - or h i s t ory ., c f � . my
f) f � s- � , op . c it . , ch . 2 , Z e i t funkt i on , pp . 75-139 .
n.
�'
I'
of t!-1 � c."'l. r;rn"'
m inr! . "
" rr-� l � f:' S u p , "
s upp l an t ,
t h e ore t i. �.'!:\ 1 verb ,
Two prr:I c t i cn. J. v e rh s ,
in the
" t au �ht , 11
las t
nu t 11
l ines , th e
two
" b ri n?.: r:
m o re
f i rs t
f r om the
t No l i n e s
,
r�.nd
and
thw :; e ffe c t · A balance _o f the ory and pra c t i c e
in b o t h prirt � .
ThP. c omna r i s on b e t l>re e n t h e t wo
t h e i n t e rc hn.n ge
part s
nhl l i t y between na t u r e and. t i me
� P�t ,
d i s m1 s s ed �a�l i er
· of t h e deve l opment of
l•rh 1 ch
is s e en ,
human nature ,
onc e unde r the
H e re ,
t o t h e role of t i m e ,
inf lu ence
nnrsues
of change ,
of hum9:n a ct i on
has an ad ned i n i t i at ive
t h e worln
lies
i n the c on t e xt
the p r o c e s s
human m ind or human re::1 s on .
the l'TOrld of nature and
s on •
be tween sub s t an c e anfl a c c i
( 5 , 828-36 ) .
1 mrler the i n f lu ence of t ime ,
ca s e s :
,
r e ca l l s
,
one�
in b o t h
The d i ffe ren ce be tween
of human nature ,
wi t h re s p e c t
in that man , on a c c ount of h i s rea-
end. s and make s
c h o t c e s wi t h a v i m'l to ends :
s i c v o lvend.a aetas commv tat t e mnora rer,l m .
in pr et i o , f i t nul l o d.eni.qu e honore ;
"90rro a l iud s u c c ed i t e t ( e ) cont empt 1 bu s e x it
inque (U e s maf;i s adpe t i tur f l oretque repertum
laud ibus et m i ro e s t mort al i s int er h onore .
( 5 ' 1276-8 0 )
f'l1 1 od fu i t
I n a d d i t i on t o the blind mechani sm of atoms , wh i ch ,
realm of natur e ,
effect s change ,
The
the
s tA.tement of princ i p l e s ,
n ev e l opment ,
u s u s et
end.s
in the
man ' s cho i c e , e xpre s s ed in
appre c iat i on or c ontempt , ' be c ome s
mP.l"l t .
.
rnain fac tor of develo!l
i n the d e s c r ipt i on of rJ:::-.n 1 s
with a ra t h e r amb t r:u ou s c l i max :
imni grae s irnu l e xperi ent in ment i s
p8_,, lat im doCl.l i t pe<'ietempt i m proF;re d i ent i s .
s i c unum qu i cqu id. priu l at im protrah j t aeta s
in m e d i u m rat i oque in lum in i s e r i. �i t ora s ;
nrtmque a l id e x a l i o c lare s c e re cord e v i debant ,
a. r t i bu s a.d s u m mum don e e venere cacumen .
( 5 , 1452-7 )
The d i ff i cu l t y of h ow to int erpret
t l v e ly ,
a s hi s t or i cal ful f ilment of
11 cacumen11 ,
t he
e i t h e r pos i
m
deve lop ent o f human
�lA
nature
( cf .
J , 3 1 9 - ?. 2) , or ne�n t lvn ly , as
noint b �twAen p.;rowt h anit decay •
.
natural tu rn i nr.:
inrt i c at e s the ii i fferenc�
in evaluat i on of t i m e , wh ethe r nature as a wh ole ,
wi thin natur� iR concerned .
nature
t i on of a
r;:tther lat e stage in the
t n�r l l i c l i fe . ( 5 ,
1 379- 1415 ) ,
t i on s from the d e s cript ion
1 1 fe
The fact tha t
( 2 , 1 -hl )
'·
surr.�ests
development
or hum;1n
.thf) des crip
of man , . th�
contai n s word for �orord
rep� t i
of the ep! curel\11. att i tu d e t ol-mrd s
how important t i me and · h i s t o r i ca l
o eve lopment of. hu mnn nat ure are for th� . ach i evP.ment of t h e
T h e - wi s dom ,
h i c!:he � t · w1srl.om .
acqui red ove r a lon� s pac e of
time , from pr1m1 t i ve man t o �pi curu n ( .5 ,
t o cons i s t in a more and.
natu re and.
human
na t ur e
cosmns ,
as world ,
la'<T nnd
randomnes s .
�rtf.lbles
him
1 1-fA "
w i th in nature :
int e l l i p: i ble
Rhown
as
With the pas sin!'_; of
chaoti c environment , bu t
in c au s e ::: ann
eff e c t s ,
in
Man 1 s experience w i t h nat u re not only
to cont rol ann
( cf . 5 , 19 5-234 ) , but
�t !!tnff inl': of h imself and
on h i s cont rol
is
more art i ctJlat e un<'l erf}t;andinp; of
t im e , nature appears not any more
A.s
92 5-:-1L�57) �
change na tu r e " for the sn ke
of.
als o re f l e c t s btick on h :\. s unn er
h i s rel::tt l on
to other
men ,
that t s ,
a.nn chan�e of human nnt u re . wi t h in nn.ture . ll
. ..
.
.
.
r. ontr-ol �n� chnn o:-e of nat 1 1 re an, human natur� l'li t h 'i :n nA.tl l re
1 � � · h ol'r�v�r- , not thP. �a.m0. tl s t}le mnre. rnon ern. 11 0.on'}u e s t o r
n nt:m"e 11 •
� onqu 0 s t of :n.1lb.tl)'e , a s , for i n r.: tnnc e , P . B�.�o:n en.
vi � i ons i t , . � �pe!1.fk:: on the 11 closer and purer l e�r:ue betHP en
th e s r:> tNo f:=tcu lt.i� s , the �x-perl ment�.l 11nn the ra t. i o:nn.l ( �nch
rH" h�.s r.. � ver- ye t ber-m mn.cte ' � ( Nov . Orp; . ,, . 1 , !\ph . 9 5 ) ; " For
thP m"'.t t. Ar i:n hn-no. l s no m(!re . f� l :t c i ty of f:: peou l r-1 t t on ; hnt
t.,P r"I"}A 1 hn s i r.. � � � o:n o fortunes · of the hvmA.n ra ce , Rnt1. :1. 1 1.
nnw�r of opel"::l.t i on .
For mA.n 1 ::: hut the ::l � rvRnt .9.nc' t int ·'! r -
pr-�t.P.T' ' or nature : \'lhat he <'t oe s and wh at he 1qlows i s . on l y
'IITl-t � t h e hns obs erved o.f n�ture 1 s ord e r i n fl)ct o r i n th nn,o;h t ;
.
11
·
�l <)
1,
( cr.
rf:'ll i": on ,
n
P.mnh � � t s· on
reveal s
n:tb t�A
in the i r
mot 1 (\n
t h r m H th
of P;rmr t h ,
ha s
or
" hum:tn
ra l l s
the diffe renc� bo tNe en nature and h u man
re spec� ive
t h f.'
s t ab i l i t y
In hnman natu't"e , man , hnv l n r::
law s of a l l compound bod i e s ,
On the
only ha s t o c h oo s e the
mnt t n r in
" conveni ent m ovemen t s , "
mAtnr it;y anrl d e cay .
under
In nature ,
d e v e l opment :
space effects
l aws o f. p:rowth and d e cay .
h f'.'! not
" human minrl "
in an.<'U t i on t o hl l m:tn ac t i on an d t i me , a s prin c l pl � �
o f ch �.l, r�o ,
hot1 :v ,
The
119-22 ) .
o t h e r hann .
s t eps
that i s
the
hav i ng rea s on ,
of h i s growth , but he
t o f ind l i m i t s , . f o r bod. i ly as 't're l l a s
a
s p i. r i t ual need s ,
i t s whi ch w i l l ke e p h im w i t h i n " c onveni en t �ovement s , "
al�y
l i m
that i s
b0.yont1. th 1 � h e knows not h ing ann can d o not h i n.� .
For the chn in
of f'!:l 1 J s e s cB.nn ot. hy any f o r c e he l o o s en or hrol�cn , nor c:tn
nR: t H re be c omman cl ed excn pt by be inr,: obeyed .
fl.nd s o t h o s e tl;Tin
oh j r> ct. � , hu man l<nowl ed �e and humR-n '!'JOWe r , n o rea l ly meet in one ;
nnn i t i s froM i .o:n oran c e of c:J.u s e s that opern t i on fai l s " ( �rov .
Or� . , D i s t r i b . Op . , s ect . 6 ) .
n r mean i t t o be a h i s t ory not
on l �r of' n FJ.ture f'ree and at larr,e ( t'lhen she i s left to h r� r mm
cour � e and n oe s h e r wo rk her own Nay ) . .
hut much more o f n2.
tnrP. 1. m n er con s t ra int ancl v e xed ; that i s t o say , �rh en hy r-trt
r-tno t ho hnnil. o f man she i s forced out o f her natura.l s t a t � ,
A.nrl s qu l". ezen a11d. m oulr'l en: " Orov . Orp: . , D i s tr th . Op . , s e c t . 3 ,
c f . 1 , A nh ' s • 1 -11- ) ; " On a r: i v en horly , to g-enP-ra t e and s n ne -r i n
d H ce. ::t n eN nature or ne1'1 natu.res · l s t he Nork R-nd n. i m of h' lfTl"l.n
'V'�'""' r .
O f r3. rd ven nat1 1 re t o n t ::>r�over t h e f o rm , t h e tru " � m� c i
f i c r'l t -r r " rcn c e , or n1ltnre - en�en n e r ing n n t u re , o r � O'Jrc0 of
P.JT!:).n�.t. l on , . . . is t h e work ann a i m of humf.J.n 1m<nT l e n p.:c '' ( N ov . Orr; .
?. , A nl-l . l ) .
T h ou ,�h BA con qu ot A s Lucre t :t u s ' pra i s e of Epi <'l l T'U S a s
rl:l � cove re r o f t h e n�. tu re of t h i n�:1 ( N ov . Orr; . , 1 , A ph . 1 ?. 9 ) ,
ann t hour:h Lu c re t in s speaks , in t h e Rccotm t of mr:tn 1 s d evf'lop
mcn t. , of t h 0 co opera t t o:n of 11 p�a c t i c e anrl th e oxne r t en c r.l of t: h e
�n rrPr m i nr:'! 11 ( 5 , l?ln-AO ; anrt m y Dis s . , op . c i t . , pp . 111�- R ) �
h e l'TOn l n never , l i. ke Ba con , s p�ak o f man ' s " end cnvor t o " S t n-hl i sh
�net exb�11n t h � pm-;cr f\nd dom i. n i. on o f the humnn r.1. c e 1. t s b 1 f over
th� nn j vr> r :< r " ( il ov . Or.r; . , . 1 , A :oh . 1 ?9 ) .
i
Bn. � on • s v 1 G i on of t h P.
11 f" r.'ln 1 'Y'� of ma 1 1 ov e r thinr;r: " ( Nov . Orr: . � T , 1\ nh . 1 2 9 ) rr s t � m:
t r. r-- �nnnor d. t i on that he hil s 11 ri s tn.b l i. :.hen forever a t ru e · .<: n•l
ln.,·r fn l Pl.., rr i F! p;r:> br> bm en the emp l r t c::J. l 1lnd t h e ra t 1 ona l fn c. 1 .1 1 ty ,
t: h 0 1 m 1 d nil nnd i 11-s tn.rred c'U vorc e and S "'! TJ."l. r(l t i on of '•Th i ch h : � �
t h rrwm tnto c on f1 1 R i on :o�. lJ. t h e affn. i P :_:! o f th8 h1.lm� n fa1'1 i. 1;r " ..
( �! rw . Oro; . , In s t �n t . r1ar;nn. , PrP. f :; ; cf . 1 , .ll. ph .· 9 5 ; cf L . �,-;:P.P') ,
.'�. n i. � t rorlu ct l on t o the pol i t i cn. l pl1 i l o s ophy of F . Bacon , D t � r: . �
C11 1 c-=trr,o 1957 , ch � 7 , The C on que s t of •Nn.tu re ) .
·
.
.
�,., ; t'1 i n
{ cf .
th� frrmc1-ror.-k o f
hu mn.n
· 5 , J.ltJ0- 5 ; 2 , 1 -6-1 ) �
�ur·u � ,
ove r the o l ii
i.tr,
fn l f 1 1rrtc.n t
t h e pr:J z c l>Th i ch e l cvat n s !\pi
is
( r!f . - 1 , 6 ?. -?9 ; 3 ,
t h e new r:od of culture
ft , 1. -lr.? ) ,
in
Th i s wi sdom ' t o lmm-1 t h n. l i m i t :.
nnt\1rc
!lnpropr l ::t t � for · man 1 r.
ri.ntnro
r:o<'l s , C�res �
on l �,r d cn.lt w i t h bod i ly nn cd s
( 5,
Rncchu8 rmrl
1�3 0 ; 5 , 1-90 ;
Pcrculc � ,
Nh o
To l�ON t h e l l m :t t �
· 1- 51� ) .
annrorrr :J n. t P. f or humn.n nat u re m ean� t o know the 1 i m t t s for c on
t r o l l tr1 � rino
�1-,n.nr:inp;
l'lA. ture and nn.ture as
.
pro s pe c t
The
?4 ;
2,
. e sn .
in book
re s pe c t
sake o f 1 1 fe , "
both
hu man
a : l>lh.o l e . ·
..
of the death
of human nat u re
refle c t
than w i th
" f or the
ll J l -2 ), wh i.ch will
d eve l opment
mak� man
nature
,
Of
t
our na u ral world
set an
en
d
( 2 , 1105-
t o nny h i s t o r i c<t l
whether pos i t i �e or ner;at i vc , l 2
on t i me more w i t h respect. · t o
to the l i fe o f . mank i nd .
his
ot-m l i fe
A s Lucre t ius
c la i ms
t hree :
i l lud. in h i s rebu s v i de o f irrriare pot e s se ,
usqw� a<'leo naturarum ve s t i p;ia l inqu i
nP.rvola , quae nequ eHt rat j_ o dene ll e re n ob i. s ,
l � t n ih i l i npf'?rl_ i at d i p:na m n. i s n e r;ere v i tam .
( J ; 3 19 -22 )
1? � �1-- olarr-: wi cl e l y d t. s a.c:r:rne about the po� t t i v e
0 1� rt e ,n:n t i v 0.
evn. l n at i on o f man ' s h i � t or i c a l d ev P. l opmr.m t hy t; h 0 F:})lc11 rr�an s .
l!f" l th (:' J"' t h e s i mply
n iUJi'FB TDA , I l f i!Ja] e 0 0 ]
V l ihro el i J,l l cr�z l o , F.pi cu ren in mP m . H . B i P'norJn , GP.novn. 1 0 .� 9 ,
1 ?�"Ll r)5 ; 'P . I<'LT�Tf1.'Jt;;R , Ph i l o s onh :l P. und J) i c h t Jmn s t �.m !�nn e 0 P. s 2 .
P.u ch � s n � s
80 , J 9 52 , J�Jl ; I. .,R 0'!3 TN , S u r ln
c ol1.c0'!"lt 1
e p1.curvmn� nn
R evue d e m�Jtap�y s iqu P. � t
�o��l e , 2 1 , 1 9 16 ,
n o� t h e �imply
r'r'T�;\l T . T.<1. m orale n 1 'En i cure et s e s r.q nnort s n.ve c . l e s r! oc t r i ne s
�O.Ylt 0l"lnQrninc s , Par i s 192 7 )
v i eN
fi o j'u s t :t c e t o t h e
e n 1 �nrean al>rarene s s .of th e prqbl emat i c char::1.c i;( er o f humar-.
11 T) r- n n-re r.; s " .
A.nprecJat i on or both a s pe ct s , pe s s i m i s t i c nr.n
ont 1 m i s i t c ( F . f1. IAfi.! COTT I , L 1 ott im1 s mo re la.t t v o ne l 11 l)e re rum
natura '' rl.i Ln �rez i o , Tortno 1960 ; R . MONDOL:PO , La c omprens i on e
<h� l s ol"p:e t t o umano nell 1 ant i chita c la s s i ca , Fi renz e , 19 58 ; my
D i s s . , on . c it . , pp . l Jl-9 ) , s e em s to c om e closest to the t ruth .
p� ss l m ir: t i c ( P.
on
�u;rez ! Hermes ,
.
pror:r??� ,
6�7-719 ) ,
opt 1 m i st i c ( � . � .
seems t o
An
�.
Tn �
on�
nP!"l.th .
t h in:� t h �
Th e
·
r:.oo :::
.
ano
at om s ,
bool< �
cosm of worlds ,
.
fou �,
i�
t i mo ::m �
th e books n.hou t
t wo , the boolm ab ou t thA m i r, ro�o�m
one ann.
f i ve nnd s i x ,
t he books ahou t
the
s h O\'l'S mn.n ' s s pe c ial po $ i t i n w i h in
o
t
mR.r.�o
thP.:
sum
be in� i n t h e c n e r betwe en m i cro c os m and macroco s m ,
e t
o f th in�s :
h P.
are n ot conc nrn cd. abou t
por, i t i on o b oo k s three and
f
T.0-n , hP-b·mcn b oks
o
of
'
i s :::tt t h e same t i m e part
of the cyc l e of t i me and nature and.
Mf!:tt 1 s
able t o detach h i m s e l f from i t o acc unt of h i s ' rea s on .
n
o
m i nd and. s ou l enable h i m t o be a
ware of t i me ,
tl.:l e mAa su rable as p c o nature .
e t
f
.
.
role wi tl1 in tJ aturA ,
A \'r.;lre
t o be awa re of
of nature and t 1me 1 s
man becom e s aware of death ,
more so t h :1.n
sJn,ce . the end t o t h e fulfi lment of hum�n nat u re
of ; pir .tl ,
t
m ore s i � i f i cant than the beginning of i t s prom i s e .
is
The ex
hortat i on o person i f i ed nat u r e t
f
o overc m t he fear of de a t h ,
oe
in t h e Fin l o h ok three ,
ae
f o
in mo re gen r l t e rms ,
e a
f
ea of t h e
r
e xh rtat i n t ov e rcome t h
o
o
o
e
the P.n�. o . mo i on .
f
t
pl i c i tly ,
means ,
book abou t m t i n and r s ,
o o
e t
end of t ime ,
The Proo m ium of b o t w ,
e
ok
o
im
the
pra i s ed the task of the epi curean
ph i l osohe r to gain res o er m t i on t h roug
p
t
v
o
h
enabl in� h i m
and ,
the power of � ind ,
t o evaluat e t h e needs of body and m ind ,
an d . t here
fore t
o set
l i m i t s for h i m s e l f in a cr. ord ance wi th human nature
( 2 , 1-61 ) .
Th e f ct t ha
a
t b ok thr
o
ee e xpla in st h e na ure
t
mind and
one , at
s oul
in
in mot i on th rour,h
t e rm s of bod i e s
lea� , wond r abmlt
t
e
r:a i.n r e s t o e r m ot i on and t
v
the
chance s
h e l"e fore
tm•rard s t im e w i c h w uld rend.e r i
h
o
t
l i fe RS · i t appears t o be ' � 6r ihe
the � 1 nale of b o t re e, nat u re ,
ok h
t h e nnc han�eab le aspect o f
v oid ,
of t h e m i nd ,
tot ake on
make s
ever t o
an at t i tude
as ne,g l i t�ible for one
i i fe
o f
'3 1_nr:le
of t he sum of t h i � g s .
In
a lways pre s ent and repre s �n t i n
being , t r i e s · t o
c onvince man ,
that
�t lM� ,
n l1 r
1
n�vel"' pre s ent , n e t ther a s
wholP.
n6t- i n i t r::
r�:nrP- s �n t inr: th� c han,n;enbl� aspe c t of.
n � .�u. �i.bl� a.s fl\r
as
humAn life i s .
ncc io.ent of mat ter .
a c'c l �.ent
of
in
fo rc e of t i me ,
t i. m e :
man
means that
the poet i c me taphors
and. s pa c e. of t tme ,
m ot i on of. t i m e ,
chan �in� th e nature of the wh ol e · 1'10rld 11
a l t erin[",' a l l thi ngs "
on
are there fore not
the same leve l , but one ,
,
An
.1 n
or fina l ly •
to he reihtcP.d t o i t s ph i l o s oph ical d efini t 1 on .
"'T'imP.
In oth ':! r \•roro r-:
t hRt t i me i s on ly
mot i on throu r:h space ;
Thi s
nature .
ap:oearnnc e s , i r:
c.onc o rn ed .
p(!T'S On i f i. � d nn.t u rc tr1. e s t o C OnV 1. riCC
p:1.r t � ,
of
are
( 1 , 1�59 - 6 ) ) .
r.m d " nature
int erchan �eable
terms
subsumed under t h e o t h e r ,
t ime ,
n.:
"l.ture .
rm tnt en i m mund i nnttir::t!'l t ot iu s a r:> t n s
�l i oque n l i u s st�tus exc i n�re omn ia d ehf:'t
" "=' � !TI�ne t ulla s11 i s im tl i s r0 � :
omn i a n i rrr�nt ,
ornni � c o!"!m1.1 tr:1.t nat u r-A- ,_t vert ,qyoe C O '"': i.t .
n ,.rnqn e A.l. 1 uo pn t rP,:;ctt et nevn �.e'!J i l e l:1r:�uet ,
110""1"'0 �.l i n n ( mw ) c r0 � c i t e t ( f) ) cont 0mpt i.bu s e xi t .
s i c i r: i tnr mnnn. i n a tu rn.m t ot i u � a.ot �. s
� , tRt , et e x al to t nrram statu s c xc 1 p i t n lt e r ,
r:J.n on . notn i t :n equeat , po s s tt quod n on t n J ; t :1.n t e .
��
( 5 , 82A-Jh )
� tm n �.rl. �r
to
th� s;rmme t-r-y of
it 1. r. cn s s :J. on About
a1
s hane of at oms \Ora �
t. Ari n � al l th 1 nr:;s "
�'1 , ' "· 1 1 �r
�ff�cted. hy
n n"'l�n t rl. t nn.tu r� "
111"! -r . p . 9 above .
book b-To 13
i � framed by
both .
( 831
in
,
Nhel"A
th e c �� t :r."1 l
rmrroundnd
by t h e d i t:l -
f':hf' ll � c ount of " t i m f' ehn.n-
'T'he c �ntr::t l pos i t i o� of " om11 l::1
R?.8-36 )
..
.
.
.
ann. the comprehr-m s i ve
-
ch.'!racte
�' '1
nn '!':nr1 r1 t ot 1 n � "
·.
·R 1·l ,... '"" '"' f-! t
" mntat rm 1. m mnnrH nA.t1 1 r'1.m t ot i u r: n e t :"l � "
1.n
hm·rP.v0.Y. , thn.t t t m e :t s on ly
1
the appn.rrmt ,
!' 1 '11"l. l l;r �11 rn·m ln the c ent er of Ln oret :i.ur: 1
of
nn.turc ,
t;h l') :ro�t .
t. r.inmph of Prooerr: ium fou r
t � felt e1ven r.torc i f -one i s aNa.re of i t s
H i T.lDO l :Jrto:::
( 73-87 ) .
th e po s s e s s i on of
th!'YJ
There ,
H t ppol�r t o s ,
fi"UJ 'feo 5'0 v'?
by t each inP;:l. l-1- , . reveled
f l m·rers
to Artemi s ,
v i oJ..qt e TTlead.m'l ,
snr i :n o:t i me
wat e red
bee . l5
hy·
A ! dos
F:u r i p i d e t 1
fancJ'i n,o;
h i mGe l f in
vers i on of the
and 1 ov.c s
own brow .
Ln cre t ius and t h e Mu s e s ,
na ture ra ther
a
l<Treath of
or ,
been
2 1 -7 ) .
an
i. n
i ma�c ,
the
poet ,
l ov e s t o approac:h rm<t
to
pluck fl ovre rs and
to
Th e re lat i on of H i p:pol;rt o s
a l t ered t o
th e re lat i on o f
more poignant ly ,
of t 'l1 e poet and ,;enu s , . the eond.e s s over h i s
l h'P or
_by
and v :l. s i ted only by the
of t h e Hus e � ,
nnd h i s �odd e s s A rt em i s h a s
( 1,
9 2 1 � 50 )
s ou rce ,
a pos s e s s ion
In Lucre t ius '
wreath for h i s
of th in rr,s "
] ,
( cf.
in h i s ded.:i. cat i on of
t o o r inl{ from virr; i n s prin�s ,
::\
,
t: h 0. d� t fj cn.t i on
fl m-rers wh ich were plu cked from
t ravers ing path le s s f l e ld s
B e ek
t h P. pP.r::: nn i. f t r:�
aYJn. t h � Pro o�?.mium of book fon r ,
'J'hP.
hu t. t h.1. t
11 ])0 rern m n"'.t u r.., " ,
tn th e h'1 lancr> of the Ti' i n:l] e of book t h rP. e ,
t i on of'
1
The fa ct that
t o t h e re lat i on
poem 11 0n the nature
th e wrent h ,
h mt�ever ,
is
tud�r o f t h P. ph i l o s op'-1 ical i mpJ. i cat i ons of t h i s key
c f . m;r '' N ..,mos n.:n rl Phys i s " , An tnt: erpretnt i on of
l\u r i nide s 1 H i nnolyt os , HerM e s , · 1 0 1 , 1973 , 16 5-87 .
n
nrt� s 8. �('} ,
�
1 .5Por
n · c omprehens l ve int e rpretat i on of th i s pa s sa .o;e , 0 s pe c i a l l �
1.t � s�rmhol ,_ oal mean in� , cf . C . S EGA L , T h e Tra.n:P.n y o f th e H inno
lyt os ; 'l"he \>Ta t ers of Ocean and the Unt ou ch ed M eati m'l , HS C P , 70 ,
196 5 ; 11 7-69 .
�ne i ther ror th� Mn � � � n or VP.nu s ,
has � miv�th in� t o · <lo ·
ldth
bn t for- tt:te poe t h i m!=:elf ,
·
h i s pos s e s s i on of a t cach in�: , . a
tea�li 1. n.rr, n ot only about Venus ,· but about Venu s _ and Mars ,
two -rm-rers repre s entat ive of creat i on and d e s t ru c t i on ,
t or;eth<"r ,
forin the wh o l e of " the nature of" th ingr-f. "
0mpnas t � on
t eac h inP," as r e a s on for
1. J ln� tri ou s wreat h
that
csw 'f_eoGJ v-, ,
t i on i s evem s tronp;e:r s i pc e Lucret iu s •
.. '
" th e whole natu�e of · th inn;-s • .
i s a r:ift by
. Th i s oppos i
t eac}'l ing cla i ms t o be
The
i mar;e of_ th e
v is i t ed by the sprinp;t im� bee ,
lat e meaclo1>r ,
The
_
seekinr: thn
nat u re ra t he r thA.n A.n Ftch i eventent by t each l ne .
a.bont
the noet speaks of h i m s e l f and h i s l i s t eners as
·; ·
There ,
" be e s
flmt�ery �lade s , feedirtg on · all thy gold�n l'IOrds " ,
( 3 , 9-1 7 ) .
pas sar�e s ,
Hlppo l y t o s and the
r,uc:re t i u s 1
" De rerum natura " ,
in th�
a t eachine ,
cons idered worthy of eternal · l i fe
one from Eu r ipide s '
inv i o-
in the
i s u s ed
_
Pro oemlnm of book three l�i th reference to Epicuru s .
the
\·rh i ch ,
1 s d iamet r i cally oppos ed. to the Eu:r t p i rl ean
v i el..r t hat v i rtue ,
H ippoly t os '
the po e t ' s
the
Thour:h the tNo
one
from
s eem t o s tat e oppo s i t e vi et'ls ,
the
out c ome of the Euripidean play pro ve s H ippolyt os ' v i ew to be
at leA.st insuff i c i ent , if not fal s e .
The s t ronr;es t conclu s i on
t o he d ral'm from ·the play would. he that man can hav e no meaning·
ful relat i on wi t h · the divine ,
a conclu s i on wh ich l eads more or
l e s s d i rec t ly t o Lucre t iu� •· pr id e in
from t h P. t i r:h t knot s of ro l i p; i on"
T n the
o f " D� rP.rum
Prooemium . �'f
nat ur� "
as
b oo k . one ,
well
fr e e .i np; the minds of men
6-7).
t h e ber;innin� of · the 1>1h o l e
a s t he bep;i nn ing· o f i ts first .
half , V�nus was ha. f ed as r.;odd.e s s
i
(4,
"
f"OVerninr; nature , ·
( orit.P.rinr: the sacri f i ce of Iph igene i� oy Agamemnon )
P.xampl� for re l igi on and i t s act s aga in s t na ture
whi l e
Di <lha
s t ood a s
( 1 , 62-79 ) .
�Jn
t h � P1"" o oem i u m
hn l f of
of hpok
r mir ,
"De r�rum n n t. n rn " ,
D i ann ;
t. n f" pn. r; s .<:t p:P. f r om Eu r 1 p i r=J e s '
ani'. v t rtne , as a r: i ft ,
�:n n.chi nvement ,
( 3 , 1 '3 )
t in s ,
is
by n.a t u re ,
s e c on r'!
.
in t h e trrln s f ormnt ton of
H i p:polyt o s ,
b y t ea c h i n r,- .
t. h ou r:h t o f Ji:pi curu s 1
t h 0 bc n: inn tnp: o f t h e
is r8 j e c t c n.
for V nn,,H3 ,
i s ne � l e c t c d f or v i r tue ,. · R. s
Th i s ,
.i n turn ,
mean s that
t e a c h i n r: be tnr: w o r t hy o f e t ern a l
of fame
c ont i nu e r'!. by the . e xpec tR.t i on
of h oney . l 6
surround inp.;-
Th e pra i s e
of
the cu:r
l i fe
for Lu cre
\'rho t rans f orm ed th� ph i l o s oph i ca l t e a ch i n � in t o
n o P t i c t eRchinp; ,
the
a
wormwood vrit h a t ou c h
of
t eachin,o; r.:lt h e r than
riF.t t u r e
as
s ou rcP. of v irtue l 0. ave s on e l'li t h t h e qu e s t i on whe t her nat u re ,
i n� i f fe ren t
to
he
t oward s man and t he fulf i l lment of h i s l i fe , i s
m e r e l y s tud i e·rt. or whe ther man
nn � 1 re f or the sake of l i fe "
is
suppos ed
( 5 , 206 -9 ) .
t o " re s i s t
The Prooemium
of
book tNo , t h e book about m ot i on a.nd. r e s t , bef, l n s \'Ti t h a c on .:.
s i d e rat i on of the
life
S l•Te etn e s s . o f · wa t c h i n� the r� s t le s sne s s
cau s ed by e lemen t s
of nature ( th e
s h i pNre c k )
of
and h umo!ln
l f'1tn th r0 s pe c t t o t h e re lat i on b e h 1ceri t h e p.'ls sar:,e of Eu r- i p j de s I
H inno1yt os ( 73 - 8 7 ) a nd t h e two oc currence s of t h e s n m e t h nmn
' " D e rn :rum na t urrt11 { 1
9 2 1 - 50 ; h , 1 - 2 5 ) , I \-;ouJ/l
· i n I.n0r e t iu s
SUf"!"'0 S t th.<tt t h e f i r r: t h R l f .( 7 3 - 8 1 � of tho Eur i pi n E"'an pa � s n r,A
i s t r0.n t 0t1 i n the f i r s t Luc r e t ian ver r; i o·n ( 1 , 9 2 1 - 5 0 ) , ��h U 0
t 'I1 P. s 0 c ond ha l f ( 82 - 7 ) of i t i s fl ea 1 t \·r i t h , '11-Tl11:�:n i t o c cu r s t h e
r: '::' c onr'i t i me ( 1�- , 1 - ? 5 ) .
The re<t s on for t h i s dJ s t r l bu t l on c n n
he fonnfl t n the m o r e t h e ore t i c:l l a s pe c t of Eu :r i p i d A S ' H i pp o l y
t, , s , 7 J - R 1 r-t�1r. T..ucr0 t iu s 1 " De re rum nat1 1 rn." ; 1 , 9? 1 - ) 0 ( " :1 u �
TJP. l" :-: n � � i s or.Jn P m l1 n t u rr:tm rr:•rnm ft1 18. c on s t n t �� omptn f i r:urn " ,
1 , Ohf1-_50 ) , .'1 nrl t r e m o r e p�act t c:'l. l a s pe c t o f Eu r i 1) i o e s 1 H i p:;o 1 y
t 0� , P2 - 7 , ann. Lucre t i u s ' " D n rerum nat u ra " , 1r. , 1 - 2 5 ( " d urn }!Pr
.
s '8 i ci s omnr>m nn t nrnm r.e r1.1 m a c percn t i s u t i l i tn. t em " , l� , ? lt - 5 ) .
('. f . my " �J o n o s and Phys i s " , o:p . c1 t . , 165-9 : for t h e s i r;n i. f t �.'"l n c c
o f t'l1r-- c on t o x t f or the d l f f e renc e o f t h e . tNo Lu c rc t i an p:1. ::: ; :1.r/� S ,
c f . r. . S TRAUSS , tT o t e s on Lu c r e t i u s , Liberal i sm Anc i ent and JV' nf!. .
. .
� rn . rr��·T York , 196 8 , p .
113 .
�?. (
nn tnr0.
( �h � ·nn t t l� ) ,
''lh i l e <me n e l f
'T'h c � n t r:h t of swcetne � s ,
t P. � ch 1 n� of Fp i curn s
t"J ou�h ,
rA �t ( ? , 1 - f> ) .
i r: a t
i s :l�h i �v0.r'!. t 1-tr 0n rrh th �
( ?. , 7 - 19 ) , throu r-:h t h e t � <t �h i n;"': "l.hnn t::
t h e nrtturo of t h i n.n:r: , wh i ch wl l l re � cu0 on� fr0m thP. r � :� t
l � r: s n ('> s s of hum:::tn
l i fe
in :::t l l i t r: v :.\r i ou s wny r. .
whnther nA.ture i s
only t o he c6nt empln t e r1 or fo1 1 rr,h t fir;n. t n � t
for t he s ::tke o f l i fe i s never openly answered
" De rl"rum n!itnra " . ·
T he fact
to a c1 tp of wormwood whi ch
rv aronnci
t he
.
.
The
·.
f':Oes throu�h
On a. smaller s oa l e ,
s c riJ')t i on o f l i fe ,
n
�rt
of first
the des cript i on of
the
.
work .
l i fe ,
' bookn ,
has
eve ryt h i n� wort h l iv ing for ,
of
it .
and th e swe et Prooem iw
has
in
i t s c nunt er
the d e s cr i pt i on of the
fr om _ me re l i f e to thn h i r;l"
T h e fact that the c enter of the s i x
t h e t op;et h e rne s s of the F i nale of book three and t h e
l..e t s
R. r t e l' t h � h i t t er wormwood ,
o f cleath ,
thre e ,
c ount er�
i t s coun t e rpa.r t i n the bi t t e r F ina le
d e s cript i on of the h i ghfl st ach i evem ent
Pr ooP.miurn o f book four ,
sweP-t .
has i t s
sw� P.t
the sweet Prooemium of book one , . the rl e
i n the b i t ter F inale of book s i x ,
. est 'rle vel opment
The
of book s i x , . th e de s cr i pt i on of o. cath
the t ea ch in� about t h e nature o f t h in�s ,
ru in of
l i k cn�o
honey and t h en
whol e of Lu cre t iu s •
the d e s c r i pt i on of d ea th ,
of book three ,
l i fe ,
i�
'
Finale
in the b i t t e r
of book fou r ,
t h e t ea chinr,-
Sl-Te et ened. hy th e honey of pn� t .,
s equence
the
:Prooemium of book ona ,
Pr- �t
'l
is
i n Lu crct i n n 1
cup ' s r i m ·ve i l s t he anst'ler even more t han t h e ;
T>ros e t each inp- �. id .
wormwooo
that
Thf"! rtn , � t t nn
u s tas t e ,
fo.r once ,
m i �h t mean tha t even the hi t t n rn c s s
i f und e r s t ooci i n epi curean: t e rm s ,
The
t h e sNect h on ;::
can b e c ons i n ered
:·
themat.-ic ... ; s.equence of death , _ in the. F i nale o f book
�.
.
.
.
and fam e ,
•'
-��
.�
in the P·rooerpium of .book four ,
s e em s
to ref l e
�nnt. onl y th� n e c � s n r-try c m1n n c t 1 on of nnt u re nncl t 1.me ,
wh t �h
1 � a lwtys thP. . same
wh t ch i s al\.,a.y s d i fferent
th e
importan� � of
of t i me ,
ne R s
( anr't r� fers t o the p::t. s t ) ,
( and
r e fe r s
nnrl
t o t h e .future ) ,
t ime . oyer aml aga in s t na tu re .
of trH 1 t
t h n t.
bu t a l s o
Mnn • s awlr P-
w t t h ont t h e awarene s s . of nature , . d. 1 s t ort s h l s
v i eN of t h e r e lat i on o f m o t i on and re s t wi t h in t h e sum of
th in�s .
hr-mo ,
Mnn ' s awarene s s anci eva luat i on of t i m e ,
c on s t i t ut e s his
cruc 1.al n ot
the wh o l e ,
ano
m-1arene s s
on t h e other
o f natur.e , · and i s t h ere fore
only for h i s und e rs t and int:r, of h i m s e l f a s part
but a l s o o f t h e wh o l e
the poet ' s v o i c e
mark ' the
i t s elf .
T h e fa ct
c ent er of Lu c re t i u s '
of
that na t u re ' s
work ,
bears
out the everlas t inp.: t en� i on between nat ure , . encompa s s in."; al l ,
and man ,
s t riving t o encompas s nature .
�2A
A pn�mc H x
rr rn'1. s lnt: t on s
�-
1:
p.
4:
p.
nn .
5:
5-6 :
1,
of the La-t 1. n
quotes :
4 59 - � 3 : -
'Rvr:m s o t i mP e x i s t s not by t t s e l f , hu t from .
t'h \n",s t 'l1 am s e lv � � come s a fe � 1 1 n f\ , '"hat w:1 s
hr-on r;ht t o a c l o:=:1 A i n t j me p� s t , then 't'rhat i. s
nr0f-l �nt · n m'l , a:n.n fu rther �rhat i s r,oi nr: t o be
And :\ t mn s t b e av owed. t ha t n o man
h �rPnft � r .
f � e l s t im� by 1t s P. l f n.p:1 rt from t he mot i on
an d qu i �t re s t. of t h i nr;s .
.'5 , .56-R :
I tPnch , hy \'rha.t ] �N all t h 1.np:s are cr()a. t A<'l ,
nnd how t he�,. mu s t n � �c1 s Abi fl.e by 1 t , ann how
th e;v are not s tron� e:non�h t o break t h rour:h
th� powerfu l st�tut A $ o� t i me .
1 , �32-��
Por inf in ite . t-i me :and . the day that has p;one by
f1l1J � t neefl s have d ev oured r-t l l t h i n.�s · that are of
mortal body . . . Bttt \'lhab:�ver ha s been i n .that s pace
::md r:on e by t i me , out of Nh 1. ch th i s sum of
th i. nr:s c on s i n t s anr'f. 1 s repl r.n i shed , is c ertainly
�n.fl owP-d w i th i mmortal natu l"t! .
5 , 306-17 :
o\ cr�.in , fl.o y ou not beh olfl s t rme s t o o vanqu i nh�fl
�;... t i me , h i .�h t ol'm rs fall in;:. in ru i n s , n.nfl rc ckn
crumhl tnr; m·m�"., �hri nes nn� i mn,-:e s of the [':O� s
�rm'li'1r.t; l'1'0nry rmfl. l-torn , \>Th i l e the i r s� crP d pr� s 0:n� r-
�.�.vm ot f'!'OJ o�.n:- t h P bou.nn a.Y"i. P. s o f fn.t: P. n or s t ru :r.c). t:
::�.�� l n � t +: r.e l m·m of nnt urP. ?
.1\ f"'r-t i n , n o 1·YA.
n0t � � n.
!1 t on � � t 0r-n • 1 p from h i r:;h mo� mt.ains ru � h 1 n,cr h�ac l on c: ,
1u1 .,ble t o br ook or b"'ar t h � s t ern s t.renr:th of a
J. i m l t: e� t l me ?
For· infl��rt t h ey l·:ou l C! n o t - b�r �urld �n l y
t 0Y"TJ n -p n11 r'f fa. l l h P. :J r'fJ on.� , i f frorn t i m e �ver1 a s t. i nr�
f:'he�,. h rvl he1 fl. 011t n;:n. i n s t a l l the t orm �nt s of" t i ��
Ni. th ou t l)r�"lkin� .
•
n.
h�
5 , R?.� -3� �
•
•
t. t m � ch�.n r:e s the n n t. n rf'! of t h e \'t]'lole l>�Ol"1 d
� ,... � on "' r. t::t t e � f t E' r :.:n nther m, , �t ,., r: � rl r. nvert.nlrP.
� 1 1 thin�!1 , nor fl. o� � a.n�rth tno: tlh i c1 P. l i 1rP. i t r- � l r :
n l 1 th i n r;s chn;n p-r t �1 .." i."r n h.':' � r> , '"t:t.tnre a 1 t o r rl f\ 1 1
·
th tnr':s r-tnn r.:rms t"rn tn � t h �:-:1 t o h.trn .
For on0 tl" � '\"":
�ob=: m·ray an" r:roNR f:=t. 1. , t r.Jna fe�ble ,,Ft th ::t.�� �
t herA on anoth �r .r;rm·rs up Rnrt i nsuC's f�orn :l. t p1n �c
of s c orn .
So th�n t j me chn� p:e !:l the nature of th e
r:- ."1 ,..
��··n o1 0 . ,.•n-r-1cl ,
n.n � . on 0 F: b") t. n. n f t. r .... f11"1 0t h � r rw ,- rtal-:· r> �
t. h (' r:-n.rth , r. o t.h. 'l t 1. t c q,.n1. ot h P � r nlv-. t i t ;, hl ,
hn t. c n n h�:lr Nh :1.t t t d i. cl n ot o f oln .
p.
5,
7:
5h-R :
J t: R !"! �h , h�r '!Arhn t 1 a.w { t h r.: };'3.\'T of nn.tn :r-0 ) � 1 1
+: h l n r-:s nrr� r.rr.::1te� , �ml h oN t h r.:y mu� t n r.r.: rl �
:'1h 1.� f." h�, i t , nn d h oN t h A y o.re n ot r-: t T' on r� r.non�h
t o hret:tk t l'rrov r:h t.h r JV'I�·rr.:rfn l r. tnb 1.t r r. o f t 1 :n e .
n.
?,
7:
� ? - 7� :
C i"'f.'� nr.M , T \'r 1 1 1 un f o 1 rl hy l!T}! n t r:l 0Vf"' Jnl"'rt t tr n
�"' r f."� t. 1 v � h o� 1 f"' r. of m�t t n T' hP�('t. � i v r r s R t h 1 n�r ,
n 11 r1 - hrenk u n t. h o !"l r- t h:1.t � r-e hr.[':ot t rm , h �.r N'l-) � t fnrr. r
t. h "" Y 'lrr (� m1 s t rr.1 i nf'� t o � o t h i s , rnvl \·rh nt '7 0 1 oc 1 t.:{
l s nn:no :i :ntP.n t h P m fm• mnv h 1,i; t h ron rr:h t h f' rn l r;n ty
vo1 � :
0 o �rou rcmn.rr:bnr t o ;r.l vr. yonr rrd.. n� t o my word r. .
Ti'C'r i n v�T'Y t ruth , mn.t t e r d. o e s not c 1 r�avl?' r. l 0s r.:
!')n.. �ln�d t o i t se l f , s in('r.: w� s c r. 0ach ' t h tn.r:. ):reM 1 P r.: s ,
nnn · l're pr:o:rce :\ ve a l l th il'l[':G f 1 oN n �·�':"l �r , n � i t l!TP. r c. , i n
t.h c l ontr lap n P. o f t. 1 me , a s a r:c N i. thil r:nrs th�=>m
from our s i r:h t :
rmn yet th� 1.m i vr;rsr: i!'l ::; r �?n t o
rAmA. in uml i m i n t s he n , j_ m.-l S Ml.t ch · o.n a l 1 hod i e s that
� Pprt.rt from Anyth inr; 1 f' P. S f'm t1·1a t f rom wh i ch t h �y
:pn � s ::n'lay , ann b1 e s r-: 1111 th tl'l.cre:l ci e t hat t o wh 1 ch
thP.y have come ; they c ons t ra i n t h A former t o �rmor
olCl. and t h e J at t er nr:a i n t o f l ourt s h , and yet th ey
nh i d e :n o t with i t .
Thus th e sum rif th i n �s i s �ver
be in!"'; repleni s h ed. , n.nn. m ortn 1 s l i ve on e and al1 bJr
r:o;ive- and tal::e .
S orne rac e s wax and others wane , and i n
n s h or t spa c e the t ri b e s of · l i v :t n � th inr:� are chan sed ;
�.nrl 1 i ke runners hanrt on the t orch of 1 i fe .
p.
n.
A:
2 , 297- 3 02 :
The hof! t e s of the f i rs t -be�inn :i.n?:s in t h e rJ.r,o s
prt s t mo\red Ni th the same mot i. on <i s noN , and h e re:tftP.r
't1i l l he borne for ever in a s i m t 1ar 't'lay ; such things
�s have berm l.'Tn!'lt to c ome t o be in.r.; td l 1 be hroup;h t to
b i rth u ncler the same cond i t i on , 1d ll exi s t and grow
ann be s tronr; , inasmuch as i s gran t ed t o each by t he
bond.s of nB. ture .
B:
1,
·
10?1-31 : .
'F'or in very t ru t h , not by d.e n 1 r;n o i n t h e f i r s t
h0.rr1 nn i n �� of th 'i 'Ylf: S place t h � m s 0 lv e s ench in
th e i r orrl.er wi th for� s e e inr; mi nn , nor ind e ed. d i d
t n �;r make r.om1x1 ct wha t . moveml3nt e a. ch � h ou l d
r> t n rt , hnt becau s e · m;:my of them s h i ft inr,: i n
mari.y way s thron.�;h ov t t h e v.rorld a re harri ed and
bu ffet ed by b 1 m·rs from l t mf t 1 e s s t ime ; by t ry ing
movements and un i ons - of every k ind , at las t
th e y fal l int o s uch d i spos i t ons a s thos e ,
�') 0
Nh�rP-hy ou r wor ld o f t h i nr:n i s � rcnt cn n. n � hoJ.d rr
. t o'"':�th �r .
Ann i t t o o , prc � c rven from hnrrn th rour;h
m.·1 ny ,. a m t n:hty cyc l e of yen ros , whrm on c P. i t h :'l s
hr!rm n<'lf:t i n t o. con vcn i rmt movernrm t ::t , hr 1 n�s 1 t
·"l ho1 t t thnt :rivers replen l sh the !';reP.it y s e a
-�
•
p.
10 :
•
•
5 , 43�-45 :
the b i rt h of thP. t•rorlcl } n s o rt of
fr� sh�form�d . � t orm , a ma � n r:at he re_d to�ethcr of
f t :r s t -be,..;i nninr:s of every ldnd , . wh oso d i s cord
\·1.1- n wn.r;tn.� ,.,�:r ani'! confound. i np; i nt e r - s pac e s , path s ,
tnterlr-t.c in.o;s , wP- i r:h t s , bl mu:: , mc e t inr;n , n'Yl.rl mo t i ons ,
hPcnn s e mdnr: to th e i r un1 1 ke forms A.nd varl ous
�hn.nP.s , al l thinp:s \'U�re unable to remain � n un i on ,
R � they do n ow , and t o �1ve an d rc ce ivP.· c onven i en t
movem�nt s .
'T'h'm ( at
pn .
10-11 :
p.
' 14 :
p.
'15 :
1. ,
' 322.;.8 :
IA � t-ly ,
whatevm" day Find n�ture -a � d � - t o th ings
1 :\ tt-le :by l i t tle , impe ll i nP: t h em _ t o P.;row. in
nn e proporti on , the s t ra inin � . s i eh t of the eye
c�Yl. never behold , nor a�a i n wh erever thin�s
f"'rO't� old. t hrou�h t ime and d.e cay .
N o r where rocks
OVP.r-hang.. the sea , devou red by th� th in �R.lt
spray , c
�u ld you see t..rhat they lose in t i me .
By
bod i e s uns een then nature t reats th inp.:s .
1 , 459-6 3 :
;F.ven s o t j_me . e xi s t s not by 1 t s e l f , · bu t
from th 1n�s themA elves co me s a fee ling ,
l>�hrtt llfa s brour;:ht to a c l o s e in t i.rn e pa s t ,
then what i s pre s ent now , and furt her what
Ana i t mu s t be
i s p;oinr: to be hereafter .
avo�red t hat no\'r mr.'ln fe e l s t l me by i t s e l f a
part from the m o t i on ann qu i et re s t of th ings .
2,
fi9�79 :
nerce i ve al l th in�s f l ol'r a1-1R y ,
1 n the l on .n: l�pse of t i me , <:'. S ar;e
'ole
t:t �
it
vrA re ,
tfi thn rr::n·r s t h eM
fr>om our a i 0:h t : · and y e t the univerAe i � s e en t o
rcm:::t in · ·und1 m i n.is'hP.n , inasmuch a s a l l bod i e s that
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oln anfl th� l at t e r._ a�a in to flouri Ah , and �ret the�,r
::t h i_d e _ n ot wi th i t..
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b0 1 n r: rcpl <m i shen anQ. mortal s l i ve one .nnd. all by
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�:tve anri _ take .
j_n a sh ort space the t ribe s of" l i v inr: thi ner; a.re
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!1 0 ·fT' rr>rtt hrc t h ,.. fan l t s Nh .: rnw i. t h
i. t r: t ::m r'l. r: f'nr'J motcl't .
T n t. h 0 f i rr: t !'l1 rt r. 0 , of
n 1 1 thf.lt the s l{y eovorc in j tr: mJ r:ht�r
m mr r. m Pn t , a f!T'Nlt P""-rt ts pos :1 e r: fl en by r;rc cdy
monnt a i n s n ncl fore s t s fu l l of \•t i l d bc::u� t s ,
-rn rt rocks and vns ty mn r s h c G hol n , nnd t h 0
s r-- ::t thn.t k0 c n s t h e sh nrc s o f i t s l nnn s f n. r
ap::t rt .
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r obbed from m o rta l s by s c orch i nf.i heat , and
c on r: t r.m t l y- fal l inr, fro s t .
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is l e ft , nn ture wou l d s t i l l cover wi t h brambl e s
by h er m•m pm>te r , bu t t ha t man • r: power r e s i s t s
fo r t h e s ake o f l i fe .
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went forNard s t ep hy s t e p .
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t !. me brirf(i:s � out each -s�everaT -thi'h� lrit o · v l ew , a·nd.
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-
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R.nr! t h en another t h 1 nr: ri s e s up r:md l eave s i t s
pl�ce of s corn , and i s s ow;ht m ore and more .
ea ch day , and when f ound bl os s om s i n t o fame ,
A!l.ri i s of wondrous h on ou r amon g men .
p.
17 :
'Prnct i ce rmd th erew i t h t h e 0.xpe r i en 0 e o f t h e
ea n;er m i nd t au �h t them l i tt l e by 1 i t t le , a s t h ey
l'Te'!1 t forwA-rd s t ep by s t e p .
S o , l i t t l e by l i t t l e ,
t :t mr?. br in!Ys out each s ev e ral th tne int o v i ew and
r�a. s on ra i s e s i_t up 1 n t o the c oFt s t s of l i.r:h t
For
t h e y saw one t h i nf{ a f t e r ano t h e r grow c l E!ar i n
t he l r h eart , unt i l by their art s t hey rea ched t he
.
h i g:he s t point .
p.
20 :
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s o sma l l rtre the
t ra c � s of d i fferent nature s l e ft , wh i ch r e as on c ou ld
not di s pel for u s , t ha t not h i ng h inders u s from
l i v in� a l i f e worthy of god s .
.
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.
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p.
22 :
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For t 1!11 P- chnnr;o s t h n nnture of the t'lh olc l·mrlr'L
ann .one s t.'lte · a f t " r ; m other mn s t needs ov� r tnkP.
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a l l th inr:s c han rt:e thc i. r n.bon.c , nnt urP. a l t e r 5 a l l
th 1 n �s ann constl"a inn t h�m t o tu rn .
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rnt: s al'l:J.Y and ,;rows faint and . feebl� ltTi t h ar;� ,
thet'eon n.nother �r ow s up and- i s sues from i t plane
of � corn�
S o t hen t i me chari�e s the nature or the
wh ole w or ld , and one s tate after another overtake s
the eartl1 , s o that i t Qannot bear what it d id ,
bu t can bear what it did not of old .
�
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Time and nature in Lucretius' De rerum natura
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Lucretius Carus, Titus. De rerum natura
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Friday night lecture
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GISELA BERNS
A lecture delivered at St. John's College
Annapolis, Maryland
February 26, 1982
�lchiller's DramaFulfillment of History
and Philosophy in Poetry
GISELA BERNS
A lecture delivered at St. John's College
Annapolis, Maryland, Febrpary 26, 1982
�Schiller's Drama
Fulfillment of History
and Philosophy in Poetry
n
lllJ
onight, I shall speak on a poet whom I have loved from early on.
As Shakespeare in English speaking countries, Schiller, in German speaking countries, is first read in school. This means that everyone
knows him as a classic whose poems and plays are the sources for many of
the most famous formulations in the German language. For a long time,
inadequate translations kept Schiller from being appreciated in English
speaking countries. Now, however, with good new translations of his
dramatic and major philosophical work 1 available, there is no reason why
the noble voice of this passionately rational poet should not reach and
touch the hearts and minds of readers in America.
After a brief introduction about Schiller as contemporary of the
Founding Fathers of this country, a sketch of his life 2 and work shall show
in what sense he understood poetry to be a fulfillment of history and
philosophy.
In a letter of 1783, the young Schiller writes to a friend:
I cannot stand it any longer. Surely, I find a number of excellent people
everywhere and , perhaps, could still settle at some place, but I have to get
away, I want to go to America , and this shall be my farewell letter .. .. I
have already obtained exact information about my trip . But, you will ask,
what to do there? That, time and circumstances shall tell . I have not
neglected my medical profession - also I probably could teach philosophy
there as professor - maybe also get involved in politics - perhaps even
none of all of these . But tragedies, for that matter, I shall never cease to
write-you know my whole being hangs on it. 3
With a promise of news from America and greetings to his old friends,
Schiller bids farewell. Whether this plan was meant seriously, or whether
it was merely a manoeuvre to deceive the authorities about his movesthe fact remains that he would have felt at home in America.
Forced into the Duke of Wiirttemberg's military academy, where the
promising sons of the country were educated towards various professions,
Schiller had spent his young years, from age thirteen to twentyone, in an
atmosphere of oppressive regimentation. Forbidden to read or write
St. Johns Lecture Series
1
�poetry, he had finally risked his life in a dangerous flight to f.reedom. All
his plays - from The Robbers (started at the time of the Declaration of Independence) to William Tell (finished at the time of Jefferson's first
presidency)-deal with one theme: the problem of freedom. Focusing on
great revolutionary ideas like the conflict between nature and convention, .·
explored in The Robbers and in Intrigue and Love, or on great revolutionary figures of history like Piesco, Don Carlos, Wallenstein, Mary
Stuart, T}Je Maid of Orleans, and William Tell, all of Schiller's plays,
even The·Bride of Messina, modeled on the Oedipus story, wrestle with
the problem of freedom.
In recognition of this historical role, Schiller, in 1793, was awarded
honorary citizenship of the French Revolution (the fact that the document
did not reach him till 1798, long after its signer, Danton, had himself
become a victim of that revolution, Schiller always considered an ironic
reminder of the problematic nature of freedom).
Another consequence of Schiller's concern for freedom was the disappearance of plays like William Tell and Don Carlos from the German
theater under Hitler. As 0. Seidlin, in his article Schiller: Poet of Politics,
reports:
A quarter of a century ago, when darkness descended upon Schiller's native
country, a darkness that was to engulf all of mankind in the shortest possible time, a theater in Hamburg produced one of Schiller's great dramatic
works, Don Carlos . It is the play which culminates in the stirring climax of
its third act, the confrontation scene between King Philip of Spain and the
Marquis Posa, the powerful verbal and intellectual battle between the
rigid and autocratic monarch, contemptuous of mankind and gloomily
convinced that only harsh and tyrannical suppression can preserve peace
and order in his vast empire, and the young, enthusiatic advocate of
revolutionary principles, who demands for his fellow citizens the untrammeled right to happiness, the possibility of unhampered self-development
and self-realization of every individual . The scene rises to its pitch with
Marquis Posa's brave challenge flung into the king's face: "Geben Sie Gedankenfreiheitl -Do give freedom of thought!" When this line, one of the
most famous in all German dramatic literature, resounded from the Hamburg stage in the early years of Hitler's terror, the audience under the
friendly protection of darkness burst out, night after night, into
tumultuous applause. So dangerous and embarrassing to the new rulers
proved a single verse of the greatest German playwright, who by then had
been dead for fully a hundred and thirty years, that the management of the
theater was forced to cut out the scandalous line. But the audience, knowing their classic well enough even if it was fed to them in an emasculated
version, reacted quickwittedly: from that evening on they interrupted the
performance by thunderous applause at the moment when Marquis Posa
should have uttered his famous plea on the stage - and did not . After these
incidents the play was withdrawn from the repertoire altogether. 4
A similar story, I heard from my German literature teacher who was present at a Don Carlos performance in Berlin, where Marquis Posa's request
for freedom of thought made the audience, in dramatic silence, rise to
their feet like one man.
A contemporary of the Founding Fathers of this country, inspired by
the ideal of human freedom, and set on writing tragedies (no matter what
profession he would have taken up in this New World), Schille~~ight
2
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�have given us that sorely missing drama on the American Revblution.
Such a drama (as H. Jantz, in his article William Tell and the American
Revolution 5 , suggests) could have been written either from the British
point of view (something like Aeschylus' Persians) or from the American
point of view (something like Schiller's William Tell) . In more than one
prominent place, Schiller's proud formulations recall Hamilton's statement in Federalist One:
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the
people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question , whether societies of men are really capable or not of
establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they
are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident
and force. If there be anv truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriet}· bt> regarded as the era in which that decision is to
be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view,
deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
At the beginning of his poem The Artists, a panoramic history of mankind, written in 1789, Schiller speaks of man as "the ripest son of time,
free through reason, strong through laws", standing "at the close of the
century" in "noble, proud manliness." In a similar vein, Madison, in
Federalist Fourteen, asks :
Is it not the glory of the people of America, that , whilst they have paid a
decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have
not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to
overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their
own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly
spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the
example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theater,
in favor of private rights and public happiness . Had no important step
been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent could
not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did
not present itself, the people of the United States might, at this moment,
have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils,
must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms
which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for
America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new
and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no
parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe.
Mindful of his own call to the artists to "preserve and rekindle the dignity
of mankind," Schiller, in the Prologue to Wallenstein, proclaims:
Now at this century's impressive close,
As actuality itself is turned
To art, as we see mighty natures locked
In struggle for a goal of lofty import,
As conflict rages for the great objectives
Of man, for masterdom, for freedom, now
Art is allowed assay of higher flight
Upon its shadow-stage; indeed it must be,
Lest it be put to shame by life's own stage.6
In order to appreciate this "higher flight" of Schiller's art, let us take a
look at his life and work.
St. John's Lecture Series
3
�Schiller's life, from 1759 to 1805, was, except for his early childhood
and the beginning years of his marriage, a never ending struggle. First
against a tyrannical ruler, later . against poverty and prejudice, finally
against a fatal illness which racked the last fifteen years of his short life. A
struggle it was, this life of Schiller's, but what a glorious struggle! A
testimony to man's ability to overcome or, in Wallenstein's proud words,
to the conviction that "it is the mind which builds itself the body. "7
Schiller's father , by his own report, offered a prayer on the occasion of
Schiller's birth:
And you, Being of all beings! You I begged, after the birth of my only son,
that you would add to his strength of mind what I, for want of education,
could not reach . s
Still a child , Schiller had set his heart on studying theology . The
Duke's interference not only separated Schiller from his family , hut also
made it impossible for him to pursue the desired studies . After a year of
broad general education in Sciences and Humanities, with strong emphasis on philosophy, Schiller took up, at first, the study of law, later,
since he deemed it "bolder" and "more akin to poetry", the study of
medicine. One theme, again and again to be explored in his poetry, he
first thought through in his dissertation which, a cross between medicine
and philosophy, bears the title On the Connection between Mans Animal
and Spiritual Nature .
The great breakthrough of his passion for poetry came after Schiller,
at age sixteen, had been introduced to Shakespeare. Emboldened by his
love for Shakespeare, he was obsessed with the idea of writing a play that
would expose all the evils of conventional society. At the same time filled
with admiration for the ancient heroes of Plutarch, and the modern sentiments of Rousseau , Schiller, for years, feverishly and passionately,
worked on his Robbers. The performance of The Robbers, in 1781 , at the
famous theater of Mannheim, made Schiller, in one day, gain immortal
fame and lose his homeland. Hailed by one reviewer as the coming "German Shakespeare"9 , he was ordered by the Duke, under penalty of arrest,
to stop writing anything hut medical works. With the help of a young
musician, Schiller, in disguise, fled to Mannheim where he hoped to find
the needed support for his poetic existence. Instead, he had to spend
months in hiding, working on his Piesco and Intrigue and Love, before
the authorities accepted him even there. While Intrigue and Love, a
"bourgeois tragedy", scourges the injustices perpetrated by the nobility
against the lower classes (as in the heartrending scene about the forced
recruitment of troops to be sold to the British for the Revolutionary War
in America), The Conspiracy of Piesco at Genoa , a "republican tragedy",
for the first time, strikes a theme that, in one or another form, rings
through all of Schiller's subsequent plays. As A. Lincoln, later, formulated it in his Perpetuation speech:
Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should
undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing
beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such
belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think
you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?Neverl Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto
4
Schillers Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�unexplored. - It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon-the qionuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory
enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any
predecessor, however illustrious. H thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if
possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or
enslaving freemen. 10
After the "Storm and Stress" of The Robbers, Piesco, and Intrigue and
Love, Schiller, in 1787, reached a first classical height with Don Carlos.
Not only through his change from rhythmic prose to measured verse, but
even more so through his sovereignty in dealing with the theme, the conflict between revolutionary idealism and imperialistic realism. While
Schiller's earlier plays paint good and evil in stark, clashing colors, Don
Carlos, more subtly, portrays them in their haunting complexity. The
conflict between Philip II of Spain, despotic ruler of the catholic world,
and Marquis Posa, idealistic fighter for freedom, interwoven with the
story of Don Carlos, his desperate love for the queen, and his selfsacrificing friendship for Marquis Posa, appears the more tragic, as it
shows the human situation in all its agony of heart and mind. More than
one great writer after Schiller, struck by the tragic beauty of Don Carlos,
has integrated parts of it into their work, so Dostoyevsky, with the
"Grand Inquisitor" scene in The Brothers Karamazov, so Th. Mann, with
the burning admiration of Tonio Kroger for the breath-taking scene in
Don Carlos, where the king is said to have wept. A scene to which Mann,
in his late Essay on Schiller, confesses to have "early given his homage" 11 •
As a preparation for Don Carlos, Schiller had occupied himself more
and more with historical studies which, in 1788, resulted in a substantial
History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands from the Spanish Rule. In
recognition of this comprehensive, dramatically written work, the
University of Jena, in 1789, offered him a professorship. Besides lecturing
on Universal History and Aesthetics, he devoted himself to his second
major historical work, the History of the Thirty Years War, later to
become the basis for his monumental trilogy on Wallenstein, the imperial
general of the Thirty Years War.
The summer before settling in Jena, Schiller had met Charlotte v.
Lengefeld, his future wife, in whose circle of family and friends the young
poet, every evening read from Homer and the Greek tragedians. Filled
with a kind of Grecomania, Schiller threw himself into translating
Euripides' lphigeneia in Aulis, an activity from which he hoped to gain
classical purity and simplicity. In a letter to the sisters v. Lengefeld,
Schiller writes:
My Euripides still gives me much pleasure, and a great deal of it also
stems from its antiquity. To find man so eternally remaining the same, the
same passions, the same collisions of passions, the same language of passions. With this infinite multiplicity always though this unity of the same
human form. 12
In the spirit of those days, Schiller composed a long melancholy poem, entitled The Gods of Greece. A lament about the vanishing of beauty and
nobility from the modern world, it rings out:
Als die Gotter menschlicher noch waren,
Waren Menschen gottlicher.
St. John's Lecture Series
5
�When the gods still were more human,
Men were more godlike.
Together with his subsequent study of Kant, this immersion in Greek
antiquity became crucial for Schiller's Aesthetic Writings. .
A terrible illness of Schiller's, in 1791, resulted in the rumor of his
death. When a circle of admirers in Denmark, months later, discovered
that Schiller was still alive, they prevailed upon the Duke of SchleswigHolstein-Augustenburg to ease the burden of the poet's daily existence
and, for a few years, bestow a pension on him . In his acceptance letter,
full of joy over the unexpected freedom to devote himself to the "formation of his ideas'', Schiller writes:
Serenely I look to the future- and if the expectations of myself should
prove to have been nothing but sweet illusions with which my oppressed
pride took revenge on fate, I for one shall not lack the determination to
justify the hopes two excellent citizens of our century have placed in me .
Since my lot does not allow me to act as benefactor in their way, I shall ,
nevertheless, attempt it in the only way that is given to me - and may the
seed they have spread unfold in me into a beautiful blossom for mankind. 13
With the same mail, Schiller ordered Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
Earlier that year, in the throes of his illness, he had begun to read the
Critique of Judgement and had come to the conclusion that nothing short
of a thorough understanding of Kant's philosophical system would satisfy
him. For.three years, a long time in so short a life as Schiller's, he studied
Kant and wrote his own philosophical essays: On Tragic Art, On Grace
and Dignity, On the Sublime, On the Aesthetic Education oj Man, and
On Naive and Sentimental Poetry . On the Aesthetic Educatio;1 of Man he
wrote, as a gesture of gratitude, in the form of letters to the Duke of
Schleswig-Holstein-Augustenburg. In order to appreciate the role of
philosophy in Schiller's drama, let us take a closer look at two of his philosophical essays, On the Aesthetic Education of Man and On Naive and
Sentimental ·Poetry.
In his letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Schiller sketches out
a history of mankind from a state of nature to a state of civilization , where
the progress of the species towards a folfillment of human nature depends
on the fragmentation of nature in the individual. This view of history,
reminiscent to some extent of Rousseau 's Second Discourse, is complemented, however, by Schiller's hope that the totality of our nature,
destroyed by art in the process of civilization, might be restored by a
higher art. Far from romantic longing for a "Golden Age" of nature,
Schiller exclaims:
I would not like to live in a different century and have worked for a different one. One is as much a citizen of one's time as one is a citizen of one's
country . 14
Anticipating an objection to his concern about aesthetic education at the
time of social and political revolutions, Schiller claims that the "path to
freedom" leads through "the land of beauty" . 15 Implied in this is the claim
that the contemplation of beauty, because of its mediation between the
senses and reason, might be able to prepare man for the challenge of
freedom. Looking back to the beginnings of civilization , Schiller states:
Nature does not start any better with man than with the rest of her
6
Schiller '.s Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philp.sophy in Poetry
�works : she acts for him, where he cannot yet act himself as free int~lli
gence. But it is just this which makes him human that he does not stop at
what mere nature made him to be,, but possesses the power through reason
to retrace the steps which she anticipated with him , to transform the work
of compulsion into a work of free choice and to elevate the physical necessity to a moral one. 16
Deeply conscious of the challenge,
that the physical society, in time, may not cease for a moment, while the
moral one, in the idea, forms itself, that for the sake of man's dignity his existence may not be endangered,1 7
Schiller strives for a model of humanity that would combine the natural
beauty of the Greeks with the historical self-consciousness of the Moderns.
Anticipating much of Hegel's philosophy of history, both in perspective
and in formulation, Schiller portrays man's historical development as
progress from a naturally to a rationally given form 18 of humanity. Paying
homage to this kinship in thought, Hegel chooses two lines from Schiller's
early poem Friendship as Finale of his Phenomenology of the Spirit. The
slight change he makes in speaking of "Geisterreich" ("realm of spirits")
rather than "Seelenreich" ("realm of the soul") points, I think, to a crucial
difference between Hegel and Schiller. Concerned, more than the philosopher, about the fragmentation of human nature in the individual for the
sake . of a greater differentiation of it in the species, the tragic poet
exclaims:
But can it be that man should be fated to neglect himself for any end?
Should nature, through her ends, be able to rob us of a perfection which
reason, through hers, prescribes for us? It, therefore, must be false that the
development of the single faculties necessitates the sacrifice of their totality; or even if the law of nature tended there ever so much , it must be up to
us to restore, by a higher art, this totality of our nature which art has
destroyed . 19
Aiming at a balance between reason and the senses, Schiller (who, in
1793, was rereading both Kant's Critique of Judgement and Homer's
Iliad) uses a Homeric simile:
Reason herself will not battle directly with this uncouth power that resists
her weapons and, as little as the son of Saturn in the Iliad, descend, acting
herself, to the gloomy theater. But from the midst of the fighters she
chooses the most worthy, attires him, as Zeus did his grandson, with divine
weapons and, through his victorious force, effects the great decision. 20
This use of Achilles as a symbol of noble, and sometimes tragic, beauty is
only one of many in Schiller's work. In his poem The Gifts of Fortune,
Schiller extols the honor bestowed on Achilles by the gods, in his poem
Nenia, their lament over him at his death. The idea, symbolized by
Achilles, of truth manifesting itself in beauty, and therefore speaking to us
through the senses as well as reason, implies a new appreciation of the
senses:
The path to divinity, if one can call a path what never leads to its destination, is opened up for man in his senses.21
Clearly in answer to Plato's Republic, Schiller regards "the priority of the
sensuous drive" in man's experience "the clue to the whole history of
human freedom." 21 In a highly dialectical sequence of steps, Schiller leads
St. Johns Lecture Series
7
�from the synthesis of the senses and reason in man's contemplation of
beauty to the synthesis of the material and formal drive in man's play
drive to, finally, the synthesis of .t he physical and moral necessity in man's
aesthetic freedom. Aware of the fact that aesthetic freedom , as a state of
being, is only an ideal, but that , as momentary balance between the
senses and reason, it is part of our human experience, Schiller states one of
the most provocative sentences of his work:
Man plays only where, in the full sense of the word, he is man: and he is
fully man only where he plays . 23
The freedom of the aesthetic state, resulting from a balance between the
necessity of the moral as well as physical state, Schiller considers the
"highest of all legacies, the legacy of humaniti' :
It, therefore, is not only poetically permitted, but philosophically
right , if one calls beauty our second creator . For although she only makes
our humanity possible and, for the rest, leaves it up to our free will how far
we want to actualize it, she shares this trait with our original creator ,
nature, who likewise provided us with only the capacity for humanity , but
left the use of it to our own determination of will. 24
Like, before him, Plato and, after him, Hegel , Schiller conceives of man's
development from a natural to a moral being in terms of an analogy between the individual and the species. But where both Plato and Hegel insist on the sovereignty of reason over the senses, Schiller claims that "the
path to the head has to be opened through the heart", for the individual as
well as for the species 25 :
The dynamic (or natural) state can only make society possible by overcoming nature through nature; the ethical (or moral) state can only make
society necessary by subjecting the single to the general will; the aesthetic
state alone can make society actual , because it consummates the will of the
whole through the nature of the individual. 28
The reason for this Schiller sees in the fact that "beauty alone we enjoy, at
the same time, as individual and as species, that is, as representatives of
the species".
Many interpreters of Schiller's aesthetic theories have wondered
whether, in the end, Schiller considers the aesthetic or the moral state the
highest form of humanity. This is a dilemma which, like Meno's opening
question about virtue, cannot be answered directly . In terms of what is
achieved, the moral state presents a pinnacle of human perfection; in
terms of how it is achieved, the aesthetic state presents an ideal comparable only to the life of the Olympian gods. In that sense, Schiller concludes his letters:
But does such a state of beautiful semblance exist, and where is it to be
found? As need, it exists in every finely tuned soul, as reality, one might
find it, like the pure 'church and the pure republic, only in a few select
circles, where not mindless imitation of the ways of others, but inherent
beautiful nature guides human behavior, where man goes through the
most complex situations with bold simplicity and calm innocence, and
neither finds it necessary to offend another's freedom in order to assert his
own, nor to throw away his dignity in order to exhibit grace. 27
This combination of Grace and Dignity, representative of an ideal of
humanity to be found among the Greeks but lost in modern times, Schiller
8
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�sees preserved in Greek works of art:
Mankind has lost its dignity, but art has saved and preserved it in significant stones; truth lives on in semblance, and out of the copy the original
shall be reconstituted. 28
·
Addressing himself to the task of the artist, Schiller exclaims:
The artist certainly is the .son of his time , hut woe to him if, at the same
time, he is its pupil or even its favorite. Let a beneficent deity snatch the
suckling betimes from his mother"s breast , nourish him with the milk of a
better age and allow him to reach maturity under a far off Grecian sky.
Then , when he has become a man, let him return, a stranger, to his own
century; yet, not in order to please it with his appearance, but terrible as
Agamemnon's son , in order to purify it. The material he certainly will take
from the present , but the form from a nobler time, yes, from beyond all
time, borrowed from the absolute unchangeable unity of his being.24
This comprehensive task of the artist, to span the whole history of
human civilization in an attempt to give mankind its fullest possible expression, Schiller discusses more specifically in On Naive and Sentimental
Poetry . Understanding the poets as "preservers and avengers of nature'',
he distinguishes between two types, the Naive poet as "being nature", the
Sentimental poet as "seeking nature". Expressive of two states of
mankind, Naive poetry of a union, Sentimental poetry of a separation
between man and nature, both forms of poetry, in different ways, show a
perfection of art: Naive poetry, as "imitation of reality'', by fulfilling a
finite goal, Sentimental poetry, as "presentation of the ideal", by striving
for an infinite goal. Schiller's terms Naive and Sentimental might sound
confusing at first. They certainly do not mean what they mean today. The
Naive poet, like a god behind his work, lets the world speak for itself. In
that sense, Schiller considers not only Homer, but also Shakespeare and
Goethe Naive poets. The Sentimental poet, on the other hand, an intellectual presence in his work, reflects on the world he portrays . In that sense,
Schiller considers most modern poets, including himself, Sentimental
poets. Striving for an ideal of poetry, Schiller raises the question, whether
and how far, in the same work of art, classical individuality might be
combined with modern ideality. The fulfillment of this task, to "individualize the ideal" and "idealize the individual", in Schiller's eyes,
would not only constitute "the highest peak of all art", but also serve as
that "higher art" which, in the letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man,
was expected to restore the totality of human nature, destroyed by art in
the process of civilization .
Understanding On Naive and Sentimental Poetry "so to speak" a5 "a
bridge to poetic production"30 , Schiller enters into a new period of poetry,
divided between philosophical poems, ballads and historical dramas. In a
letter of 1793, he writes to Count von Schimmelmann:
I have, at the same time, the intention, in this way to reconcile myself with
the poetic Muse whom, through my falling away to the historic Muse (a
fall indeed) I have grossly offended. If I should succeed in regaining the
favor of the god of poetry, I hope to hang up in his temple the spoils which
I have labored to obtain in the realm of philosophy and history, and to
dedicate myself to his service forever. 31
St. Johns Lecture Series
9
�To a letter of Countess von Schimmelmann's, in 1795, Schiller graciously
replies:
You wish, in your letter, that I continue in the poetic path which I have
entered. Why should I not, if you find it worth your while to encourage me
in it. Also by heeding your advice I only follow the inclination of my heart.
From the beginning, poetry was the highest concern of my soul, and I only
left it for a time in order to return to it richer and worthier. All paths of the
human spirit end in poetry, and the worse for it, if it lacks the courage to
lead them to this goal .32
Encouraged by his friendship with Goethe, Schiller, for the last ten years
of his life devoted himself to poetry. This friendship which, to judge from
their many letters, became a constant source of inspiration for both of
them, had started with a famous conversation in July of 1794. On the way
home from a convention of the Society of Natural Science in Jena, Goethe
had presented his Metamorphosis of Plants to Schiller who, still a Kantian, had retorted: "But that is not an experience, that is an ideal" To
which Goethe, with courteous irony, had replied: "I certainly should be
' glad to have ideas without my knowing and even to see them with my
eyes." In a follow up letter to this conversation, Schiller draws the sum of
the difference between the two of them:
Your spirit, to an extraordinary degree, works intuitively, and all your
thinking powers seem to have compromised on the imagination, so to
speak, as their common representative . ... My mind works really more in
a symbolizing way, and thus I am suspended, as a kind of hybrid, between
concept and imagination, between rule and feeling, between technical
head and genius . This, especially in former years, has given me a rather
awkward appearance, in the field of speculation as well as in the art of
poetry; for, usually , the poet overtook me where I was supposed to
philosophize, and the philosophical spirit where I wanted to write poetry.
Even now, it happens to me often enough that imagination disturbs my
abstractions and cold reason my poetry. If I can master these two forces to
the point that, through my freedom, I can assign each one its limits, a
beautiful fate shall still await me . . . .33
Another relationship, crucial for Schiller's understanding of himself with
respect to the Ancients, was his friendship with W. v. Humboldt, the
great scholar in classical languages and literatures . In a letter of 1795,
Humboldt writes:
I believe I can justify this seemingly paradoxical sentence that you, on the
one hand, are the direct opposite of the Greeks, since your products exhibit
the very character of autonomy; and that, at the same time, you, among
the moderns, again are closest to them . since your products, after Greek
ones, express necessity of form; only that you draw it from yourself, while
the Greeks take it from the aspect of external nature, which is likewise
necessary in its form. Wherefore also, Greek form resembles more the object of the senses, yours more the object of reason, even though the former,
finally, also rests on a necessity of reason, and yours, of course, also speaks
to the senses. 34
After the completion of his Bride of Messina, in 1803, Schiller reminds
Humboldt of this earlier exchange of theirs:
My first attempt of a tragedy in strict form will give you pleasure; you will
be able to judge from it, whether as contemporary of Sophocles I might
10
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�have been able to carry off a prize. I have not forgotten that you called me
the most modern of all newer poets and, therefore, thought me in opposition to everything that could be called ancient .3s
In an introduction to the publication of their correspondence, 25 years
after Schiller's death, Humboldt reminisces:
What every observer had to notice in Schiller, as characteristically defining°, was that, in a higher and more pregnant sense than perhaps ever in
anyone else, thought was the element of his life. Continual authentic intellectual activity left him almost never, and only yielded to the more
violent attacks of his bodily illness. It seemed to him relaxation, not strain.
This showed itself especially in conversation for which Schiller seemed
most truly born. He never sought for a significant topic of discourse, he left
it more to chance to bring up the subject matter, but from each he led the
conversation to a more general perspective, and after a few exchanges one
found oneself in the middle of a mind-provoking discussion. He always
treated the thought as a result to be reached together, always seemed to
need the interlocutor, even if one remained conscious of receiving the idea
merely from him . . . Moving above his subject matter with perfect
freedom, he used every sideline which offered itself, and so his conversation was rich in words that carry the feature of happy creations of the moment. The freedom, however, did not curtail the investigation. Schiller
always held on to the thread which had to lead to its end. 36
Schiller's gift for friendship which, throughout his life, moved
him, whether face to face or in letters, to engage in conversation,
found its early expression in a letter of April 1783:
In this wonderful breath of the morning, I think of you, friend- and of
my Carlos . . . I imagine-Every poetic work is nothing but an enthusiastic friendship or Platonic love for a creation of our head .. . If we
can ardently feel the state of a friend, we will also be able to glow for our
poetic heroes. Not that the capacity for friendship and Platonic love would
simply entail the capacity for great poetry - for I might be very able to feel
. a great character without being able to create it. But it should be clear that
a great poet has to have, at least, the capacity for the highest friendship,
even if he has not always expressed it. 37
Schiller's return to poetry, and to dramatic poetry in particular,
begins with a work which stands out in many ways. In the center between
his four earlier and four later plays, Schiller's Wallenstein, his only
trilogy, surpasses the others both in subject matter and in poetic form.
Like the Republic among Plato's Dialogues, Wallenstein, among Schiller's
plays, in one dramatic poem of epic dimensions, encompasses all the
earlier and later themes. In order to appreciate its universality, let us first
conclude our sketch of Schiller's life and work.
Alternating. between a stricter and looser dramatic form, Schiller, in
the last five years of his life, completed Mary Stuart, a "tragedy" about
the Scottish queen and Elizabeth I, The Maid of Orleans, a "romantic
tragedy" about Joan of Arc and her mysterious fight for France, The Bride
of Messina, a "tragedy with choruses", modeled on the Oedipus story, and
finally William Tell, a "drama" about the Swiss fight for independent
unity. Of these later four plays, like the earlier ones focusing on the problem of freedom in connection with the conflict between natural herolsm
and conventional authority, only William Tell is not a tragedy. Written
St. John's Lecture Series
11
�as a New Year's present for 1895 (the opening year of Tolstoy's Wai: and
Peace), William Tell portrays a "new birth of freedom" out of the strength
of a people willing to fight for "the proposition that all men are created
equal". The fact that Tell, though a leader figure, does not presume any
power beyond the limits of republican government, avoids the abyss of
tragedy. That William Tell should be Schiller's last finished, but not his
last play seems to fit this "greatest adventurer of the history of the spirit'',
as H.v.Hofmannsthal calls him. 38 Besides two dramatic works of which
we have extensive fragments, there are about twelve titles of prospective
plays in Schiller's work plan. In addition to his own plays, Schiller, at the
end of his life, still completed two translations which, diametrically opposed to each other, show the range of his dramatic sensibility: the one, in
1801, Shakespeare's Macbeth, the other, in 1805, Racine's Phedre. One
story from the last few days of his life seems to me more revealing than
many a learned comment on his life and work: Bothered by the sight of a
newspaper, edited by a writer he had a very low opinion of, Schiller
begged:
Please, take it out right away, so I can truthfully say I have never seen it.
Give me fairy and knights' tales-there, indeed, lies the matter for
everything great and beautiful. 39
In the Second Part of Goethe's Faust,
early in the Classical
Walpurgisnacht, Faust inquires of the centaur Chiron whom, among the
heroes of his time, he thought to be the greatest. Not satisfied with
Chiron's answer, Faust prods: "Of Hercules you want to make no mention?" To which Chiron replies: "01 do not rouse my longing ... I" Remembering Hercules as "a born king", Chiron claims that neither song
nor marble will ever be able to express his magnificence. In his Essay on
Schiller40 , Th. Mann suggests that with this scene, echoing Schiller's poem
Ideal and Life which culminates in the transfiguration of Hercules,
Goethe paid a final homage to their friendship.
Faust's infatuation with Greek antiquity and his search for Helen as a
symbol of beauty has to be understood in connection with Goethe's and
Schiller's admiration for Homer and their aesthetic theories about a possible union between the natural grace and dignity of the Greeks and the
historical self-consciousness of the Moderns. Entranced by this ideal
which, in the late 1790s, was one of the main topics of their correspondence, both Goethe and Schiller produced works with Homeric
overtones: Goethe his Hermann and Dorothea, Schiller his Wallenstein.
Under the names of the nine Muses, starting with Calliope, the Muse
of epic poetry, and ending with Urania, the Muse of philosophical poetry,
the nine Cantos of Hermann and Dorothea present the whole realm of
poetic expression. Set against the historical background of the French
Revolution, the story of Hermann and Dorothea, together with the different modes of poetry evolving from each other, seems to be a modern
version of Homer's Shield of Achilles. The Muse of epic poetry, however,
not only governs the First Canto, but her spirit pervades the poem as a
whole: Homeric meter, Homeric diction, Homeric epithets and episodes,
though softened from herioc to idyllic tone, echo Iliad as well as Odyssey
in every line of Goethe's poem.
12
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�Schiller's Wallemtein, on the other hand, a monumental trilogy about
the imperial general of the Thirty Years War, presents itself as a modern
historical drama. An account of .the last few days of Wallenstein's life,
culminating in his treason and, finally, his assassination, it confronts us
with the issue of war and peace as symbol of the tragic situation of man.
Disregarding religious and political interests, Wallenstein, a new Caesar,
claims to be the only one able to unify Europe. Though noble in itself, this
ideal, in the hands of lesser men, turns into a treacherous weapon which,
in the end, is responsible for W~llenstein's tragic fall.
Like the Divided Line in Plato's Republic, Schiller's Wallenstein,
divided into the poet's Prologue and three plays, leads from the realm of
the visible to the realm of the intelligible, from the realm of imagination
and opinion to the realm of understanding and thought. Preceded by a
Prologue about the intricate relationship of life and history to art and
nature, the Wallenstein trilogy presents us first with Wallenstein's·
"shadow image", emerging from the opinions of his soldiers, then with his
"public self", surrounded by his family and his generals, and finally with
his "private self', suspended between the freedom of his heaven bound
reflections and the n~ity of his earthbound actions.
Even in the context of Schiller's History of the Thirty Years War, an
account of the confrontation betw'*'n the forces of the Emperor, defending Catholicism, and the forces of Gustav Adolf of Sweden, fighting for
Protestantism, the rise and fall of W~lenstein in the service of the
Emperor strangely reminds one of the fatJ' of the Homeric Achilles. The
historical figures and events of the Thirty Years War seem to fit the poetic
panorama of Homer's Iliad, where the natural enmity between Agamemnon, the ruler, and Achllles. the hero, almost outweighs their national enmity against Hector~ whose humanity encompasses both their natures.
Ending his account of W,.Jlensteln's ·role in the Thirty Years War, Schiller
states:
·
Thus Wallenstein, at the age of fffty, ended his action-filled and extraordinary life; raised by love of honor, felled by lust for honor, with all
his failings still great and admirable, unsurpmable if he had kept within
bounds. The virtues of the ruler and hero, prudence, justice, firmne$ and
courage, tower In his character c:oloaally; but he lacked the gentler virtues
of the man, which grace the hero and gain love for the ruler. 41
In answer to this Epilogue of the historian, the Prologue of the poet
promises:
Blurred by the favor and the hate of parties
His image waven within history.
But art shall now bring him more humanly
And closer to your eyes and to your heart.
For art, which binfls and Umlts everything,
Brings all extremes IN!ck to the sphere of nature.••
In the Preface to his Bride oj Mealna, Schiller speab of the relationship of
historical truth to poetic ~rqth or, as he calls it in On Tragic Art, to the
truth of nature:
Nature itself is only a spiritual idea, which never falls into the senses.
Under the cover of the appearances It lies, but it itself never rises to ap-
St. John 8 Lecture Set;ea
13
�pearance. Only the art of the .ideal is favored, or rather shouldered with
the task to grasp this spirit of the whole and to bind it into bodily form.
Even this (type of art] can never bring it before the senses, yet through her
creative force before the power of the imagination, and thereby be more
true than all reality and more real than all experience. From this it follows
by itself that the artist cannot use a single .element from reality as he finds
it, that his work must be ideal in all its parts, if it is supposed to have reality
as a whole and agree with nature.
Striving for a form of art that would be true both to historical reality and
to nature, Schiller, in his Wallenstein, surrounds the modern world of the
Thirty Years War with a mythical horizon of Homeric overtones. In a letter of 1794, in which he tells Korner of;'.'writing his treatise on the Naive
and, at the same time, thinking about the plan for Wallenstein," Schiller
confesses:
In the true sense of the word, I enter a path wholly unknown to me, a
path certainly untried, for in poetic matters, dating back three, four years,
I have put on a completely new man . 43 ·
Reaching for the truth of nature by combining Naive and Sentimental
poetry, Schiller integrates Homer's "imitation of nature" into his own
"presentation of the ideal". In his advice.-to Goeth. who, at the time of
e
Schiller's work on Wallenstein, was engaged in his Achilleis, an epic poem
about the death of Achilles, Schiller suggests:
Since it is certainly right that no Iliad is possible after the Iliad, even if
there were again a Homer and again a Greece, I believe I can wish you
nothing better than that you compare your Achilleis, as it exists now in
your imagination, only with itself, and in Homer only seek the mood,
without really comparing your task with his .. . . For it is as impossible as
thankless for the poet, if he should leave his homeground altogether and
actually oppose himself to his time. It is your beautiful vocation to be a
contemporary and citizen of both poetic worlds, and exactly because of this
higher advantage you will belong to neither exclusively. 44
Like catalysts in the process of establishing an ideal mode of poetic expression, the echoes of Homer's Iliad in Schiller's Wallenstein accentuate its
modernity.
A major change from the History of the Thirty Years War, Schiller's
Wallenstein, following Homer's Iliad, begins in the middle of the war.
But where Homer, in the first seven lines of the Iliad, describes the wrath
of Achilles, and the fateful clash between Achilles and Agamemnon,
Schiller, in the Prologue to Wallenstein discusses the role of art, and art's
relationship to history and nature. Befitting the ancient epic poem,
Homer's description centers on Zeus and the fulfillm~nt of his will; befitting the modern dramatic poem, Schiller's discussio11 centers on the
phenomenon of the great historical personality.
·
Both Homer's Iliad and Schiller's Wallenstein, with the Catalogue of
Ships and the first play of the trilogy, exhibit the army and its various
elements in a set picture. But where the Catalogue of Ships, preceded by
an invocation to the Muse, merely lists the leaders of the Trojan war,
Wallenstein s Camp (the model for Brecht'.s Mother Courage), depicts the
dissolution of life in the state of war which, (as a state of nature in the
14
Schillers Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy iQ Poetry
�midst of the state of society), perverts all human values.
Both Homer's Iliad, in the center of its first half, and Schiller's
Wallenstein, in the center of its central play, The Piccolomini, show the
most tender human relationship exposed to the harsh reality of war. But
where Homer, in the parting of Hector from wife and child on the wall of
Troy, focuses on the conflict between family and society, Schiller, in the
love scenes between Max and Thekla, focuses on the conflict between individuals and society. A poetic expression of Kant's Moral Law, founded
on nothing but their hearts, love creates an island of freedom in the sea of
historical necessity.
Both Homer and Schiller, with the Shield of Achilles and the chalice of
the banquet at Pilsen, use the detailed description of an artifact to
highlight the world view implicit in each poem. But where the scenes on
the shield depict human life within the timeless order of nature and,
therefore, are self-explanatory, the scenes on the chalice require an explanation not only for their reference to a specific moment in human history, but also for their use of allegory in portraying that moment.
Where Homer, in the First Book of the Iliad, tells of Achilles' meeting
with Thetis, and of her visit to Zeus on Olympus, Schiller, in the opening
scene of Wallenstein's Death, the last play of the trilogy, shows Wallenstein, concentrating on the long expected moment of the conjunction between the planets Venus and Jupiter. The change of perspective, from
trusting in divine powers that are moved by will and fate to relying on
heavenly bodies that move in accordance with universal laws, does not affect the hopes and the despair that either of them occasion.
Both Homer and Schiller, with dramatic suspense, portray their
heroes in thoughtful solitude. But where Homer paints the rich scene of
Achilles sitting before his tent, in the company of Patroclos, and singing
about the glory of men to the sound of his lyre, Schiller presents Wallenstein absorbed in a monologue, reflecting on the relationship of freedom
and necessity in human nature. Unlike Achilles' song which, in the
creative process, unites freedom and necessity, Wallenstein's reflection, in
the form of a syllogism with invalid premisses, denies such a union and is
left with the fragments of abstract thought. Achilles' restful repose conveys the harmony of his song as much as Wallenstein's restless stopping
and starting the disharmony of his reflection.
A striking change from the History of the Thirty Years War is Schiller's ·
modeling the friendship between Wallenstein and Max, the only nonhistorical character in the play, on the friendship between Achilles and
Patroclos in Homer's Iliad. Both Homer and Schiller, in the poetic constellation of their characters and plots, make friendship, a middle ground
between a natural and a conventional bond, the turning point for
tragedy. Like the death of Patroclos for Achilles, the death of Max brings
Wallenstein closer to realizing the tragic connection between freedom
and necessity, borne out in the problematic relationship of nature and
convention.
The modern complexity of Schiller's Wallenstein, over and against the
relative simplicity of Homer's Iliad, shows itself in content as well as in
St. John's Lecture Series
15
�form. Expressive of the fragmentation of human nature in the course of
history, Schiller's abstract language lends itself to portraying characters
that are torn between action and reflection. Striving for a new totality of
human nature, some of Schiller's characters parallel more than one of
Homer's characters: So Max, both Patroclos and Hector; so Thekla, both
Briseis and Andromache. This double role of the modern characters is the
more significant, as it obliterates the enmity between Greeks and Trojans
and thus points to an individuality which, viable or not, transcends the
political nature of man. Complementary to the parallels of characters,
parallels of plots create a maze of poetic affinities between the ancient
epic and the modern tragic poem. Discontinuous and staggered, the
parallels of plots seem to point not only to the fragmentation of human
nature in modern times, but also to a new totality made possible through
history.
Intent on exploring the complementation of time and timelessness in
the work of art, Schiller and Goethe, in their letters during the years of
Schiller's work on Wallenstein, discuss the relationship of tragic to epic
poetry. Perceiving them as complementary art forms, Schiller defines
tragedy, standing under the category of causality, as the capture of
"singular extraordinary moments of mankind", and epic poetry, standing
under the category of substantiality, as the depiction of the "permanent,
persistent whole" thereof. 45 In harmony with Aristotle's notion of tragedy
as more comprehensive than epic poetry4 6 , Schiller changes his early plans
for an epic poem about the Thirty Years War, centering on Gustav Adolf,
to his final ones for a dramatic poem, centering on Wallenstein. Immersed in his task of translating Euripides, in Schiller's eyes a poet on the
way from Naive to Sentimental poetry, Schiller, in 1789, had written to
Korner:
Let me add further that in getting better acquainted with Greek plays
I, in.the end, abstract from them what is true, beautiful and effective and,
by leaving out what is defective, I therefrom shape a certain ideal through
which my present one shall be corrected and wholly founded . 47
In a letter to Goethe, in which he speaks of "sketching out a detailed
scenario for Wallenstein'', Schiller remarks:
I find the more I think about my own task and about the way the
Greeks dealt with tragedy that everything hinges on the art of inventing a
poetic fable. 48
Schiller's Wallenstein and Euripides' Iphigeneia in Aulis, which Schiller
had translated in 1788, apparently follow the same poetic fable. In both
dramas, the leader of the army orders members of his family to join him at
his camp. In both, the political reasons for this move are disguised as personal reasons. In both, the heroic action of a youth close to the leader interferes with his plans and finally causes tragedy and death . In the comparison with Homer's Iliad, the main parallels were drawn between the
Emperor and Agamemnon, Wallenstein and Achilles, and Max and
Patroclos. In the comparison with Euripides' lphigeneia in Aulis,
however, the main parallels would have to be drawn between Wallenstein and Agamemnon, Max and Achilles, and Thekla and Iphigeneia.
16
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�The fundamental theme of Schiller's Wallenstein, the necessary connection between nature and convention, emerges in the "living shape" •9 of
Wallenstein. presenting. in one modern historical figure, Achilles, the archetype of the natural hero. and Agamemnon, the archetype of the conventional ruler.
In the 26th letter 011 the Ae.~thl'fic Edrt<'afion of Man, Schiller comments on the sovereign power of the artist:
With unlimited fn>edom he can fit togt-thcr what nature separated, as long
as lw can somehow think it togetht•r. and separate what nature connected,
as long as he can only detach it in his mind. Here nothing ought to be
sacred to him but his own law. as long as he only watches the marking
which divides his province from the existence of things or realm of nature.
True to the reality of history, Schiller presents Wallenstein in a modern
historical drama, set in the world of the Thirty Years War. Separating
what nature connected, Schiller abstracts from features of the historical
Wallenstein which would disqualify him for being a tragic hero. True to
the reality of poetry, where the historical characters, as poetic figures,
become symbolic beings, Schiller presents Wallenstein in a dramatic
poem, surrounded by a mythical horizon. Fitting together what nature
separated, Schiller strikes parallels, respectively, between one historical
and more than one mythical character, and between one historical and
more than one mythical plot. The fact that the poetic figure of Wallenstein reflects the archetypes from Homer and Euripides in a cross between
naturally opposed, but artistically complementary characters demonstrates both the fragmentation and the striving for a new totality of
human nature in the course of history. By reflecting the Iliad as well as
the pregnant moment before the Iliad, Schiller's Wallenstein, a living example of the unity of time and timelessness, opens up a perspective from
history to epic as well as tragic poetry. With his integration of Greek "imitation of nature" into his own "presentation of the ideal", Schiller seems to
point to the fulfillment of an ideal in which art and nature would meet
again.
To a letter in which Korner had suggested a few changes in the plot of
Wallenstein, Schiller replies with unusual sharpness:
A product of art, insofar as it has been designed with artistic sense, is a living work, where everything hangs together with everything, where
nothing can be moved without moving everything from its place. 50
Correlation of everything with everything can be detected in more than
one element of Schiller's dramatic poem: the polarity of characters sus.tains the symmetry of plots which, in concentric circles of scenes and acts,
form the whole of the trilogy. Corresponding to the three parts of the Prologue, the three plays of Wallenstein explore the relationship between
nature and art, portrayed in the life of individuals, representative of the
life of mankind. Schiller's integration of characters and plots from Greek
epic and tragic poetry into his modern historical drama contributes to the
symbolic nature of his poetic figures and poses the question of the relationship between Ancients and Moderns, fully discussed in his
philosophical writings. The correspondence between dramatic characters
St. Johns Lecture Series
17
�and aesthetic principles ties together life and art by interpretir{g them in
terms of history, understood in the light of .nature.
The evidence of such comple.x relationships between the various
elements of Schiller's Wallenstein certainly proves it to be a "product of
art", but does it prove it to be a "living work?" In a long painstaking letter
about Wallenstein , W .v. Humboldt writes to his friend:
We often talked with each other about this poem, when it was scarcely
more than sketched out. You considered it the touchstone with which to
test your poetic capacity. With admiration, but also with apprehension, I
saw how much you bound up in this task .. . . Such masses no one ever has
set in motion; such a comprehensive subject matter no one ever has chosen ;
an action, the motivating springs and consequences of which, like the roots
and branches of a tremendous tree-trunk, lie so far spread out and dispersed in such diverse forms, no one ever has presented in one tragedy. 51
In a letter to Korner , Schiller confesses:
None of my old plays has as much purpose and form as my Wallenstein
already has; but, by now, I know too well ~hat I want and what I have to
do that I could make the task so easy for myself.52
In the light of his notion of the poets as "preservers" and "avengers" of
nature, Schiller, in the letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man, compares the artist to Agamemnon's son who returns to the house of his
fathers in order to avenge the past on the present. Understanding him as a
contemporary and citizen of more than one world, Schiller advises the artist to take the material for his work from the present, but the form from
"a nobler time, yes, from beyond all time, borrowed from the absolute,
unchangeable unity of his being". In compliance with his own advice,
Schiller takes the material for his Wallenstein from modern history, but
the form from a blend of Naive and Sentimental poetry, explicated in the
aesthetic theories of his philosophical writings . Fully aware of the artificial nature of such a process, Schiller, nevertheless, expects to achieve
an ideal of poetry in which history and philosophy would contribute to
the vindication of nature. The fact that no one, for now almost two hundred years, has seen that Schiller's Wallenstein, in appearance the most
modern of his dramas, in substance is also the one where Naive and Sentiµiental poetry blend most completely, should be enough of an indication
that history and philosophy, though indispensable for Schiller's work, are
only means towards a higher goal: their fulfillment in poetry. To end with
Schiller's own words 53 :
All paths of the human spirit end in poetry, and the worse for it if it lacks
the courage to lead them there . The highest philosophy ends in a poetic
idea, so the highest morality, the highest politics. The poetic spirit it is to
which all three owe their ideal and which to approximate is their highest
perfection.
18
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�1.
3!J.
40
41.
42 .
Translations of dramatic works, by C . E. Passage, Wallenstein, 1958; Don Carlos, 1959; Mary
Stuart , The Maid of OrleaflB, 1961: The Bride of Messina, William Tell, Demetrius, 1962; Intrigue and Love, 1971; Ungar, New York; by F . J . Lamport, The Robbers and Wallenstein,
Penguin, 1979.
Translations of philosophical works, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, by R. Snell,
Ungar, New York, 1954; by E . M. Wilkinson and L.A. Willoughby, dual language edition with
extensive introduction and commentary, Oxford, 1967: On Naive and Sentimental Poetry and
On the Sublime, by J. A. Elias, Ungar, New York, 1966.
The main sources for my account of Schiller's life are: F. Burschell, F. Schiller, In
Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Rowohlt, Hamburg, 1958; C.v . Wilpert, SchillerChronlk, Sein Leben und Schaffen, Kroner, Stuttgart, 1958. Given the format of a public lecture, references to secondary literature, except for a few places, have been kept ·out of the
account.
To Lempp (?),Jun. 19, 1783.
0 . Seidlin, "Schiller, Poet of. Politics", in A Schiller Symposium, ed. L. Willson, U. of Texas,
Austin, 1960, pp. 31-48.
·
H. Jantz, "William Tell and the American Revolution", in A Schiller Symposium, op . cit ., pp.
65-81.
Wallemtei11 , Prol .. II. 61-69 (tran<lation hy C . E . Pas.<age: "great objectives", my correction).
Wallen.otein'.• Death, III. 13, I. 1813.
F . Burschell . F. Schiller. op . cit ., p . 7.
C.v. Wilpert. Schiller-Chronik, op . cit .. p. 41.
A. Lincoln. "The Perpetuation of our Political ln<titutions'', Address Before the Young Men's
Lyceum of Springfield. Illinois, Jan . 27, 1838.
Th. Mann, Ver.mch Ober Schiller. Fischer, Frankfurt a.M .. 1955, p. 35 (cf. La•t E..•ays , translation hy R. and C . Win<ton . Knopf. New York, 1966. p. 29. but without this personal reference).
To Ch . and C. v. Lengefeld. Dec. 4. 17R8.
To Baggesen. Dec. 16. 1791.
On fhe Ae..thetic Ed1wati1m of Ma11 . Letter 2.
Ibid .. Letter 2.
/bit/ .. Letter 3.
Ibid .. Letter 3.
Ibid .. Letter 6.
Ibid .. Letter 6.
Ibid .. Letter 8.
Ibid., Letter 11.
Ibid .. Letter 20.
Ibid .. Lettt'r 15.
Ibid .. Letter 21.
Ibid .. Letter 8.
Ibid .. Letter 27.
Ibid .. Letter 27.
/hit/ .. Letter 9.
Ibid .. Letter 9.
To Korner. Sep. 12. 1794 .
To E.v. Schimmelmann. Jul. 13. 179.1.
To C.v . Schimmelmann. No\' , 4. 1795.
To Goethe. Aug . .11. '1794.
To Schiller. No\'. 6. 1795.
To Humholdt. Feh. 17. lll0.1 .
Ober Schiller rmtl tle11 Gang .<ei11er Gei.ttt'"n1tu:ick/1mg. 1830, in Werke , II, ed. A. F1itner/K .
Giel . Wis.•en<chaftliche Buchitesellschaft. Darm<tadt , 1969, pp. 361-362.
To Reinwald. Apr. 14, 17R3, quoted from F . Burschell, F. Schiller. op cit ., pp . 47-48 .
Hofmannsthal. "Schiller". in Arisgeu:iihlle Werke. II, Erzahlungen und Aufsiitze, Fischer,
Frankfurt a .M.. 1957, p . 40R.
<)uo!L'd from F. Rur.chell . f. Schiller, op. cit .. Jl. 166.
Th. Mann. "Es.<a\· on Schiller" in La.ti E.""Y"· op. cit .. pp. 81-84.
Schiller. lli"tory ~f thi• 1'hirty Year.t War. End of Book IV.
Wal/1•n"fein. Prol., II. 102-107 (translation hy C. E. Pas.<age: "within" , "heart", my
4.1 .
44 .
45 .
To Korner. Sep. 4, 1794.
To Goethe. Ma\· IR. 179R.
To Cnethc. Ap~. 25. 1797: Aufo! . 24. 179R.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
R.
9.
IO .
11.
12.
1.1.
14 .
15.
16.
17.
IA.
19.
20 .
21.
22 .
23 .
24 .
25 .
26.
27 .
2R .
2!J .
30.
31.
32.
33.
34 .
35.
.36.
37 .
.1R .
H
,,.,
t·orre<:tions) .
St. John'.\· Lecture Series
19
�46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
20
To Goethe, May 5, 1797.
To Korner, Mar. 9, 1789.
To ~the, Apr . 4, 1797.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man , Letter 15.
To Korner, Mar . 24, 1800.
·
To Schiller, Sep. 1800.
To Korner , Nov . 28 , 1796.
To C.v . Schimmelmann, Nov . 4, 1795 .
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy i11 Poetry
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Berns, Gisela N.
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Schiller's drama : fulfillment of history and philosophy in poetry
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1982-02-26
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Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805.
German literature
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Annapolis, MD
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Friday night lecture
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Text
NOMOS AND PHYSIS
(An interpretation of Euripides' Hippolytos}
Gisela Berns
St. John's College, Annapolis
The na_
tural order of presentation might seem to be reversed in a title which focuses on Nomos and Physis as ·two
related aspects of one and the same theme. Is not Physis
(Nature) an
indispens~ble
ground for Nomos (Convention) and
therefore a key to its unders,tanding? The
· the seemingly natural order can be found
arising from
~uripides'
play
~ippolytos,
rea~on
~n
the
for reversing
suggcs~ion,
that, in the case
of man, Nomos is as indispensable an end for Physis as Physis
is an
indispens~ble
ground for Nomos, that Physis provides
the potentialities, Nomos the actuality of man, and that
therefore Nornos comes to be the key to· a final understanding
of man's Physis.
II
Immediately following Aphrodite's prologue (1-57); the
play presents Hippolytos, offering
a wreath
of ·f lowers· to
Artemis (58-87). In th_ dedication of the wreath, preceeded
e
by an enthusiastic hymn to the goddess's beauty and exaltedness (58-72), Hippolytos reflects on the'possession of
�-2"olllcppoodvn" and its connection to his companionship with
Artemis.
'
"ooL
tdv6~
.
lcLµQvo,,
'
1lcxtov otlcpavov it &xnpdtou
1
6lo101.va, xooµ~aa' cplpw,
lv&' o~tc 101.µ~v &t1.ot cplpBcLV Sot~
o~t'
nl&l 1111 a(6npo,, &11' axnpatov
µllt.OOa lELµQv' npt.V~V 6t.lPX£Tat.
al6~' 6~ 1otaµCaLOL xnxcdcL 6~&00~''
.. ,
.
'
,;,
'-'to owcppovctv c1.lnxcv tt.!; ta xavt. ac ,
_,
QA).'
I
Wf(An
6l0101,VQ, XP00la!; x&µn,
'
I
\
ava6nµa 6lta1. _ xc1.po'
-'· µ cS v w 1. yap ; £• o t' t.
T o0 t
•
&10.
c~acSoo,
•
.I
c µ o '1. y &:; p a '
.
Bp o T Gh.1 •
'
'
.f
'
.I
•
001. XQL tuVCLPI. XaL loyoL, aµc1.Soµa1.,
#
\ .f
x~uwv
\
~
J!
µcv auu,.,, oµµa 6
0
;i_
0
,I
oux opwv to oov.
0
I
-
\
The dedication unfolds in two parts. Each part begins with an
appeal to the goddess and ends with a reflection, the first
one on the possession of "owcppoodvn" ,_ the second one on Hippolytos' companionship with Artemis. Both parts, though they correspond to each other in structure, differ from each other in
tone: the second one · applies to Hippolytos personally what
the first one elaborates in general.
In the first part of the dedication, Hippoiytos claims
�-3-
that only nature and divine allotment can truly account for
the possession of "aw,poadvn". This claim is
~xpressed
iri
·three, increasingly abstract statements: first a description,
then a poetic image and finally a philosophical discussion.
The description of the inviolate meadow, where the flowers
for Hippolytos' wreath were gathered, distinguishes not only
· between flock and iron on the one hand, and the roaming bee 1
on the other hand, but also implies a·distinction between the
flock, something in nature, and the iron, something from nature,
developed by art into something again.s t nature i tne sickle.
This increase in supposed violation of the meadow, inherent
in the sequence of examples which are set off from the example of the bee, has two opposite effects: its immediate .
effect, supported by a grammatical
"a~>.'"
(76), is separation.
Furthermore, the repetition of the watchword
"ax~patov"
(73; . 76) ·
ties the example of the bee rhetorically to Hippolytos' offering of the wreath, and sets them both off from the examples
of flock and iron. Yet the · interp.o sition of those examples,
implying violation, between the examples, implying no violation but rather fulfillment, suggests at the same time a
separation between Hippolytos'
offe~
and. the example of the
bee. This more subtle effect is to be weighed carefully, since
the description of the roaming bee carries ove+ into the
poetic image of
"al6111~"·
The extension of the one into the
other is grammatically effected by the implicit continuation
�-4of the direct object
11
A£ l.).JiiiV) ax~patov" (76). In keeping with
the ambiguous character of the link between Hippolytos'-offer
and the example of the bee before, the granunatical conjunction
\
.
"6t"
(78) between the example of the bee and the image of
"at6c)s" can at the same time be understood to connect and to
separate. Furthermore, the image of "al6<.3,", gardening the
inviolate meadow, contains in itself a strange alloy of .wild
and tamed nature, of nature and culture, and therefore seems
to question Hippolytos' claim that only nature and divine allotment can truly account for the possession of "awcppoa~vri",
the theme of the final discussion of the dedication's first
part. Mentioning the gathering of flowers
~n
the end of this
philosophical discussion however suggests, that there is one
continuous interpretation of Hippolytos' offer, which is consecutively exp-ressed in des~riptive, poeti'c, · and philosophical
language. The key term in Hippolytos' philosophical conclusion
. \
is "To awippovetv" (80). Like the center of two concentric
circles, it.is surrounded by two pairs of correlated terms:
"ev tf,\ ,,Soe1." and "er>.rixev" in the inner circle,
\.
~ri6ev"
and
"To~' xaxoto1. o'
opposition between the
11
'
61.oaM'tov
06" in the outer circle. The
accept~nce
of 'the 'bee and the rejection
of flock and iron from the initial .d escription repeats itself
.
. \
in this final stage of the argument as the rejection of "to
01.1>1ppovetv" as
"61.oaxt~v",
against the acceptance of
correlated with "Tot' xaxoto1."
11 't'~
oooqipovetv" as "ev T~ ftfoe1.",
correlated with "eC>.rixev". The opposition is emphasized rhe-
�-5-
torically through closeness to the center and affirmative
statement for what is accepted, remoteness from the center
apd negative statement for what is rejected. Grammatically,
an
"a>.>.'"
(79), like an echo of the one above, which isolated
the example of the bee from those before, isolates the inner
circle from the outer one. The connectiQn between the poetic
image of "at6~i;" and the philosophical discussion about . "T~
owq>povttv" is controversial. The two possible constructions
are: one --"'at6~i;' gardens with river dew for those to whom
it is not taught, but in their nature· allotted to be 'owcppwv'
with respect to all things all the time, for those to pluck,
but for the base it is not right;" the other --"'ot6~i;'
gardens with river dew; for those to whom it is not taught
but in their nature allotted to be
'a~cppwv'
with respect to
all things ali the time, f9r .tho$e to pluck, but for the base
it is not . right." In both . readings, the sentence structure is
highly complex: In . the first reading, where "at6~i;" is supposed to "garden for those, to whom it is not taught but in
I
their nature allotted to be
'o~cpp(l)v'
things all the time, for those to
with respect to all
pluck~ ·
the repetition of
the indirect object, once in relative, o·n ce in demonstrative
form, seems to overstress the connection between "at6~i;" and
"T~ awcppove:tv." At the same time however, the iength of the
relative clause separates the repeated terms more than appears
natural. In the second reading, where
11
·•at6~s;' gardens with
river dew; for those, to whom it is not taught but in their
�-6-
nature allotted to .be
'a~•pwv'
with respect to all things
ba~e
all the time, for those to pluck, but for the
it is not
right", the lack of any_grammatical relation between the
first sentence and the
followi~g
relative complex poses the
problem as to the connection between "at 6~ s" and
In addition to that, _
the necessity to supply
"to\ho1.s; opl1ca601." from
"ou
11
"t ~
a <1Hp p ov £ t
v" •
-&lµ1.s;" for
.&lµ1.s;" predicated for "xaxota1.",
makes the whole relative clause with its discussion of "t~
aw,povctv" rather suspect. 2
The problematic character of the.dedication's first part
will become clearer through an analysis of the second part
and the correlation of the two in their respective three
levels. The introduction of the second appeal to the . goddess
by "aA.A.' 11 echoes those passages from the dedication's ,·first
:
part that stated the basis
f~r
acceptance·and thus prepares
the _ground for the more personal character of the second
part. The _goddess, now addressed as friend, is bidd.e n to
accept a gift that previously was only offered. The justification
ftxc1.p~s; cuac~oOs;
im~gined
&10
11
recalls the po~tic image of "a[6~s;",
as . gardening the sacred meadow. The account of Hippoly-
tos' companionship, closely linked through "y~p" to the mention-'
i~g
of his piety, seems to correspond to the discussion of
\
"To awq>povetv" in the dedication's first part. ·1n keeping
with the positive and 'more personal character of the second
part, _the emphasis, indicated by the order of discussion, is
now rather on the supernatural gift than on the natural en-
�-7-
dowment. The correlation of "iv
t~
9t1a&1.tt and "tC>.nxtv" from
above, which centered around "t~ O(l)cppovetv", seems to reappear in the correlation of "yip as" and ~Tl>.os 6~ 1i~µ<1;a1.µ • ~al:tP
eCou",
nptcl\Jnv
which center around the description of Hippoly-
tos' and the goddess's companionship • . 'l'here
is . nothi~g
in
the second part that corresponds explicitly to. the negative
references in the first part, though the "i:ots xaxotoi. 6'
ou "
seems to be implicit in Hippolytos' exclusive chosenness, the
"61.6axt~v µn6~v" in his wish for concord between the beginning and the end of his life (a notion, that is supported
rhetorically by the position . of "tt'>.os" at the beginning of
the statement and contrasted. granunatically with "6~" from the
implications mentioned). The central account of Hippolytos'
devotion to Artemis is puzzling in so far : as it describes a
companionship'. which is characterized by the exchange of ">._ yo 1.",
&
the mortal hearing the voice but not seeing the eye of the
immortal partner. This detail beqomes significant, if one
recalls that the rational aspect of "T~ owcppovttv" had been
que•tioned, if not deniedJin the first part's negation of
\
.
and its correlation with "JC.a>eotai.." Apart from the
fact that "01.11cppoo~"Vn" is to be expla.i ned etymologically 3 as
"61..6axtov"
"thinking sane thoughts" or "saving
one'~ .
good sense" and
therefore implies a rational aspect, the question arises
whether the
excha~ge
of
11
.A.&yo1." can base itself merely on
divine. gift, allotted to one in his nature 4 , or whether the
�-8-
. qualification "xA.Jwv
\
µEV
\
au6f\', !µµa 6 'OUX
.
'
op&'rv TO OOV 11
does
not suggest that Bippolytos lacks insight 5 into the nature
of his companionship as well as of the virtues connected with
it.
Ju~ging
from the correlation between the two parts of the
dedication, Bippolyltos understands "t~ awcppovttv", meaning
chastity6, to be aided by "f&L6~~". meaning shame, and both
to be equated with "tua~tltLa'~, mea~ing pious devotion to Artemis. 'l'he lack of insight, supposedly indicated by Bippolytos'
not seeing the
e~e
of the goddess., vould pertain to three· :
related aspects of his - understandin,g:.First, the meanin,g of
the virtues
.
11
.
\
.
at6c3,, To awcppovttv, tuallitLa": second, their
origin; and third, their interrelation. The fact that Hippolytos understands the meaning of these virtues exclusively in
terms of his companionship with Artemis 7 , determines at the
same time thei,r origin and interrelation •. Yet the ambiguity
'
of. grammatical and rhetorical links in the dedication's first,
more. general, part seemed to question the interrelation between
the virtues and therefore also their meaning and .their origin.
The
unarnb~guous
character of the
~orresponding
gra.mniatical
links .in the dedication's second, more personal, part only
reinforces the impression that
Bippolyto~
the complexity inherent in both the
\
of "to
has
ineani~g
~ost s~ght
of
and the origin
G~fPOV&tv".
III
'l'he issue in question might be articulated most clearly
by considering some philosophic texts, which are concerned
�-9-
with the relationship between "at6~'" and "awcppoa\SvJl", the
terms most problematically related in this
cruci~l pass~ge
of Euripides' Hippolytos. One might object to the attempt to
clarify a dramatic statement through the analysis of a philosophic text. The objection however can be met by the fact,
that Euripides himself employs philosophical language in such
a way that it becomes an integral part of the drama.
In Plato's Charmides,,a dialogue about "owcppoodvtln, we
are {>resented with a .number of definitions that are discarded,
one after the other, as insufficient.·Though all insufficient
in themselves, their order of presentation fJ:'.om a less ra·tional
to a more rational understanding
sugge~ts
the possibility .that .
.
"
all of them play a part in a definition which, though never
.
.
.
reached, might comprehend "ow9poodvn" as ~whole.a S~gnifi
cantly for
ou~
purpose,
Ch~rmides,
in his'second attempt,
defines "awcppoodvn" ·as tt~~ep at6~'" (160e). The refutation,
which is based on a very inappropriate quote from Homer, ends
with the assertion that "at6~i;" is neither good nor bad (l6la-b)
and therefore fails to define "oll>11,i:>ool1~1l,., admittedly something. good. The questionable character of the refutation reveals itself in two aspects, which are borne out by the drama
of the dialogue: When Socrates, after comparing Charmides to
a beautiful statue (154c) , first asked him whether he posaessed
11
awq1poa1'vn 11 (158b), Charmides blushed and looked even
more beautiful than before, since his shame became his youth
(158c). Tracing out this apparent connection between
11 at6~'"
�-10-
and "01.11,pood"n", Charmides pronounces his second definition
after courageously looking into himself (160e)., an act that
later will supply the basis for one of the highest definitions
of "01.111ppoad"n" (167a). A closer examination of Socrates'
- or~ginal
question (158b-c) will provide us with an answer,
as to why Charmides' second definition was nevertheless refuted.
Socrates considered first, whether Charmides was by nature
sufficiently endowed for
11
011>1ppoo1Svn" (158b), then, whether·
he was already sufficiently
"a~fp11>v"
(158b), and finally asked
him, whether he would say that he participated sufficiently
in "ow1ppoadvn" (158c). The stress on a natural presupposition
that, oz.i .the one hand, is
fic~ent
nec~ssary,
on the other hand insuf-
in itself, explains the statement that "at6~c" is
neither. good nor bad (16lb). The comparison of Charmides to
a beautiful statue ·might point to the fact that he possesses
"a1.111ppoo .~vn"
only in the static form of its natural presuppo-
sition9.
The last chapter of book IV of Aristotle's Niccmachean.
Ethics deals with the same problem in a more elaborate form.
"At6~'" is not considered a virtue, · because it has to do with
the body (1128b 14-15) and therefore . is rather a
a
"ltL~"
"~d~o~"
than
(ll28b 10-11). Concerned with the same issue, Aris-
totle.' s Eudemian Ethics (1234a 24-35) provides the criterion
for the distinction between
''11d~n"
and "ltt1., 0
:
the former
are "!vtu 'lpoaLplatw'" (1234a 25-26). This however does 1'ot
mean that there is no connection between the two: _he "11d-&n",
t
�-11bei~9 "tpua1.xcl 11 , can be understood as leadi~9 into, "ipua1.xal
&peTaC", which are distinguished from "apeTa\" proper thr~ugh
the latter's being "lltT~ fPpov!faew'" (1234a 28-30). The example
of ''at
6..,, .. ,
/
leading into
"011Hpp oa.Svn",
is commented on in pa- ·
renthesis, that for that reason people define "awcppoadvn" in
this genus, namely "at6~s;" (l234a 3.2-33). The difference
.
'
'
'
between "fPU<H xa" apt Ta 1." and "ape T<H" . proper is made even
more explicit in book VI of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics
by calling the latter "apeTa~ xdp1.a1. 11 .(ll44b 3-4) 10 • Now
applied to virtue in. general, the passage in book VI not only
.
'.
· tries to clarify the similarity ("1&01. yap 6ox£t lxaaTa Tiav
~-&ii>\I U1t.dpxe1.v cpdat1. t(l)s;", 1144b 4-5) and dissimilarity (xa~.
y~p 1a1.al xal ~np(o1.' at tpua1.~al U1tdpxoud1. l~&L,, &11" &v~u
voO SlaJh:pa\ ipa(vovTa1. oi'oai.", 1144b 8-9; _.,cf. H.A. 588a 17-
589a 9) between the two forµis , of virtue, b'ut also. understands
their distinction to be based on a highly rational principle.·
While the two passages from the Eudemian Ethics spoke successively of
11
1tpoa(peat.s:"
(E.E., 1234a 25-26) and "cppdvnai.s;"
(B.E., 1234a 28-30), the passage from the Nicomachean Ethics
speaks of "vous;" (N.E., ll44b 8-9). Significantly for our
purpose, the example illustrating the lack of "voOs;" shows a
man of strong body (the natural presupposition), who lacks
s~ght;.
(the rational component) and. is therefore likely to
fall heavily (ll44b 10-12; cf. lll4b l-25). As the passage
frQm the Eudemian Ethics warned of confounding virtue with
its natural presupp6sition (e.g. defining "awtppbadvn" as
�-1211
at6ws;"), so the passage from the Nicomachean Ethics warns of
confounding it with its rational component (ll44b 17-36) and
suggests that it be understood as "oux av£U
tppOV~C7£ws;"
(1144b
20-21).
The fullest treatment of the question is to be found at
the beginning of book II of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics:
11
.tt
Out
•
.t
.If
\
.f
•
'
•
I
apa lpu0£L OUT£ wapa 'uOLV £YYLYVOVTQL QL apttaL,
•
t
alla
'
•£fUX&OL \.l~V nµtv oltaa~aL auTas;, T£A£LOU\.llVOL$; 6~ OL~ Ton
l~ous;"
(1103a 24-26). What in the passages quoted above was
. distinguished as '11 aptta\ 1pu0Lxa\ 11 and ·"cip£·ta\ xdp1..cu", is here
articulated in terms of "odvaµLs;" and "cvlpytLa" (ll03a 26-28).
'l'he difference between the two stages has to be bridged by
"l~os;" and "6L-6aoxal{a 11 (1103~ 14-18), their proportion depending on whether the virtue is "n~hx~" or "6Lavont1ox~",
though the aspect . of teaching - and learning,
~·:hich
is illustrated
by. examples from "tlxv11" (1103a 31-34 1 ll03b 8-13), seems to
become more and more relevant even for.the moral virtues
(1103a 31-1103b 2, 1103b 13-22), for instance "aw1ppoadv11"
(1103b 1-2, cf. llOSa 17-llOSb 18). If matters were different,
Aristotle ' points out, there would be no need for teaching,
.
.
· but we all would be either good or ba. (1103b 12..;.14).
d
In such a case, as Plato's Protagoras remarks (323a-324d),
one would never praise nor blame a · man ·for the presence or
absence of a virtue, since only nature or fortune would be
responsible for it. Significantly for our purpose, the passage
directly preceding this one, Protagoras' Prometheus_ myth
�-13-
tella about how Zeus sent Hermes with the. gift of "aL6~'" and
"6C•ll" .(322c) to all men in order to prevent the threat of
their mutual destruction. What the myth, appropriately for a
d~vine.
gift, called "ato~s" and "6(xn", the following dis-
cu~sion
about political virtue calls a11uppoa.Sv11" and "61.xcua.Svn"
(323a ff.), representing the addition of a rational component
in an ending indicative for abstract nouns.11
The one feature which is common to all the texts, quoted
in this excursus, is the rejection of exclusivity in the
account of virtue, be it .by teaching,
~Y
training, by nature,
·or in any other way (Plato, Meno, 70a). The last possibility
most me~ni~gfully would con\bine all three ways~ 12
'l'he one passage that not only brings
lthis·· whole '~.discus'sion
into focus, but also opens up new perspectives to be followed
up in the analysis of Euripides' Bippolytos, is the fundamental
definition of man in the opening pages of Aristotle's Politics
(1253a 1-39): "tavcp~v, St1. ••• 6 &v~p~•o' tdac1. ~ol1.t1.x~v
~;o~"
(1253a 2-3). The "'dat1.", which is replaced, in
thee~
laboration on the definition, by "61.~ ,do1.v" and in that form
set off from "61.~ Tdxnv" (1253a 3-4) ·, states man's being political as inherent .necessity and differentiates thus the
species "man" from others within the same . genus "animal".
.
.
Bei~9
'
political, on the other hand, does not seem to be an
exclusive differentia, s'ince
~t
applies to other animals as
well. (Significantly for our purpose, the examples chosen are·
the bee and
herdi~g
animals, thus linking together the two
�-14stro?gly contrasted in Hippolytos' dedication to Artemis.
~f
Hippolytos' acceptance of the bee against the rejection
the flock might be seen in the l~ght of Socrates' myth in the
Phaedo (82b), where those who possess "awippoadvn" without
philosophy and
in
thinki~gwill,
a later life, take on the
form of other political animals like the bee).
Th~
difference,
which girll'es the differentia "q)\fo£1. 1ol.LT .1.lCdv", added to the
genus "tijlov", differentiati?g power, is a difference of degree
("61.dt1.
6i
1ol.1.T1.lC~V
o &v8pC11•os
tll'ov xcfons i ~d -~'t~ll~
.:,.:a.\ · •1:1\>'t~S
&y&l.aCou t'ou µa~l.ov, 6~l.ov", 1253a 7-~; cf. H.A. 588a l7-
589a 9), based on man's exclusive possession of tt>.&yos" (">.&yov ·
6~ µ&vov av8p(l)IOS lxt1. TWV '~(l)V", 1253a
.
II
\
\ .
fY
• \ \
. -
ta µEV ouv QAAa tll>V
,.
If
t~~\I
.
. A \
•
·
\
µuAl.OTa µEv
9-io, cf. 1332b 3-8
ill
ty
_f .
,u~EI. '
ill
l';y,
.
'
µ1.lCpa
~
' ' c '
'
1;V&.C1 lCa.&. Tot' t;-&£01.v; av-&p(l)IOS 6£ lCal. . l. _Sy..,1 µ&vos yap
.
6'
t;XEI.
A&yov' WOT£ 6ct Ta0Ta au~,wvc?v aAl.~l.01.s. ~o>.>.~ y~p nap~ TO~!;
'
\
'
.
\
\
l81.dµous lCat. Tnv ,da1.v 1pdttoua1. 61.a tov
~&yov,
·'
Eav 1c1.aema1.v
ch.All)!> f)(e1.v all.tt.ov."). This natural possession of "l.dyos"
(1253a 9) allows for universalization with respect to the
sensation and expression of pleasure and pain, shared in by
~ll
animals (1253a 10-14). While the sensation and expression
of what is pleasant and painful is always occasioned by and
bound to some particular occurrence, Which involves one individual and takes .place in one present time, the possession
of "l.cSyoi;" allows foruniversalization of both through the
notion· of what is convenient and harmful (1253a 14-15) This
�-15notion, that is based on
abstracti~g
.from a particular present
as well as from a particular individual, leads over into the
notion of just and unjust, good and bad (1253a 15-18). The
connection between the two prominent forms of the dif f erentia
'
"tdoe1. 1tOA1.·ri.xov" and
11
.
Adyov cxov" has to be gathered from
the contrasting examples of the
be~st
that is unable to, and
the. 9od who does not need to share in the notions of just and
unjust, . good a~d bad (1253a 27-29) 13 • The reference to man's
being the best of animals, if and when perfected, the worst,
if and when disassociated from "vc5µos:" and "6(x""
(1253~
31-33),
. suggests, in contrast to either beast or. god, the capability
for perfection on the basis of having "Adyos:". The difference
in
wordi~g
.
between "being political" and· "having AcSyos:" mig)lt
point to the likely 'f act that having "Adyo.s:" potentially makes
for
bei~g poli~ioal
bei~9
actually,.but that
political actu-
ally .makes for having "A6yos:" actually. The difference between
bei~g
and
havi~g
would .become apparent in the possible lack
of having "Adyos:" actually, in the possible failure of man to
.
'
use his natural .weapons for the intended purpose: "9pdvna1.'''
\
.
.
.
and "apetn" (1253a 34-35), a failure .that would cause him to
remain
11
UVOO 1.fh<ITOS:
\
JC.CU
ayp 1.chCITOS:
4Vt:U
mp etl\S:"
(125Ja 35-36) •
IV
The thematic passage (73-87) from Euripides' Hippolytos,
if it is seen in the light of this and the above discussions, .
seems to be concerned with one fundamental problem: the connection between Physis and ' Nomos • . Hippolytos' rejection of
�. -16\
""to awcpp ovctv" as "ch 6aM "tov" can be interpreted as a rejection
of the natural weapons, with which man is born and which are
intended for the perfection of his nature, i.e. for the perfection of Physis through Nomos. Hippolytos' fault then would
lie in his failure to recognize the fact, that what is natural
for all animals is narrower in content than what is natural
for man, the only animal which is by nature endowed with the
possession of
"Adyo~"
"A&yo~"·
His failure to
rec~gnize
the role of
in human nature leads him to neglect the fact that
.in the case
of
man NomoS is as indispensci.ble an. end for Physis
as Physis is an indispensdble ground for Nomos, that Physis
provides the potentialities, Nomos the actuality of man, and
that therefore·Nomos comes to be the key to a 'f inal understanding
of man's Phys is. Hippolytos' wish for concord between the be-.
. ginning and the end of his life reminds one of the description
of Charmides as a beautiful statue, a description which indicates Charmides' insufficient possession of
following
an~lysis
"awq>p
oa\S.vn". The
of the play will attempt to show that the
play can be interpreted as a development of the thematic passage we have been concerned with. Indications_ given so far by
Euripides as to the insufficiency of Bippolytos' view of himself and of human nature can be detected in .content as well
as in form: in content - from his
bei~g
together preferably
with beasts and a_ goddess; in form - from the grammatical and
rhetorical analysis of Hippolytos' dedication to Artemis, which
revealed the implicitly ·contradictory character of the ex- .
�. -17-
notion that "T~ a111q>pov&tv" is allotted to
plicitly stated
one in his nature by divine gift. The fact that the paradigms
for acceptance in Bippolytos • dedication,
t~e
example of th.e
bee, visiting, and the image of "atof.11'"• . 9ardeni~g the sacred
meadow, imply a fulfillment of ·natural potentialities_- questions .
Bippolytos' understanding of the origin ot
11
T~ ac.1Hppovctv". · ...
\
Moreover , that "a t 6111 s " . and " T' a (.I) cp p o v e: t" " • equated with " ·c uo l Bc 1. a" ,
o
seem to be at the same time grammatically disconnected and very
closely connected, questions their relation
meani~g.
·of the
i~9
as well as their
The climax of Hippolytos' dedication in the description
excha~ge
of. ").cSyo1." with Artemis, Bippolytos only hear-
the . voice but not seeing the eye of the:. goddess, reminds .
one ()f Aristotle's example of 'the man with strong body, but
without sight, who is likely to fall
heavi~y.
Aphrodite's
characterization of the · rel~tionship between Hippolytos and
Artemis as
seen in the
"µc(l;t11 BpoTc(as 1pocncawv 0µ1.).(a!;"
l~ght
(19), if it is
of the Aristotelian simile, would suggest
that Hippolytos' hearing the voice but not seeing the eye of
the goddess symbolizes his failure to appreciate the role of
"Adyo'" in man's nature and the li.J<elihood .of his fall for . that
reason~
The failure to appreciate the role of
").dy()!;"
in man's
nature would show itself in the failure to appreciate the ways
in which man's nature, perfected by convention, overcomes
nature simply (cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1253a 31-33) 14 •
�·-18-
v
In
the prologue, Aphrodite proclaims her
vengefuln~ss
towards anyone who dares to affront her with "µlya cppov£tv" (6).
Hippolytos' companionship with Artemis, yet even more his
der!Jgatory attitude towards herself ("Alyct. xax(a'tnv 6a1.µcfvwv
1t£q>uxlva1. 1511 , 13), strike her as falling beyond any human
bounds ("µcCtw BpoTc(a, 1poo1ealilv
0µ1.A(a~",
19). Artemis, in
turn, refers to the fatal revenge
Aphrodi~e
takes on Hippoly-
tos by accusing her of wrath over his "01.111ppoodv11" ( "K1hp 1. ~ •••
aei>ppovoOv'tL tixae'to, 1400-1402). When Hippolytos finally X'.eal-
.izes, which divine power destroyed him, he expresses his recognition with a verb that represents the neutral component of
.
'
6~
6aCµov"
n µ'
&1~A&acv",
1401). Between t.he two characteri-
zations of HipP:olytos, as "µ,ly11 cppov&iv" by 'A phrodite, as
"a1A>1ppovGv" by Artemis, stands, like the fulcrum of a balance,
Phaedra's prediction: "awcppovctv
µa.e~oc'ta1."
(730-731). This
prediction appears to be in striking contrast to Hippolytos'
own
.
understandi~g
.,
.
\
'
\
.
of nyo a11><ppovctv" as "µ11 61.oax't&v", where
"61.6axtov" was rather correlated with "xaxoto1.'' (79-81). In
accordance with this notion, Hippolytos' claim to
.b~
"or!cpp(l)v"
se~ond
revolves around the task to prove or disprove, in the
half of the play, whether he is base natured or not ("ct xax~,
~lcpux' &v~p", 1031, 1075, 1191; cf. lb71 "ct 6~ xaxcf' · ye
cp a (vo µ a ~ 6 o H ii\
t £
a o ("
~
, l lf. 5 2 " b>
cp ( 1. 't a .e
, w
s
y £ vva t
o ~ € xcp a ( v ti
\
1la'tpC "). Together with the thematic discussion of "'to awcppovctv"
�.
.
'
as "µn
-19.
61.6c:un~v",
the triad "µlya ,poviiiv" - "awq>povctv ·
µae!fac-ra1." - "awqipovwv" s:u9gests the question whether the
center separates or mediates between the two opposite characterizations. Before being able to answer this crucial question
one would have to explore three related aspects: first, the
broader context of Hippolytos' rejection of teaching in the
\
.
·.
case of "To Oll)q>povetv", second, the internal and external
causes behind this rejection, and third the meaning of Hippolytos' predicted
learni~g
to be
"a~eppwv".
The last consideration,
concerning itself initially with the relation between teaching
and learning (cf. Plato, Meno, 70a}, will be decisive for the
final discussion of Hippolytos as
tr~gic
hero.
In the scene (88-120), which follows Hippolytos' initial
address to Artemis, his old servant involve's him in a conversation that aim~ at questioning his exclusive devotion to one
. goddess. At first, the cautious question is, whether the "vcfµos"
of "cu1tpoanyop(11" (95), established among men (91) and supposedly ("eCu:p", 98) following the
"v~µo1."
of the gods, has
obliging force even where there is no inclination, as in the
case of Hippolytos towards Aphrodite (106,113). The old serlord changes. significantly _
from
"!vat" (88) to "1at" (107) 16 in order to indicate that. Hippoly-
vant•~
appeal to his
yo~ng
tos' attitude of mind ("To~s vlou~ y~p oo \.IL\.lnTlov q>povouvTas
o~Tws",
114-115) has to be accounted for with his youthful
(118) immaturity and therefore to be fo:rgiven (117). The final
postulate of superior wisdom on the part of the immortals (120)
�-20-
does not promise fulfillment, since both, · Aphrodite directly .
(99, 103), Hippolytos indirectly.(93, 94), . are charactel;';i.Z~d
by one and the same epithet; ''a ell\> cf, n • Aphrodite' s enmity
17
~gainst
Hippolytos in her prologue was not so much provoked
by his companionship with Artemis, as by his haughtiness,,
which expressed itself ·in derogator:v statements about .herself
(13, cf • .~, 330-342, especially 333-334). Bis attitude
appears uniquel~ provocative, in that
he
alone of the citizens
of'l'roezen (12) does not acknowledge Aphrodite's claim to .all
pervadi~g
fame (1-2, cf. 103, 445, 1268-1281). In acqordance
.w ith the emphasis on what she is called or said to be (2, 13),
her qualification
"µ&vo~
1tOAt.Tiv" recognizes the worship of
the gods to be .a public matter·, closely · tied in, ·w ith 'the· ''-..J4...a;o ""
of the "'lcH" '". In contradistinction to that, Hippolytos ·' ,
stresses not sq much the
ou~st.anding
posi t:i:on he has
amo~g
the citizens as among all mortals (84). This abstraction of
himself from conventions, bound to time and place,. and understanding himself as mortal in relationship to immortals, shows
a radicality that, goes both beyond and against the "v&µo'" in
question: beyond, in so far as it tolerates no compromisel 8
of principles; against, because through this lack. of tolerance
his attitude points to the meaningless superficiality of a
"vcSµos;" which is indifferent to the principles i'nvolved. Hippoly-
tos• · answer to the old servant's challenge to conform to the
1
"vcSµos;". of "cu1poanyop (a" with respect to Aphrodite;
• '
'
'
autnv ayvo'
al
~v
"11:pcfolll~ev
•
I
•
aa1a,oµac." (102, cf. 113), indicates that one
�-21cannot, at least not uncompromisingly (104), worship at the
same time Artemis and Aphrodite •. (The close connection between
19
the two goddesses , Artemis being not only the goddess of
but also of childbirth, completing, as it were,
vi~ginity,
the work of Aphrodite, does not render their incompatibility
less striking).
The sequence of the first two scenes, Aphrodite's prologue
and Bippolytos •. address to Artemis, presented, ·as thesis and
antithesis, the principles o1 the play. The third scene, the
conversation between Hippolytos and the old servant,
poi~ts,
· as to a synthesis, · to a possible though improbable untragic
solution. The fact that Bippolytos' only reply to the old
'
servant's final exhortation ("·uµata1.v,
xpe~v",
">' '
c.i
•.
'!tat, o<uµ&v(l)v xpt\a-&a1.
107) is in turn an exhortation to .his fellow hunters
. (108-112) is
("xpe~v",
u~derlined
by
~epeati~g
an expression of necessity
107, 110); the old servant speaks of the necessity
to use the gifts of the_ gods, Bippolytos of the necessity to
have his horses prepared for exercise. The insistence on necessity in both cases, one implying immortal, the other mortal
will, appears to hint ironically toward Hippolytos' terrible
end, the destruction through his own horses. Hippolytos' last,
con~mpuous
.I
.
•
\
,,
~
"
.
'
\
\ .f
1 ine ( "tnv .c:rnv 6e Ku11p1.v 'ltQAA • ey(I) xa1.pe1.v 1\e;yw,
120), together with
his
n~gative
attitude towards
acquiri~g
"aw<ppoalSvri" through teaching, defies the old servant's hope
that his young lord may mature and come to his right senses
("vouv lxw" oaov a~ 6£t", 105). The question, which arises
�-22· from the unity of these three introductory scenes, is, whether
the appearance of debunking .the
tho~gh
H
\I cfµ
o s;"
of
"£
u po o ray op 'a" ,
even ·
it
it involves incompatible principles, is compatible with
the possession of "a.wippood\lra", claimed by Hippolytos, and
whether his attitude towards
11
\ldµos;"
in. general is significant
for the truth oi: untruth of his notion about the origin of
VI
Th~
"vdµos;" of "tultpoonyop(a", which was discussed in
the final scene of the introduction, comes to be treated more
specifically in the conversation between the nurse and Hippolytos (601-668) , on the one hand, and Hippolytos and Theseus
,
'.
(902-1101), on the other hand. The two conversations are. grouped
.around Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos, "awcppo\lttv µa-&!fot-rcu"
.
(731), and spe1:1 out what Hippolytos' .rejection of the "vdµos;",
specifically what his rejection of Aphrodite, means in a broader
context: Rejecting Aphrodite, on the one hand, means rejecting
family, on the other, rejecting political society, the one
being the basis for the other and both an expression of man's
· 11
,do 1. , .. ., represented
thro~gh
"vdµo1. 11 .; This representation has
its roots in the possession of
11
).dyos;", which enables man to
perfect his nature from potentialities to actuality. As a
speculation, one might say that a rejection of Aphrodite, the
. 90. dess that initiates, even if unintentionally, family and
d
political society, means, even if seemingly the opposite, a
rejection of
th~
perfecting role of "A&yos;" with' respect ·
�-23-
to human nature. Seen in this light, Hippolytos' negative
. attitude towards Aphrodite leads directly to his denial ~f
\
.
"To ow,povttv" as "61.6axT&v", as result of a process of per-
fection rather than as a gift allotted to one in his nature.
The correlation of the two aspects of Hippolytos' rejection,
the rejection of family and political society, suggests itself
both in form and in content: In form, the synunetry of the play
(with Aphrodite and Artemis providing 'the frame 20 and Phaedra's
prediction the center) .• keeps the two scenes
be~ween
the nurse ·
and Hippolytos and Bippolytos and Theseus in balance. In con•
. tent, both are inextricably related through their exchange of
roles: In the earlier scene, which points toward the rejection
of family, Hippolytos accuses , and condemns, and Phaedra, . through
the nurse, is accused and conde..mned. In the later
scene~
which
points toward ;the rejection of political society, Phaedra,
thro~qh
Theseus, accuses and condemns, and Hippolytos is accused
and condemned.
· aippolytos' condemnation of women as universal evil (608, . 616,
629, 632, 651, 6.66), with its ironic c6nclusion "~ vdv TL' aoT~'
OWtPOVttv 61.6atdTw, A x&µ• ~dtw Tatcr6' l~tµBa(v&l.V
a&\n (667-
668), ix:onic 21 if seen in the light of his rejection of teachi~g
'
as source for "-ro awcppovetv" (79-81), shows a fundamental flaw
in his understanding of human natu:t:"e: . His
ju~qement
women are alike in nature, ruled by passions,
~heir
that all
passions
served by reason; his suggestion to surround women with mute
beasts rather than servants in order to avoid corruption through
�-24exchapge of . words (645-648); and his absurd recommendation to
buy one's children rather than to continue the human race
thro~gh
women (616-624), all three attest to his .failure to
appreciate the role of ''A&yo'" in man's nature. Judging all
women to be alike in nature makes .him misjudge Phaedra through
the nurse, Phaedra's nobility
thro~gh
the nurse's vulgarity,
Phaedra's reference to the Nomos as criterion for the struggle
of reason over -the passions
thro~gh
the nurse's reference · to ·
Physis as criterion for the triumph of the passions over reason.
Towards the end of the conversation between .Phaedra and the
·nurse, the nurse had tried to persuade Phaedra of the senselessness of . fighting against love, a drive that is natural to all
creatures of all elements, including the gods (437-439, 447458). Only to have been
different decrees and
b~gotten
diffe~ent .
("tpuTe~e1.'1",
460) under
gods would, in the nurse's
eyes, justify Phaedra's uneasiness with respect to these
"v&µo1." (459-461). Phaedra's attitude, on the other hand,
points to the essential distinction between all creatures of
all elements, including the gods, and man: his not being
fixed in his nature by universal powers but being responsible
for the fulfillment of it on the basis of having "A&yos" 22 •
Hippolytos' absurd recommendation to buy one's children
accordipg to financial ability in th_ temples of the gods
e
would be a solution to the problem of continuing the human
race without..women, but it also would be a way to avoid all ·
responsibilities that family life naturally imposes on men:
�.-25-
Responsibilities between husband . and wife, between parents
and children, that form .men in their fulfillment of human
nature, in their perfecting themselves and eac;h other through
"v~µo1. 11 ,
bringing to actuality the
potenti~lit;ies.
.
'~cpda1.!;".
of
.
Despite manifest disagreement between the riurse and Hippolytos,
.
'
.
.
there is a strong resemblance in their fundamental vd.~w' of ·
.
.
human nature. Though the nurse acceptsandllippolytos rejects .·
.
.
the triumph of . the passions over reason, both . presuppose that ·
man's nature is fixed and therefore not to be . altered by education. The nurse takes her standard from all creatures of
all elements, including the gods, Hippolytos his from most
men, close to -beasts, and himself, clo.s e to gods~ Yet
this
similarity in form between the· nurse's .a'rt.d Hippolytos' view
should not obfuscate the dissimilarity in ·content between the
two. Hippolytos' intoleranc~ of baseness arid his radical 2.3 .
understanding of morality not only separate. him from the
nurse, but also bring
him close to Phaedra. Both Phaedra and
'
Hippolytos are driven into tragic conflict by the moral choice 24
between violating a sacred "vdµos" (in the case of Phaedra the
"vdµos" of yielding to suppliants, in the case of Hippolytos
the "v&µos" of keeping one's oath) and saving themselves from
shame and death. The fact, that both preserve the "v&llos"
rather than their own lives, becomes the stepping stone to
tragedy for both of them. Yet this similarity in character
between Hippolytos and Phaedra should not obfuscate the dissimilarity in tragedy between the two, shown by _the difference
�. -26. of their deaths. Phaedra is conscious of her fault and the,ref.ore ·kills herself., while Hippolytos is not conscious of his
and therefore is killed. The ,similarity a,nd . dissimilarity
between Hippolytos and ·Phaedra appears to be ..mos.t ambiguous
in Phaedra's central prediction for Hippolytos . "tn~ v&aou o~ .;
ti\a6l µoc. xoc.vfh l.IEtaax~v owcp·povetv µa-&rto£tac." (73d-7. 31) ·~
.
.
.
.
Judging from the correlation of the .s cenes. dire·c tly · surrounding
this prediction, the sickness alluded to seems to be Hippolytos' misjudgement of Phaedra, followed by Theseus' misjudge.. ment of Hippolytos • . Both .involve
a self-contradiction:
Phaedra
contradicting her love with hate, Hippolytos contradicting
his hate with love, though the one is a true, the ' othei:- ori:l,.y
an alleged self-contradiction. The question which carries
over into the sec.a nd ,E>art of the play is,·
way Phaedra•s :prediction "a(l)cppov£tv
wh~ther
µa.e~attac."
and in ·What
1
will come to
be fulfilled.
The discovery of Phaedra's note drives Theseus into ·blind
and unrelenting accusation of Hippolytos (790-1101). Theseus'
conviction of Hippolytos' guilt, in full support of Phaedra's
charge, springs from his knowledge of young men in general
(967-970), from the knowledge that they are ruled by passions,
letting their passions be served by reason (920, 926, 936,
951, 957). This
misjudgement of Hippolytos uses against him
the same argument (916-920) he himself had used in his misjudgement of Phaedra (616-668, cf. 921-922, 79..:.91): the impossibility of teacl)ing anyone to think aright and be, "awcppw\1 11 who
�-27\
is by nature "xaMos;" (94.2 , 945, 949, 959, 980). Hippolytos'
attempt to clear himself . from. . guilt (933 cf. · 73l) ' and to
.
.
Lute Theseus by demonstrating that he is
sup~rior
re-
not only . to·
the · ways of young men, .but to the ways of ·men .i n general (994-:
1001), makes him even more· suspect in the :eyes of Theseus. A
man, who claims to be a companion of the gods and a,t tpe . same
time rejects the most natural and sacred ways of men · (to have
'.
.
.. .
.
a family and to participate in political· society), has to be
suspect (949), or else the gods or the most natural .and sacred
ways of men,
s anctione~
by the gods, would be suspect. This
however is a thought Theseus is not willing to embark on (951).
Hippolytos' desire to be first in the "ay~v" rather th. n in
a
the
"lt~AH"
(1016-1017) shows a lack of commitment that reminds
one of his .recomntendation . to buy one's ch_ldren in . tlw, temples •
i
of the gods r~ther than to depend on women for the con.tin~ation
of the human race (618-624). Both instances could be .excused
by the fact that Hippolytos is the son of an Amazon and therefore by nature averse to Aphrodite and family life, and the
son of an Amazon by Theseus before The's eus' marriage to Phaedra
and therefore by convention excluded from political ieadership.
Yet, far from excusing himself, Hippolytos judges his lack of
commitment to the most natural and sacred ways of men to prove
his freedom from all human passions, which in his view are
nothing but all too human. The reason why his acclaimed bei.n g
"a~q>pCA>v"
(994-1001) - (by hipiself and by Artemis) - is accused
as being "µlya cppovwv" - (by Aphrodite and in one or the other
�-28-
form by all characters of the play) - can
be
found most openly
in his boasting about it (73-87, 102, 994-1001, 1100, 1364..,.
..
1365), as if · it were something to be recko.n ed t,o· himself rather
than to nature and fortune or to · nature and god-:~Jiven fate,· as
he himself professes (78-81). The difference in judgement
.
.
be~
.
tween the goddesse$ provides the frame for a deeper search into
the meaning of "T~ owcppove:tv"~ provoked by thecenter line
"ow1ppovti:v µa-&nae:ta
tos~
L", which seems ·t o contradict not only Hippoly.,..
understanding of himself but also his understanding Of
llippolytos• understanding
~f
himself apparently remains the
same throughout the whole play.: he sees himself as
11
th~
rrios:t:
ow1ppwv" of all mortals (994-1001). Afte.I'.. being banned from his
homeland,. and ready to' depart from it
with
his horses (which at
the beginning of the play he had ordered to be prepared for exer- ·
cise)
(110-112), Hippolytos appeals to Zeus as witness of his
innocence: " ZtD,
·
~
µ11M£T
• ttnv
•
• xoxos
\
£L
i
l 9ux • avnp ••• "
• '
c1 1 91- · ,
·
1193). In the following account of his .death, which might be
understood as Zeus' answer, one aspect comes to be pointed out
as most tetrible: that Hippolytos,
t ~o
was so familiar with
horses (1219-1220); cf. 110-112), should have been killed by his
own _horses, frightened by the appearance of the godsent bull
out of the sea (1204, 1218, 1229, 1240). Even in the last
scene, in the
presenc~
of Artemis and Theseus, the fatal race
of his horses rouses Hippolytos to a more heartre·nding ·1ament
(1355-J..357) than the fatal curse of his father (1348-1349,
�-29-
.1362-1363, 1378). The self- defending reappeal to Zeus, which
refers to his being · outstandingly
"ot:·µvoi;", "~£o<H~1tTwp"
and
"owcppoalSvt1 nav"ta& uitt:pox~v" (1365-1366) . reminds . one of the
early scene with the old servant who exhorted Hippolytos to
behave more in accordance with the "voµos" of men and . gods.
The analysis of Hippolytos' i=ejection of the "voµos" of
"&6•poonyop(a" and of his natural and bonventional disposition
towards such rejection will receive decisive clue.s from considering the circumstances of his death.
Hippoly.tos' confrontation with the bull recails Theseus'
encounter with the Minotaur .':'he significant difference between
the two events can be seen in the nature of the man as well
as in the nature of the beast. Theseus, on the one hand, represents himself, l1is family and his city. He is lead through
the labyrinth with the help of Ariadne, who had fallen in
love with him and had given him the famous thread of Daedalus.
The beast, Theseus finally conquers, is a monster with the
head of a bull and the body of a man. Hippolytos, on the other
hand, is without responsibility for either family or city, the
one by nature, the other by convention. In addition to that,
he is banned from his homeland and therefore represents solely
himself. The lack of experience in family and political life
results in a lack of judgement about man and human nature.
This lack of judgement made him spurn the thread he could
have received from Phaedra, had he learned to be "owqipwv" ,
in other words had he learned to have respect for the labyrinth
�-30-
of human nature. The symmetry of the play, with Aphrodite and
Artemis providing the frame and Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos the center, suggests not only, as mentioned earlier, the
correspondence of the scenes between the nurse and Hippolytos,
and Hippolytos and Theseus, but also the correspondence of the
scenes between Phaedra and the nurse and the description of
Hippolytos' encounter with the bull. The development of the
scenes between Phaedra and the nurse from a mad alternating between the passions and reason (198-266) to a clear account of
reason and the passions as warring powers in man's soul (373-430),
is answered in the description of Hippolytos' encounter with the
bull by a development from self-control to a complete loss of
control; in other words, to a complete getting lost irt the labyrinth of human nature. Unaccustomed to that labyrinth and to the
hidden crossways between and the deviations of the rassions and
reason, the beast Hippolytos is finally, though indirectly, conquered by is not a monster, half beast, half man, but wholly
beast, ·Lhough of monstrous size 25 • Hippolytos' complete rejection
of the passions, which he thinks renders himself above man and
human nature, results in a complete ignorance about then and
.,
therefore in an extreme vulnerability with respect to them. The
fact that he was not killed by the bull, but by his own horses 26 ,
frightened by the bull, shows a lack in his understanding of
himself as a man, a failure to appreciate the interrelation
of the powers that make up human nature. The picture of Hippolytos in his chariot 27 , losing control over his horses, frightened
by the bull, reminds one of the picture Plato paints of the
�-31human soul
Hippolytos, as charioteer, represents the con-
trolli~g elern~nt
of reason; the horses, tied to the chariot,
represent the spirited element, in the case of Hippolytos
usually under control, but able to be swayed either by reason
or the passions; the bull, rising out of the sea, represents
the passions, frightening the spirited elemeni and finally
overriding the control of reason. The·fact that the bull comes
out of the sea, the element always and everywhere in flux, ·
might be a symbol for the difficulty of understanding the
nature of the passions. The fact that Hippolytos' horses,
frightened by the appearance .of the bull out of the sea, race
across the land and throw their master against the rocks, the
hardest form of the firm element, the earth, might be a symbol
for Hippolytos' uncompromising rigour. The circumstances of
~ippolytos'
death bear out the implications that contradicted
the explicit statement of the thematic passage about "t~
awcppovc~v"
in the beginning of the play: The fulfillment of
natural potentialities, implicit in the example of the bee,
visiting, and the image of "at6ws", gardening the
~acred
meadow,
together with the ambiguity about the connection between "a.t.S~s"
and "t~ awcppove:i:\I", between the natural presupposition of
'
"aw,poadvn" and "awcppoadvn" itself, suggested that Hippolytos'
explicit statement about "t~ . awcppove:tv", its not being taught
or to be taught, but being allotted to one in his nature, was
highly questionable. The circumstances of Hippolytos' death
seem to reaffirm the questionability of that statement. The
�-32-
complexity of human nature, represented by the complex of
charioteer, horses and bull, would suggest that virtue has
its origin not simply in nature but also in training and
teaching. Hippolytos' rejection of the two latter stages of
development and the wish for concord between the beginning
and the end of his
life means a rejection of the natural
weapons towards "qip&vna1.s;" and "apE-r~" (Aristotle, Pol., 1253a
34-35) and results somehow in remaining "avoa1.1hcnos; xai
ayp 1.chatos; &.veu
ap £Ti\s;"
(Aristotle, Pol., 1253a 35-36)
I
rather than fulfilling human nature and becoming truly
"autapx~s;" (Aristotle, Pol., 1253a 1, 25-29). In terms of the
thematic passage at the beginning of the play this would mean
that Hippol.y tos posses!R.s"a l 6ws;", the natural presupposition
of "t~ owq>pov&tv", but b~cause he rejects training and teaching~
does not possess "t~ owqipovetv", as he claims. His overestimating the divine makes him underestimate the human, a trait
that marks both his way of life and his notions about life.
A reason for that seems to be his awareness of the fact that
where\{er human affairs are concerned, there is rarely the
possibility to adhere to principles, but more often the necessity to
concede to compromises. This awareness, one could
say, of the difference between Physis and Nomos, distinguishes
Hippolytos from most men; yet it is this distinction from most
men which illudes him about himself and what it means to be
a man.
The fact that Hippolytos is killed in the end without
�-33-
ever having acknowledged the presence of any flaw in his nature
(a fact that contrasts strikingly with Phaedra's recognition
of her guilt followed by suicide) raises
centna.1.ll.ne "owqipovttv
µa-&~atta1."
a question
about the
which acts like the fulcrum
of a balance, both parts of the play representing the s. ales
c
in correspondence to each other. One aspect to be accounted
for in this context is the discrepancy between Hippolytos and
Phaedra in their connecting or disconnecting
"aw1ppoa~vn 11
with
either teaching or learning2 8 • The question which arises from
this discrepancy is whether Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos
11
awqip ovt t v JJa.&tfat ta 1. 11 (731} is in contradiction to his
own understanding of "t~ owqipovttv" as something not taught
or not to be taught, in other words whether his denial of
teaching allows nevertheless for learning. Learning without
teaching would take place, if Hippolytos, out of his own
nature 29 , were capable of developing his natural potentialities
to the actuality ·of being fully a man, in which case the
"tl>.os:" of his life would be, as he wished for, truly in
concord with its beginning. Yet Hippolytos' repeated selfappraisai 30 as the most "awqipwv" among mortals reminds one
rather of
Aristotl~'s
description of those that by talking
and philosophizing about "acucppoa\1vn" believe that they are
"awcppwv", while they resemble the sick that only listen to
the physician without following his precepts (N.E., llOSb 918). Hippolytos' life, which is spent in the concern for the
hunt and in the company of horses, dogs, a small circle of
�-34friends and supp'?sedly the goddess of the hunt, seems to
leave little room for learning, in the sense of comprehending
the nature of man. Yet the disillusionment with his .. horses,
followed by the disillusionment with his _goddess, ~t the end
31
of the play , opens up the possibility for a final fulfillment
of Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos. The disillusionment
with his goddess (1440 ff.) significantly is expressed in
terms that resemble the earlier description of Hippolytos'
companionship with Artemis (85-86). There Hippolytos spoke
of exchanging
11
A&yo1." with the goddess, here of obeying her
">i.&yo1.", there he spoke of hearing the voice but not seeing
the eye of the goddess, here of darkness touching his eyes an indication that his believing himself in the friendship of
Artemis was, at least from a final point of view, an illusion.
The problem of a friendship, either with beasts or gods,
arises out of the difference of their natures with respect to
man 32 • Beast as well as god, the one unable to share in a companionship which is based on the possession of ">.c!yo!;"; the
other not in need of it on account of his "a \n dp XE:" a" 3 3, are
fixed in their natures (cf. 13, "itlcpuxa") below and above man
and therefore no fitting partners for human friendship. Human
friendship, on the other hand, flourishing most and most ,stable
where it is based on equality, has as its highest goal the
perfection of the friends through each others company, though
the perfection has to stay within the limits of remaining
human. Hippolytos' death in the company of his father, after
�-35beasts as well as gods have deserted him, might be understood
as a fulfillment of Phaedra's prediction: "awqipov£tv
µaa~ottai".
His pity for and forgiveness of his father 34 seem to be motivated by respect for human suffering (1405, 1407, 1409) and
therefore to display a
"awq>poo~vn"
that is much broader then
the one Hippolytos prided himself on throughout the play,
a "owq>poothn" which was to be understood exclusively in terros
of his devotion to Artemis. Nevertheless, the fact that his
forgiveness occurs only after the appearance of Artemis and
. in obedience to her (1435-1436, 1442-1443, 1449, 1451), makes
one wonder whether a
11
au1cppoouvn" ordered by divine intervention
can be truly regarded as "owqipoouvn". In Aeschylus' words: it
makes one wonder whether Hippolytos' "awqipov£tv" at the end of
the play not only comes to .o ne who is unwilling to accept it,
but also comes as
(Aischylos,
~-'
11
lta-&c1.
µciao!;" and therefore as
"xapc.~
l3L'a1.o~"
174-183). The question left at the end of this
analysis concerns the divergence of judgement between the goddesses, "irlya cppovwv" by Aphrodite, "crwcppovwv" by Artemis, con-
••t
cerns the exact meaning of Aphrodite's
6"
Et,
(µ'
(21), which accounts for Hippolytos' violent death
~µapt~xe"
("tLiawp~ooµaL
'I111to>.otov f:.v tij6' TJJJEP'}", 21-22).
VII
'
· Racine, in his preface to his "Phedre", justifies changes
he made in the character of Hirpolytos with the fact that
already the ancients had reproached Euripides for having presented Hippolytos
11
commc un philosophe exempt de toute imper.-
fection: ce qui faisait que la mort de ce jeune prince causait
�-36-
beaucoup plus d'indignation que de
piti~"
Cf4). This charac-
terization of the Euripidean Hippolytos seems to be .at the
same time right. and wrong. Like a philosopher, HippQlytos does
not feel himself bound by a particular, commonly accepted
"vdµo!;", the worship of Aphrodite. The philosopher's reason
for feeling himself superior to any
par~icular
"vdµos", is.
the recognition, that all particular "vdµoi.", compared to
the ground they stem from, compared to "qnfo 1. s", are only t'fa.n s~eht
~~ct, depend in their coming into and going out of
being on accidents of time and place. Nevertheless, the philospher recognizes the inherent necessity in man's nature to
develop particular "v&µo1.", that is he recognizes the necessary
connection between "qnfo 1. s;" and "v&iro s" 35 • Unlike a philosopher,
Hippolytos rejects the worship of Aphrodite in the name of
the worship of Artemis, which means merely to supplant one
particular, commonly accepted "v&iros" by another particular,
though uncommonly accepted "v&µo!;". The rejection of the worship of Aphrodite in the name of the worship of Artemis seems,
at first sight, to be a rejection of the passions in the name
of something purer. The ways, in which the worship of Artemis
expresses itself,
by
~Lre,
on the other hand, certainly tainted
passion: chasing and killing animals as a hunter does not
attest to a nature that would be divested of all animalistic
feelings. In Racine's opinion not being tempted by Aphrodite
was enough ground for having Hippolytos resemble a philosopher,
cxempt from all imperfection. He consequently not only changed
�-37\
the title of his play to "Phedre", but also believed that he
should give Hippolytos nquelque faiblesse" (~4), meaning "la
passion qu'il ressent
malgr~
lui pour Aricie" (§4) •. Thus Racine,
in a Christian rather than classical spirit, takes away the
rea~
son for Hippolytos' only flaw: his feeling of superiority over
all human beings on the basis of being . by nature not tempted by
Aphrodite. The more radical "faiblesse" Hippolytos suffers from
in Euripides' play is, that he does not recognize that his by natu:
and convention being predisposed to live a life dedicated to the
worship of Artemis and therefore not being tempted by Aphrodite,
is in itself not enough reason for being better than all men.
His understanding of "owq>poauvn" as something allotted to one in
his nature leads him to restrict its meaning mainly to chastity
(87) and therefore to mistake what man is by nature potentially
for what man is by nature actually. The fact that man is an
animal, but an animal which has
11
>.ciyo'" and is political, ne-
cessitates the perfection of human nature through the development of
"ldyoE" in the society of other men, which means a
perfection on the basis of nature through training and teaching, the latter two more or less depending on the former.
The basic flaw in Hippolytos' understanding of himself and
man in general seems to consist in his failure to recognize
that in the case of man "vdµo, 11 ,
through
~hich
expresses itself
the . development of ">. oyo s;", is as indispensollle an
end for "qnfo1.!:" as "qnfo1.!;" .is .=\n indispensable ground for "v&µos;",
that "cpuol.!; 11 provides the potentialities, "voµo!;" the actuality
�-38-
of man, and that therefore "vo1.1os" comes to be the key to a
final understanding of man's
11 ,~aLs 1136
• It is for this failure
that Hippolytos is not a philosopher but a tragic hero. Seen
in the light of Phaedra's prediction: "awqipovti:v 1.1aencre:TaL",
his constant failure to recognize any flaw in his nature (1455)
makes his death fall short of being truly a "nd8e:L µdOos", of
representing a
"xaPLS
SCcuos" rather than mere "BCa" without
"xapLs". This aspect of the play, and of Euripidean plays in
general, is demonstrated most harshly through the presence of
gods, that if they are gods, ought to be wiser than men, but
that far from it, only set and clear the stage of human tragedy without ever redeeming it. What Goethe in his Song of the
Harper expresses unambiguously:
"You"-meaning . the "heavenly forces:r __
"into life lead us ahead,
You let the wretched become guilty,
Then you deliver him to grief,
For all guilt is revenged on earth"
)
this feeling of the tragic situation of man, Euripides expresses ambiguously with the Deus ex machina, with immortals
apparently solving conflicts, which for mortals remain unsolved and unsolvable. This, I think, is part of what Aristotle
(Poetics, 1453a 29-30) 37 means, when he speaks of Euripides
as the most tragic of the poets.
�-39-
NOTES
1. For the symbolism, involved in the image of the bee cf.
'Knox, "The Hippolytos of Euripides
Yale Classical
Studies, 13, 1952, p.28. It might be interesting to compare
F. Bacon, Novum Organum, I, Aph. 95,. and its elaboration in
J. Swift, The Battle of the Books, Prose Writings of Swift~
ed. w. Lewin, London, 1886, · p. 178. ·
B~M.W.
11
,
2. For the philological controversy over 11. 78-81 cf. w.s.
Barrett, Euripides, Hippolytos, Oxford, 1964, pp. 172-175.
tnv
"lv.ae:v 11a\
owQlpocnSvn'J
TOUT,., ltpooayoptlSoµ"£Vti;i 0v6µat1., w~ o~i;ovoav 't~V fP0\11'\0I.'#."
3. cf. Aristotle, N.E., VI, 1140b 11-12
4. H. North's ("Sophrosyne, Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint
in Greek Literature", Cornell Studies in Classical Philolo ,
Vol. XXXV, Ithaca, N.Y •., 9 , pp.
.assertion: wit
regard to the origin of vJ.rtue, ·inclqding sophrosyne, Euripides
is firmly of opinion that physis plays the chief role" disr~gards the fact that the one pronouncing the theory in question .
is killed at the end of the tragedy. Euripidean fra9ments like
Fr. 807 (Nauck) "µly1.otO\I °!p' 7iv ;, rpuo1.s;•t~ Y~P Max~v ouot\s;
tplcpwv
xpncnav &v ~e:Cn ltott" do not have to be interpreted
with H. North, following E.R. Dodds ("Euripides the Irrationalist",
The Classical Review, 43, 1929, p. 99) as attesting to the
"moral impotence of reason", but can be understood as a claim
to nature as a necessary but not necessarily sufficient source
of virtue. The fact that in the case of man reason is a part
of nature makes the claim to nature as chief source of virtue
rather ambiguous. Dodds' (op. cit., p. 99} "Euripides• characters do not merely enunciate these principles, they also illustrate them", meaning "the victory of irrational impulse·
over reason in a noble but unstable being" ought to make one
cautious in separating them out as "their authors thoughts"
(op. cit., p. 98; cf. "The At6~~ of Phaedra and the Meaning
of the Hippolytos", The Classical Review, 39, 1925, p. 103),
expressing "systematic irrationalism" ("Euripides the Irrationali~t", p. 103), opposed to "Socratic intellectualism" ("The
At6ws; of Phaedra", p. 103).
·
co
5. cf. 1004-1005; for an elaboration on the distinction between
hearing and seeing with respect to "the quest for the first
things" cf. L. Strauss, Natural . Right and Historl, Chicago,
1953, Ch. III, "The Origin of the Idea of Natura Right"
pp. 86-89.
.
6. For a discussion of the different meanings of "awrppoo~v11"
in Euripidean tra,gedy cf. H. North, op.cit., pp. 68-84.
�-40-
7. Plato's Euthyphro explores this question with respect to
"&6crletLa": The original definition of "t~ oaLov" as "t~
~&ocpi.>.b;" (7a) appears to be insufficient on the basis of
differences among the gods as to their likes and dislikes (7b~
Se). The amendment of· this insufficient definition to "t~ ·
!aLov" as "t &v ~dvtts o~ ~to\ cpLAoOaLv" (9e) is o~ly an intermediary step on the way towards a more fundamental inquiry
into the nature of "T~ oaLov". The follow up of the crucial
question, '/Jhether "t~ oaLov" is 11 001.ov" because it is "-&toqi1.>.~s"
or whether it is "-&tocpL>..~s" because it is "001.ov", in the
discussion of "t~ 001.ov" a~ "µlpos Toi) . 61.xa(ouft (12a-e) points
to a more universal definition which goes beyond the scope
of th~ dialogue.
8. cf. H. North, op.cit., pp. 153-158.
9. For a comparable relationship between "ato~~" and "owcppoo'1vl'l"
cf. Xenophon,~, II, 1, 22, and H. North, op.cit., p. 92.
10. cf. F. Dirlmeier, Aristoteles, Mikomachische Ethik,Darmstadt,
1969, note 138, 9, pp. 471-472 and "Der cpJotL - Charakter der
Arete" in "Die Oikeiosislehre Theophrasts", Philologus, Suppl.
30, l, Leipzig, 1937, pp. 39-46.
11. Therefore, "owcppooi1vn" does not seem to me to be synonymous
with "ato~~", as H. North, op.cit. p. 87, claims.
12. For the same disjunctive question cf. Aristotle, N.E.,
ll79b 20 ff.; Pol., 1332a 38-b 11 and H. North, op.ci~p.
208; related to "tu&cuµov(a" on the basis of "aptTn", cf.
Aristotle, N.E., 1099b 9-llOOa 9, E.E., 1214a 14 ff •• For a
discussion of acquisition and loss()f""11 crwq>poovvn" cf. Xenophon,
Mem., I, 2, 21-23; Cyl., VII, 5, 75 and H. North, op.cit.,
pp. 123-132, especial y p.131, with the discussion of Cyr.,
III, 1, 16-17, the problem of "ow,poavwn" as "na.enµa" or
"µa-&niia".
13. For the exclusion of the lower animals and the gods from
considerations of virtue cf. Aristotle, N.E., ll49b 27-llSOa
1, ll78b 8-18 and H. North, op.cit., p. 2'05andnote 30 ibid ••
14. For a harmonious view of "v&µos" and "'tcri.:.!;" cf. Euripides,
Bacchae, 11. 890-896 and E.R. Dodds, Conunentary, adhuc,
2.
ed., Oxford, · 1960, pp. 189-190; Ion, 11. 642-644; cf. Philemon,
fr. B7(K).
-
15. Ironically enough, Hippolytos' notion of a fixed nature
is answered with fatal revenge by a goddess> the only k~nc;L of beLnq,. to
whom it truly applies. Of course, the judgement "xaxLoTnv
O
oaLµovwv", with its implicit hybris of mortal judgement over
immortal nature, carries more weight than the otherwise true
notion of a fixed nature in the case of gods.
�-41-
16. Comparably, the nurse changes her usual address to Phaedra
from "'lat" or "tlxvov" to "6la1to1.v''~ where Phaedra has shown
moral strength (433) or at least moral indignation (695).
\
17. For the ambiguity 9f 11 a£µvoc" as epithet of Aphrodite as
well as Hippolytos cf. w.s. Barrett, op.cit., p·. 187.
18. Cf,; B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 22.
19. cf. B.M.W. Knox,
op.~i t.,
p. 28.
20. cf. B.M.W. Knox,
op.cit~,
P• 29.
21. I doubt whether this is simply a "good sententious peroration", cf. w.s. Barrett, op.cit., p. 286.
22. cf. Philemon, fr. 87(K}:
"t( ioTt Ilpoµnitds, ~v Alyoua' ~µas 1tAdaa1.
xal ~!Ala 1tdvta . tlat Tot £ µ~v enp(oi.s
l6wx'
£xdat~ xat~ ylvo~ µ(av ~~01.v;
&1tavT£S ot Alovtls tta~v &Ax1.µ01.,
6c1.1ol 1tdA1.v £tns 1dvtcs tto~v oL Aayw.
•
•
•
• ' ,
•
\
•
_f
OUM EOT
QAWltn~ n
µEV £1.pWV Tij ~u0£1.
no' au~lxaatos, aAl' edv Tpi.aµup(as
&A~ltcxds TLS auvaydy~, uCav ~oai.v
a~ata1aowv · S~cta1. tpditov e' lva •
• p
\
\
,
\
•
\
nµwv 6' oaa xai. Ta awµaT • • \ Tov api.~µov
EOTL
xa~· £vds, 1ooodtou5 loti. xa\ 1pd1ous t6ttv."
'
\
.
23. cf. E.R. Dodds, "The At6ws of Phaedra", p. 103.
24. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 15 "The fact that the moral
alternatives are represented by r-ilence and speech is not
merely a brilliant device which connects and contrasts the
situations of the different characters, it is also an emphatic
statement of the universality of the action. It makes the play
an ironical comment on a fundamental idea, the idea that man's
power of speech, \.'hi ch distinguishes him from the other animals,
is the faculty which gives him the conception and power of
moral choice in the first place."
25. For the significance of the bull in Greek mythology cf.
E.R. Dodds, Euripides, "Bacchae", 2. ed., Oxford, 1960, p. XX;
ll. 920-922 and note pp. 193-194.
· 26. cf. the etymology of the name Hippolytos, either to be
analyzed as "Breaking in horses" or as "Broken by horses".
27. For the symbolism involved in the image of the charioteer
cf. H. North, op.cit . , pp. 380-381, especially note 3.
�-4228. cf. Plato, Meno, 70a.
29. cf. Xenophon, On Hunting, I, 11; XII; XIII, 4, lSff •• For
great parts of it, this treatis~ oi Xenophon :3oun<ls like a
· commentary on Euripides' Hippolytos, attempting . to demonstrate
that hunting is the best preparation for "awq>pocn5vnn and that
it is best to be taught "itap~ aihns; Ti'i' q?lfo&ws;" (XIII, 4).
30. cf. F. Bacon's interpretation of a similar myth in The
Wisdom of the Ancients, IV, "Narcissus 11 or "Self-Love", The
Works of F. Bacon, ud. Spedding, Ellis, Heath, Vol. VI, pp.
705-706.
31. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 22, referring to Euripides,
Hippolytos 11. 141, 1451.
32. cf. Homer, Od., IX, 105-566; both,the Cyclops and Hippolytos, are representatives of the same phenomenon, the "choA1.s;",
though the Cyclops on the side of the beast, Hippolytos on
the side of the god.
33. cf. Aristotle~ Pol., 1253a 28 with N.E., 1158b 29-1159a 12;
E.E., 1238b 18;27; l24'4b 1-22; 1245b 14=rg-and F. Dirlmeier,
op.cit., note 180, 3, pp. 520-521; cf. Plato, Lysis, 214e215c; Euthyphro, 14e 9-15a 10.
34. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p.31. "The play ends with a
human act which is at last a free and meaningful choice, a
choice made for the first time in full knowledge of the nature
of human life and divine government, an act which does not
frustrate its purpose. It is an act of forgiveness, something
possible only for human beings, not for gods but for their
tragic victims. It is man's noblest declaration of independence
and it is made possible by man's tragic position in the world.
Hippolytos' forgiveness of his father is an affirmation of
purely human values in an inhuman universe."
35. cf. Leo Strauss, op.cit., pp. 151-153.
36. cf. Leo Strauss, op cit., p. 145. "In the language of
Aristotle, one could say that the relation of virtue to human
nature is comparable to that of act and potency, and the act
cannot be determined by starting from the potency, but, on
the contrary, the potency becomes known by looking back to it
from the act."
37. cf. G.E. Lessing' s remark in the "4.9·th-· piece of.. the
"Hamburgische Dramaturgie": "Aristoteles hatte unstreitig
mehrere Eigenschaf ten im Sinne, welchen zu Folqe er ihm
diesen Charakter erteilte", and his speculations about the
passage in question.
�
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Berns, Gisela N.
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Nomos and physis: an interpretation of Euripides' Hippolytus
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1971-03-05
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on March 5, 1971 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Bib # 52998
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Annapolis, MD
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Friday night lecture
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b74bf35c334a162a42928e47386f7ae9.mp3
f7bdef759725120258278cae0bb1e5b4
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Getting Things Together Again in Kant
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2000-04-14
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Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804
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<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1090">Typescript</a> (Entitled "Getting things together again in Kant")
Friday night lecture
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Aristotle and Adam Smith on justice: cooperation between ancients and moderns
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1994-03-18
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Aristotle
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790
Justice
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95a54f5ef733704a45c93ca7630471d9
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Religion, enlightenment, and the American character
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1985-04-12
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on April 12, 1985 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Bib # 13510
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Religion
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Putting Things Back Together Again in Kantl
by Laurence Berns
(St. John's College, Annapolis)
Any study, including the study of philosophy, usually begins with
making distinctions, refining differences. With a comprehensive, precise,
philosopher, a philosopher with a system, like Kant, it seems as if one
could spend a lifetime just trying to work out the distinctions, without
ever coming around to bring together the things that have been
distinguished, that have been separated in thought. I would like in this
talk to try to account for how some of the major factors distinguished by
Kant come together and cooperate within the wholes that they constitute.
The lecture divides into two basic parts.
Experience and the sciences based on experience, according to
Kant, are based on two primary sources, sense intuition and conceptual
thought. Concepts without intuitions, he argues, are empty, and intuitions
without concepts are blind. How do they come together? The contrast
with Aristotle's treatment should be revealing. The fundamental
question behind this first part is: how to account for the cognition we do
experience, how to account for the partial intelligibility of our world?
The realm of nature, natural science and experience, according to
Kant, is determined strictly by necessary laws of cause and effect. The
realm of morality, on the other hand, proceeds in accordance with laws of
freedom. Like parallel lines, it would seem, the two realms never meet.
Kant speaks of the great gulf that separates these domains, that
"completely cuts off the domain of the concept of nature under the one
legislation, and the domain of the concept of freedom under the other
legislation, from any influence that each ... might have had on the other.''2
The question then naturally raises itself: how are the realm of nature and
the realm of morality related or connected in one and the same world?
lA lecture delivered at St. John's College, Annapolis, April 14, 2000.
2 Critique of Judgment, Pluhar translation, (Indianapolis, Hackett, 1987), Introduction,
IX, p. 35.
1
�In his long and difficult book, the Critique of Judgment, Kant
develops the concept of purposiveness, especially the purposiveness of
nature, that in some way is intended to bridge the gap between nature and
morality. I am not able at this time to do more than touch on that subject.
The purposiveness that Kant talks about is not found in nature, but
supplied by the reflective judgment of the investigator whenever the
investigator comes across phenomena like those of living organized beings
for which the laws of mechanical cause and effect do not seem adequate. A
purpose is defined by Kant as an effect that is possible only through the
concept of that effect, the concept that is itself the cause of the effect. Like
Thomas Aquinas, Kant argues that ends in nature only make sense when
they are thought of as intended by some intelligence. The intending
intelligence can be either in the being effecting the purpose or not. The
innumerable complexes of purposive activities operative throughout
nature, especially in animate nature, in beings not intending them,
require some other being that does intend them, namely, God.3 Teleology,
Kant argues, finds its consummation in theology. But, unlike Thomas, for
Kant this God is not to be assumed to have objective reality. The idea of
such a being is produced by us in order to satisfy the subjective needs of
our cognitive faculties. These purposive laws are to make sense of the
phenomena as if some intelligent cause, a God, had made them.
The realm of the reflective judgment also contains Kant's analysis
of the aesthetic judgment, the account of the beautiful and the sublime.
The pleasure derived from an object judged beautiful comes from
reflection on the free and harmonious play of one's own faculties of
imagination and understanding in its judging.
The reflective judgment sometimes seems to be a judgment that
possessing an indeterminate particular is on the search for the universal
or universal law under which the particular could be subsumed, which, if
found, would transform it into a determinate judgment. It evidently plays
a key role in a very important subject not extensively discussed by Kant,
concept formation. In his Logic he speaks of concept formation as based
3Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 40, A.3, and Q. 1, A.2. Cf. also I, Q. 2, A.3. Critique of
Judgment, §§ 75 and 76.
2
�on three logical operations of the understanding: comparison, reflection
and abstraction,
the essential general conditions of generating any concept
whatsoever. For example, I see a fir, a willow and a linden. In
comparing them with one another I notice they are different
from one another in respect of trunk, branches, leaves and the
like; further, however, I reflect only on what they have in
common, trunk, branches and leaves and [then] I abstract from
their size, shape, and so forth; thus I gain a concept of a tree.4
In this context reflection would seem to be the power in the Kantian
system that comes closest to the noesis, or intellectual intuition, of Plato
and Aristotle.
The gap between nature and morality also raises another question
which is both a theoretical and practical question, namely, how do nature
and morality coexist in one and the same human being?
Almost everyone who aspires to be generally educated in
philosophy reads Kant's The Foundations [Grounding] of a Metaphysics of
Morals, usually after reading his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics or
selections from The Critique of Pure Reason. His Metaphysics of Morals is
much less read. One is almost bound, it seems to me, to get a distorted
picture of Kant's moral philosophy from reading the Foundations alone. In
the Foundations Kant clarifies the ultimate principle of morality, the
categorical imperative, by distinguishing it from what others claim are the
sources of moral principle. The source of moral principle, he argues, is not
nature, not divine revelation, not moral sense or feeling, not pleasure. The
discussion usually takes the form of arguing why those plausible
alternatives are to be ruled out as sources of moral worth. Kant's view
appears as a noble, but narrow, inflexible, formalism: "so act that the
maxim of your action can be made into a universal law "-period.
The chief difficulty for those who have read only the Critiques and
the Foundations is to see how Kant applies the categorical imperative. In
ethical and political matters the meaning of principles usually does not
become clear until one sees how they work out in practice. The
4 See Critique of Judgment, Introduction (2),§4; and Logi,k, (Jiische), AK IX, 94-95; Logic,
English translation by Hartman and Schwarz, (Bobs-Merril, 1974), 100-01.
3
�Metaphysics of Morals is devoted entirely to working out how the
categorical imperative is applied within the varying circumstances of
human life. Despite the formalism, it reveals Kant to be a deep, wideranging student of human nature, who is very much aware of the
importance for morality of the sources that he rejects as ultimate sources
of morality. In the second part of this talk I propose to illustrate how, in
the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant tries to make sense out of morality; in
part by showing how the moral law comes together with some of the
alternative principles that were rejected in the Foundations.
I
Most discussions of Kant begin with his modifications and
deepening of doctrines inherited from Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke,
Berkeley, Hume and others whose philosophies can be associated with
modern mathematical physics. By emphasizing those modifications, the
premises which these thinkers all share, in particular those premises
formed in opposition to the classical Platonic-Aristotelian approach, are
taken for granted, and as a consequence, are both insufficiently questioned
and thereby insufficiently clarified.
If there is genuine knowledge, must not that which the knower has
be in some way the same as that which constitutes the object known? In
the Meno [72c] Socrates speaks of the form [eidos] as that through which
things are what they are and that towards which one looks in order to give
an account of what they are. Aristotle speaks of how in sense perception
the sense is receptive of the forms of sensible things without their
material just as the wax receives the mark of the signet ring without the
iron or the gold.5 As Joe Sachs put it, "the same form that is at work
holding together the perceived thing is also at work on the soul of the
perceiver."6
5De Anima, 424a 17-21. Aristotle joins Plato's Socrates' "second sailing", taking "refuge
in speeches [eis tous logous] to look in them for the truth about the beings" [Phaedo, 99C100A], by coming around to concentrate on the form [eidos] "according to speech" [kata
ton logon]. See Physics, 193a 31 and Posterior Analytics, lOOa 1-3, and the whole of
chapter 19 of Book II.
6Aristotle's Metaphysics, translated by Joe Sachs, (Santa Fe, NM: Green Lion Press,
1999), liii-liv.
4
�On the basis of what evidently lies in both prephilosophic and
philosophic experience, and on the supposition that genuine knowledge is
possible for human beings, Plato and Aristotle and their followers argue
that human beings are endowed by nature with two interconnected kinds
of intuition or insight, sense intuition and intellectual intuition [nous]
which open themselves correspondingly to two kinds of forms, sensible and
intelligible forms, the forms implicit in human speech as well as the forms
of sense experience. According to the analyses of Plato and Aristotle the
intelligible forms are understood to be primarily responsible for the way
the world and things are as they are. And accordingly they become objects
of the highest kind of inquiry, the study which came to be called
metaphysics.
The great early modern opponents of the classical tradition and its
medieval offshoots seemed to regard this presupposition of harmony
between the mind and discourse of human beings and the nature of things
as a na'ive, if not gullible, optimism. Nature is not a kind mother, she
deceives us: the cognitive equipment she endows us with conceals rather
than reveals the true character of things.
Bacon, in the first Book of his New Organon, especially his
treatment of the Idols of the Mind, devotes himself to "the refutation of
the natural human reason." That refutation includes a refutation and
account of those philosophies, especially the philosophies of Plato and
Aristotle, that "idolize" or even "idolatrize" natural human reason.7 The
continuity of his great project with that of Bacon is acknowledged by Kant
through his choice of a long excerpt from the Novum Organum as the
epigraph to The Critique of Pure Reason.
Thomas Hobbes was unrivaled for the lucidity with which he
stated his opposition to classical thought. In his The Elements of Law
(Natural and Politic)8 we read "whatsoever accidents or qualities our
senses make us think there be in the world, they be not there, but are
seeming and apparitions only." What we are led to think are the
characteristics of things in themselves are rather the effects upon
7Cf. Laurence Berns, "Francis Bacon and the Conquest of Nature", Interpretation 7, No.
1 (1978), pp. 1-12, especially note 5.
8Editor, Ferdinand Tonnies, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), chap.
Il.10.
5
�ourselves of causes or things which in themselves are utterly unknown to
us. As for intelligibles, universals, Hobbes tells us that there is "nothing
in the world Universal but Names; for the things named, are every one of
them Individual and Singular."9 He often criticizes Aristotle for
mistaking discourse about our thoughts and the ordering of our thoughts
for discourse about things in themselves. Traditional metaphysics from
this point of view is absorbed by logic, if not by psychology.
Kant continued and developed this critique. We cannot know
things in themselves, he argues. Science, the study of nature, is concerned
only with what appears to us, with what lies in our experience and, as far
as we can know, lies only in our experience. We are led by nature to think
that what is present in our experience is of, or refers to, things that exist
independently of our experience. And when we speak about our experience,
especially in our use of common nouns, we speak as if we possessed a
power to intuit intellectually the intelligible natures of things in
themselves. But, Kant asserts, sense intuition is the only intuition
available to us, there is no such thing as intellectual intuition for human
beings. To emphasize both the denial and the temptation at the same
time, he defines the word noumenon (which he and his readers knew in
Greek means object of nous, object of intellectual intuition) negatively, as
a word to refer to that which we can in no way know, an unknowable x, the
unknowable thing in itself.
Kant seems to have never given an explicit and direct refutation of
the intellectual intuition he so emphatically rejects. Years ago I was
puzzling about this with the distinguished Kant scholar, Lewis Beck, and
Beck finally said that he guessed Kant must have thought that he has
given us everything valid that intellectual intuition was thought to have
supplied and with more adequate explanations of its grounds. Beck was
referring in part to the fact that although, according to Kant, we cannot go
beyond phenomena to things in themselves, we can have objective,
universal and necessary judgments about them, that is, about the
phenomena that constitute our experience. We can accept Hume's critique
and starting point without the burden of his skepticism. In fact, Kant
argues, objectively valid natural science, mathematics and moral law,
9Leviathan, chap. 4.
6
�now, on his basis, can be more adequately grounded than they have ever
been before. Kant's categories, the pure a priori concepts that ground
experience, his substitutes for Platonic and Aristotelian ideas or forms,
have no special purely intellectual objects of their own; they are valid and
meaningful only in application to human experience, meaning sense
experience. Reason, the ultimate source of understanding, and its
concepts is not intuitive, for Kant, but legislative: it provides rules for the
meaningful organization of sense experience, these rules we call concepts.
Despite these fundamental oppositions, there is a deep stratum of
concurrence in Kant's approach and the Platonic-Aristotelian approach:
both find the meaningfulness of ordinary sense experience fundamentally
dependent on what is primarily at home in thought, even in logic. Kant
might be thought of as, in his own way, joining Socrates' taking refuge in
the logoi.10 The same function of the mind that in discourse determines a
certain kind of judgment, as a category provides the necessary conditions
o. meaningfulness that determine particular objects, as objects of sense
f
experience.
Thus Kant can say paradoxically that ''Reason prescribes to
nature its laws." He must also have been thinking about how Newton in
his Principia presents mathematical reason prescribing its laws to
nature: that is, after working out different general mathematical force
laws for bodies traveling in different kinds of geometric orbits (in Book I),
some 200 or so pages later (in Book III) he determines the astronomical
"System of the World" in a few pages by simply setting down the
observational data, the phenomena, and seeing to which of those force
laws they conform. (As every history of these matters makes clear the
actual discoveries of the mathematical laws were made very much in
interaction with observations of the things governed by them.)
But Kant spoke of his critical philosophy and Newton's procedure
as part of the more general Copernican intellectual revolution of modern
science. Let us take the most important example: we see the sun rise,
move across the heavens and set each day. The Copernican hypothesis
accounts for the apparent daily movement of the sun by the rotation of the
earth, or more generally, by the activity and movement of the observer.
lOsee note 5, below and the Critique of Pure Reason, B 105 or A 79, B 107, and B 370.
7
�Kant accounts for the meaningfulness of sense experience in terms of its
conformity to the rules set by our own conceptual activity. Hitherto, he
argues, it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to
objects, but he reverses the priority by asking whether it is not rather that
we attain knowledge of objects when those objects, sense objects, conform
to the conditions that our concepts and understanding set for all objects of
experience. Experimental science too is seen as part of this intellectual
revolution: in the experiment reason approaches nature with fixed laws in
mind, and then creates conditions that would never occur in nature's own
ordinary course in order to force nature to answer reason's own questions
about which laws prevail.
I spoke earlier of how Kant cut off intellectual intuition as one
route from experience to things experienced as things in themselves; but
what about gaining access to the things themselves that are sensed
through sense intuition, the one kind of intuition that Kant asserts we do
possess? That avenue is cut off by Kant's notion of what it is that we
receive through our senses. Following Hume, Kant agrees that what our
senses present to us are impressions, or as later writers who follow this
approach say, sense data; not sense objects, but sensations, mere matter
for sense objects.11 Sensation for Kant is not yet sense intuition. For
sense intuition of sense objects to occur, the matter must be ordered or
formed into appearances and experience. The formative or ordering power
does not come from the object formed, but lies in the mind a priori, that is,
independently of all sensation or experience. "(T]he form of all appearance
must altogether lie ready for the sensations a priori in the mind; and
hence that form must be capable of being examined apart from all
sensation."12 The form of outer objects of experience is Space, the form of
inner objects of experience is Time. Space presents no properties or
relations of things in themselves; "it is the subjective condition of
sensibility under which alone outer intuition is possible for us."13 As the a
llTo what extent does this depend on Kant's "Boscovichian" ~eduction of material
"solids" to tensions of forces, especially repulsive and attractive forces? See his
Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaften, Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science, especially chapter 2 on dynamics, "Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der
Dynamik", AK IV, 496-535.
l2The Critique of Pure Reason, B 34.
l3Jbid. B 42
8
�priori form of inner sense, Time is the condition of possibility for any
intuition or experience of simultaneity or succession. If, as we shall
shortly see, all experience itself depends upon synthesizing activities of
the subjects of experience, taking place in time, then time is the subjective
condition of possibility for all intuition, for all experience and for all
cognition. "Time is the formal condition a priori for all appearances in
general."14
How, according to Kant, are intuition and concept brought together
to produce experience and knowledge? The crucial link is the imagination.
The pure imagination, Kant tells us, is
a basic power of the human soul which underlies a priori all
cognition. By means of pure imagination we link the manifold
of intuition, on the one hand, with the ... necessary unity of
pure apperception [the source of the categories], on the other
hand. By means of this transcendental function of the
imagination the two extreme ends, namely sensibility and
understanding, must necessarily cohere; for otherwise
sensibility would indeed yield appearances, but would yield no
objects of an empirical cognition, and hence no experience.
Actual experience consists in [1] apprehension of appearances,
[2] their association (reproduction), and thirdly their recognition;
in this third [element] (which is the highest of these merely
empirical elements of experience), such experience contains
concepts, which make possible the formal unity of experience
and with it all objective validity (truth) of empirical cognition.
Now these bases of the recognition of the manifold, insofar as
they concern merely the form of an experience as such, are the
categories.15
Kant also spoke about the difference between the "two extreme
ends", sensibility and thought, as the difference between receptivity, the
receptivity of blind sense impressions and spuntaneity, the source of all
thinking (transcendental apperception). The two are defined in opposition
to one another. Understanding, the ability to think an object of sensible
intuition is our spontaneity of cognition, that is, the ability opposite to
receptivity, the ability to produce mental presentations by ourselves, to go
14/bid. B 46, 49-50.
15Critique of Pure Reason, Pluhar translation, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996), A 124-25.
Emphasis supplied.
9
�through, take up and combine mental presentations in acts of synthesis.
"By synthesis, in the most general sense of the term,'' he says, "I mean the
act of putting various presentations with one another and of comprising
their manifoldness in one cognition." Spontaneity, he asserts, is the basis
of the three-fold synthesis that brings sense intuition and conceptual
thought together. The three syntheses are called, 1) the synthesis of
apprehension in intuition, 2) the synthesis of reproduction in imagination,
and 3) the synthesis of recognition in the concept.
The first two syntheses are, if I understand them, under the aegis
of what Kant calls the productive imagination.16
What the first synthesis, of apprehension, accomplishes is the
taking together of the received impressions as existing in one ("my")
consciousness in time. The individual becomes conscious of a unity of
intuition in him or her self, as existing "in me." It is only when the
received appearances are apprehended and combined within a definite
consciousness that Kant will call them perceptions.
The next stage, the synthesis of reproductive imagination, depends
upon an association of perceptions brought together so as to produce an
image of an object. This depends on a power of the mind "to call over"
[herilberzurufen] a preceding perception to a subsequent perception to form
a series of perceptions. The objective ground of the association, Kant says,
is the affinity of appearances in the unity of apperception. A non-Kantian
might be tempted to ask, "Is this a surreptitious glance at the outlawed
thing in itself?" But, Kant argues, this process depends on the unity of
consciousness of original apperception and is an a priori synthesis,
thereby traceable to the action of the productive imagination.17
The third synthesis, synthesis of recognition in a concept, is more
familiar to everyone who has read about the pure concepts of the
understanding, the categories. Here there is·a recognition that the
manifold of former syntheses is a unity of syntheses according to a rule,
that is, according to a concept. We have now reached the pole of thought.
16Jbid. A 118. It can be argued that the second synthesis, as its name suggests, is not
under the productive but only the reproductive imagination. Imagination, in general, is
defined in the Critique of Pure Reason, B 151, as "the power of presenting an object in
intuition even without the object's being present." In the B edition the synthesis of
apprehension is called the figurative synthesis.
17Jbid. A 122 and 123.
10
�We now recognize the former syntheses of appearances, associated
perceptions and finally an image as unified according to a rule, a category,
under which they are subsumed and validated as conforming to the
conditions of possibility of an object of experience.
At the end of this account Kant is satisfied that he can now say:
Hence the order and regularity in the appearances that we call
nature are brought into them by ourselves; nor indeed could
such order and regularity be found in appearances, had not we,
or the nature of our mind, put them into appearances
originally .18
There are two other important accounts of imagination mediating
between sense and understanding that I can only mention briefly. Kant's
transcendental deduction of the categories culminates in his discussion of
the schematism. A schema is not an image, but a product of the power of
imagination, a rule of synthesis for the imagination that governs the
production of images that then will be suitable for subsumption under
concepts.
Another most important function of imagination is its provision of
a priori intuition, the foundation of mathematical knowledge, according to
Kant. Kant, like Newton and Hobbes, defines mathematical objects
operationally rather than theoretically as Euclid mostly does. A line is
what is generated by the path of a moving point, rather than a breadthless
length. The intuition is a priori, because we, through our imaginations
supply it, it is not derived from experience. In mathematics concepts are
constructed, that is the universals, the concepts, are operative as rules of
construction for the a priori images. The universal is found in the
particular .19 Construction of concepts is defined by Kant as the
18Jbid. A 125.
19Euclid, I.32, the proof that the three angles of any triangle equal two right angles,
provides a beautiful example: As soon as you supply the line parallel to one of the sides
of the triangle, (keeping in mind what you have just learned about equalities between
interior, exterior and alternate angles) the conclusion jumps out at you. See Critique of
Pure Reason, B 744-45. In B 745 this notion of a priori intuition is shown to embrace
also the "symbolic constructions" of algebra. Cf. Jacob Klein: "A new kind of
generalization, which may be termed 'symbol-generating abstraction,' leads directly to
the establishment of a new universal discipline, namely 'general analytic,' [algebra],
which holds a central place in the architectonic of the 'new' science." Greek M athmatical
Thought and the Origin of Algebra, translated by Eva Brann, (Cambridge, Mass.: MI.T.
11
�production and exhibition a priori, that is, in pure imagination, of the
intuition which corresponds to the concept. Because in his mind the
geometer produces a circle with every radius exactly equal, "he can
demonstrate by means of a circle which he draws with his stick in the
sand, no matter how irregular it may turn out to be, the attributes of a
circle in general, as perfectly as if it had been etched on a copper plate by
the greatest artist." The production in pure imagination of the intuition
corresponding to the concept Kant calls schematic in contrast to the
merely empirical intuition on paper or drawn in the sand.20
In the middle of Kant's account of the three-fold synthesis we have
just gone through a curious and revealing footnote appears.
That the imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception
itself has, I suppose, never occurred to any psychologist. This is
so partly because this power has been limited by psychologists to
reproduction only, and partly because they believed that the
senses not only supply us with impressions, but indeed also
assemble these impressions and thus bring about images of
objects. But this undoubtedly requires something more than
our receptivity for impressions, namely, a function for their
synthesis.21
This criticism of what is evidently a premodern notion of
perception seems to beg the question by assuming that what the senses
supply are atomistic impressions, which then would require some other
power to assemble them into representations of sensible things. Sensible
things, as Kant knows, are what most people think they are perceiving
through their senses. Kant was familiar with Aristotle's logic, but
Press, 1968), available now in a Dover Edition reprint, p. 125. Cf. pp. 117-25, 163-78
and 192-211.
20ttenry E. Allison, The Kant-Eberhard Controversy, (Baltimore-London: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1973), p.111, especially Kant's note. (AK VIII, 191-92) Kant's way of
conceiving the object of mathematics is elaborately contrasted with the classical Greek
way in David Lachterman's The Ethics of Geometry: A Genealogy of Modernity, (New
York and London: Routledge, 1989). Lachterman develops and builds on Jacob Klein's
Greek Mathmatical Thought and the Origin of Algebra; and "The World of Physics and
the 'Natural' World" in Jarob Klein: Lectures and Essays, edited by R. B. Williamson and
E. Zuckerman, (Annapolis: St. John's College Press, 1985), pp. 1-34.
21Critique of Pure Reason, (Pluhar), A 120.
12
�evidently not with DeAnima.22 Aristotle's account of these matters
seems to be much simpler, it remains very close to the ordinary and
general experience in which they are found. AB Joseph Owens put it, he
"lets things speak for themselves." Aristotle and Kant, it seems to me,
are considering pretty much the same phenomena, however differently
they account for them.
In the beginning of his Metaphysics Aristotle speaks of how all
animals by nature come into being with sensation and how, for some,
memory emerges from sensation which makes them more intelligent and
able to learn. He assumes that, of course, memory presupposes
imagination. An animal remembers by recalling an image of something
which has been perceived in the past and is no longer present, Kant's
reproductive imagination. And so, he, Aristotle, goes on,
the other animals live by imaginings and memories, but have
little share in experience, but the human race lives also by art
and reasoning. Experience arises out of memory for human
beings; for many memories of the same thing bring the capacity
for one experience to completion. And experience seems to be
almost like knowledge, or science, and art; and knowledge and
art come about from experience for human beings.
Experience is the link between memory and science and art. Experience,
then, arises from memories, when many memories of the same thing are
linked together in a unity: for example, this cured Smith, it also cured
Jones, and Green and Quinn, therefore it should cure Collins as well. The
doctor, thinking about Collins's illness is led by something to call up the
images of those former patients and their cures. The intelligible character
[ennoema]23 of the illness of the patient before him recalls that same
intelligible character he had noticed in the illnesses of Jones, Smith and
so on. The intelligible character of the illness is at work both in and
through the perceived patient before him and in the doctor's mind, as well
as in and through the images recalled of past patients.
22Nor with Thomas Aquinas' commentary on De Anima and what he wrote on
perception and imagination in his own name, cf. Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 84, AA 6 and
especially 7 and Q. 85, A 1.
23Metaphysics, 981a 6.
13
�Aristotle has a name for the kind of human imagination that
works together, that is, cooperates, with thought: he calls it rational
[logistike] imagination. It is distinguished from the kind of imagination
that human beings share with the other animals, sensible imagination.24
Let us recall, however, that experience is cognition of individuals. The
intelligible form is working away in the linkage and the unity of
experience, but it, so to speak, has not come into its own yet. In science
and art when one can say this kind of medicine cures this kind of illness,
the intelligibility of the form that was at work in experience is explicitly
and fully recognized in speech as a universal. This culminating
contemplation of the form as a universal is described by Aristotle in a way
that at first seems strange, he describes it as a coming to rest of the soul
out of its normal and natural disorder. But it is not the rest of inertia, it
is the very active and untroubled calm of natural fulfillment, the
gratifying fulfilling of a potency that was there from the beginning.25
The Kantian account is more technical and impressive. It tells us
about all sorts of processes that remained hidden until Kant explicated, or
invented, them. The imagination plays a larger role than it does for
Aristotle. The sense-data, for Kant, must first be assembled or
synthesized by the imagination before we can recognize them as
constituents of sense objects. The Kantian account describes a world, that
in its intelligible essentials is of our own making.
The Aristotelian account sticks much more closely to given
experience, the causal factors it invokes almost seem to be extrapolations
from the descriptions.26 It finds intelligibility, perhaps even intelligence,
in things and the natural world. We are instructed not so much to grasp or
construct it, as to open ourselves to it.
II
24De Anima, 433b 29-31.
25Aristotle, Physics, 247b 5-18 and Posterior Analytics, lOOa 6.
26Aristotle does distinguish objects of sense that are proper to a sense, like the visible
to sight, the audible to hearing, from incidental sense objects like "the white thing [that]
is the son of Diares". [De Anima, 418a 7-26] What that colored thing is, is incidental to
its simply being colored. But for human beings primary sense experience usually
includes the what that is part of what constitutes the object of perception as a sensible
thing.
14
�Freedom in the sense of autonomy, self-legislation, is the
fundamental principle of Kantian morality. Rousseau, whom Kant speaks
of as a kind of Newton of the moral world27, was perhaps the first to define
freedom as self-legislation, but the idea is already implicit in Hobbes's
theory of sovereignty and the social contract. We must obey the sovereign,
Hobbes argues, because each of us through the social contract has agreed
to allow his will to represent each of our wills. He is our representative.
His legislation, because of the social contract, is, legally considered, our
own self-legislation. Hobbes also formulated the more general principle
underlying this conception: "there being no Obligation on any man, which
ariseth not from some Act of his own; for all men equally are by Nature
Free."28 Obligation seems to be something like a contract with oneself.
This becomes even more explicit in Rousseau's doctrine of the
general will. Freedom in society consists in uniting oneself with all the
,.rest under the general will that declares the law, while at the same time
remaining free, that is, self-legislating, in so far as one has contributed to
the making of that law, either by taking part in the legislative assembly
oneself, or taking part in the election of legislators. The process that
makes the will general also makes it moral. Being compelled to express
one's will in such a form that it can become a general law, so that it can
coincide with the wills of all the others, moralizes the will. For example, I
don't like to pay taxes. If I generalize my desire into a law that no one
ought to pay taxes, I am compelled to see that then the police, public
schools, courts, the enforcement of contracts, and so on, would all
disappear. The irrationality of my original desire becomes manifest.
This idea is fully developed as a moral principle in Kant's doctrine
of the categorical imperative: so act that the maxim of your action can
become a universal law. The truly free or moral person, according to Kant,
bows only to the moral will or practical reason within him or her self, and
not to any standard coming from without.
The standard of autonomy, self-legislation, is opposed by
heteronomy, legislation by another. The two most powerful and prominent
27Ernst Cassirer, Rousseau, Kant and Goethe, Harper Torchbooks, (Harper and Row,
1963), p. 18.
28Leviathan, chapter 21.
15
�forms of heteronomy that are to be dethroned are the standard of nature
derived from philosophy and the standard of God derived from Biblical
revelation. Pure practical reason is the only source of moral law.
Anything, therefore, empirical or sensual in origin is disqualified as a
source or standard of moral worth: that rules out moral sense, moral
feeling and pleasure. It also rules out happiness as a standard, happiness
being understood by Kant as a kind of sum of satisfaction of empirical
desire, or as he puts it, of inclination. The rational principle of
heteronomy, the concept of perfection, at least does not, as the empirical
principles do, undermine morality, but by its emptiness and vagueness is
"altogether incapable of serving as its foundation."29 With this glance at
certain programmatic aspects of the Grounding [Foundations] of a
Metaphysics of Morals, we can now turn to the Metaphysics of Morals.
The book is divided into two parts that correspond to the
traditional division between political philosophy and ethics, the doctrine
of right and the doctrine of virtue. Duties of right are defined as externally
enforceable obligations, the external enforcer being a just, lawful, or rightprotecting political order. Duties of virtue, ethical duties, are internal
obligations. Duty is a necessitation or constraint of free choice through the
law. The constraint in ethical duties, then, is "self-constraint through the
representation of the law alone, for only so can that necessitation (even if it
is external) be united with freedom of choice."30 Free choice is not
indeterminate, free choice is that choice that can be determined by pure
reason.31 And just to wrap this up: throughout both parts of the book
"obligation" refers to "the necessity of a free action under a categorical
imperative of reason."32
But before we enter into some of the substance of the book, it is
time to clear up one fundamental point. Kant frequently speaks of the
29Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, AK IV, 443.
30AK. VI, 380.
31This appears to be an echo, or variant, of Spinoza's conception of freedom.
Everything, according to Spinoza, is determined: freedom is the ability of the best
human beings to be determined by clear and distinct ideas. (If we are not determined
in our actions by clear and distinct ideas, we will be determined solely, or mainly, by
natural causes like instincts, emotions and inclinations.) For Spinoza and German
Idealism, as a whole, see Leo Strauss, Spinoza's Critique of Religfon, (New York:
Schocken Books, 1965), Preface, pp. 15-17.
32AK VI ' 222 .
16
�unbridgeable gap between the domain of sensible empirical nature and
the domain of moral freedom, as our earlier quote illustrated. Those
statements turn out to be only provisional, to help us get clear about
where our different principles are coming from. Freedom is a kind of
causality. Although the natural causality of the sensible world cannot
determine the subject as a moral, supersensible, being,
yet the reverse is possible (not ... with regard to our cognition
of nature, but ... with regard to the consequences that the
concept of freedom has in nature); ... this possibility is
contained in the very concept of a causality through freedom,
whose effect is to be brought about in the world ....
Those effects manifest themselves as appearances in the world of sense.33
This causality of freedom is another way of talking about how pure
reason becomes practical: This can only happen when reason makes the
individuals' maxims (subjective principles of action) fit for becoming
universal law. And further, since we human beings are under the sway of
nature's causality as well as freedom's, that power of reason can be
exercised, Kant says, only by its prescribing the moral law in the form of
imperatives that command or prohibit absolutely.34 A divine being, with
no countervailing natural tendencies to oppose pure practical reason, acts
in accordance with the moral law as a matter of course, with no need for
any imperatives, any commands.
Since my general aim here is to illustrate how Kant's sensible
natural realm and supersensible moral realm come together in one and
the same world, I will concentrate on the doctrine of virtue. Because that
is where those sources of morality rejected in the Foundations as ultimate
principles of morality are done justice to, as important factors in moral
life.
An end, Kant explains, is an object of free choice, the object of
some action, and is thereby empirical. The traditional, or classical,
procedure of clarifying the rank order of one's ends and then setting one's
personal maxims of duty in terms of the rank order of those ends, violates
33See AK V, 195 and the note on 195 and 196.
34AK VI, 213-14; Mary Gregor translation (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp . 1314.
17
�the concept of duty according to Kant. Duty with its categorical ought is
rooted in pure reason alone, and thereby must be in control of the maxims
by which one sets one's ends. The ends to be sought in ethics then are ends
that are also duties.
Although both nature and the concept of perfection seem to have
been ruled out as fundamental moral standards in the Foundations, in
section viii of the doctrine of virtue we find the end that is also a duty to
cultivate one's own natural perfection. AB Kant also says in the
Foundations, ends that are necessary and objective ends for every rational
being, that is, ends in themselves, can serve as moral laws. Rational
nature, he declares, is an end in itself. It follows that human beings, being
rational natures, are obliged in their own person or in the person of
another to always treat humanity as an end, not a means. The end of
humanity in our own persons is linked to the duty to make ourselves
worthy of humanity by cultivating our natural capacities to realize the
ends set forth by our reason. Then Kant goes on, "That is to say, the
human being has a duty to cultivate the raw abilities of his nature by
which the animal first raises itself into a human being."
Happiness, we remember, was also excluded from moral goals, but,
Kant declares, the happiness of others is an end that is also a duty. The
argument here is rather interesting, it seems to ground itself on
universalizing a not very exalted natural and selfish principle. The reason
why we have
a duty to be beneficent is this: since our self-love cannot be
separated from our need to be loved (helped in case of need) by
others, we therefore make ourselves an end for others; and this
maxim can never be binding except through its qualification as a
universal law, and hence through our will also to make others
our ends. The happiness of others is therefore an end that is
also a duty.
Shortly thereafter Kant again puts his prodigious deductive power
in the service of his good sense by qualifying this duty. "How far it should
extend depends ... on what each person's true needs are in view of his
sensibilities, and it must be left to each to decide this for himself." For to
promote the happiness of another at the sacrifice of one's own happiness
18
�(one's own true needs) would be in itself a self-conflicting maxim, if one
made it into a universal law.35
In the light of the Foundations, section xii of the Metaphysics of
Morals is especially interesting: outlawed feeling and pleasure come into
their own. The subject is those "moral endowments" resting on feeling
that are required to prepare the mind to receive concepts of duty and to act
on them. There are duties to cultivate these right dispositions of feeling.
Moral feeling is "the susceptibility to pleasure or displeasure
merely from the consciousness that our action is either in agreement with
or is contrary to the law of duty." Shortly thereafter a remarkable
statement follows : "for all consciousness of obligation depends on this
feeling." It is this feeling that makes us aware of the constraint that lies
of
in the concept _ duty. There is no duty to have or acquire it, because every
human being (as a moral being) already has it. The obligation can "only
be to cultivate it and, through wonder at its inscrutable [unerforschlichen
cnot to be searched into] source, to strengthen it"36 To lack it is to be
morally dead. Kant continues, in appropriately passionate language, "and
if, (to speak in medical terms) the moral life-force could no longer excite
this feeling, then humanity would dissolve (as it were by chemical laws)
into mere animality and be mixed irretrievably with the mass of other
natural beings. "37
The other great source of heteronomy, both the Foundations and
The Critique of Practical Reason tell us, is the biblical God of revelation.
Kant ends the Metaphysics of Morals by speaking of religion as an integral
part of the general doctrine of duties, but says that considered as a
doctrine of duties to God it lies outside the boundaries of pure moral
philosophy. The necessity for religion is stated quite clearly: "we cannot
very well make obligation (moral constraint) intuitive for ourselves
without thereby thinking of another's will, namely God's (of which reason
in giving universal laws is only the spokesman)." This duty with regard to
God, he goes on, is really a duty to the idea we ourselves make of such a
being, it is really a duty of a human being to him or her self, "for the sake
35AK. VI, 391-94; Gregor translation, 154-56.
36AK. VI, 399-400.
37Mary Gregor translation, p. 160.
19
�of strengthening the moral incentive in our own lawgiving reason."38 Kant
hints that if we would really like to follow up this subject, we could
consider his book Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone, where the
agreements between pure practical reason and the teachings of history
and revelation are explored. That book, like the Metaphysics of Morals, is
one of those rare places where Kant describes human beings as we know
them, whole human beings who are at one and the same time natural and
moral beings.
It may be fitting to end this talk with some brief remarks about
Kant's discussion of religion. The Critique of Pure Reason established,
according to Kant, that we have no knowledge. positive or negative,
concerning the existence of God. Religion, Kant argues, is unambiguously
subordinated to morality, to moral reason. "Pure moral legislation,
through which the will of God is primordially engraved in our hearts, is not
only the unavoidable condition of all true religion whatsoever, but is also
that which really constitutes such religion." True religion, he argues, "is a
purely rational affair."39 Religion within the limits of reason alone
establishes what in the absence of knowledge we are obliged to believe, in
order to strengthen our capacities to obey the moral law.
Kant had trouble getting his book on religion printed. Permission
to publish was withheld because of opposition from officials of the
theological faculties at the universities. Morals and religion, they argued,
fell under the jurisdiction of the theological faculty, not the faculty of
philosophy to which Kant belonged. (This jurisdictional issue was
probably not the deepest ground for their opposition.) Kant had argued as
early as The Critique of Pure Reason that moral theology in answer to the
question "What may I hope?" was an indispensable part of philosophy.
After a few years of rejection by some censors and acceptance by others,
Kant did get his Religion ... book published.· But the practical and
theoretical questions connected with the affair evidently led him to write
what became a part of his last book, The Confiict of the Faculties.
38Jbid., 229·30.
39Die Religi.on innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Religion within the Limits of
Reason Alone, AK VI, 104; Der Streit der Fakultiiten, AK VII, 67, The Confl,ict of the
Faculties, (New York: Abaris, 1979), translated by Mary Gregor, p.123.
20
�I bring this talk to a close with Kant's comments in that book on
the traditional idea that philosophy is the handmaid of theology, He
grants theology's "proud claim", but raises the question: Is she, however,
the handmaid that walks behind bearing her gracious mistress's train, or
the torchbearer that walks ahead to light the path?40
40AK VII, 28.
21
�
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Putting things back together again in Kant
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1~hls 1~ateriai n-iay- 1 6 protected by'
Copyright l;qw (Trtte ·17 !J S. Code)
FRANCISBACONAND THE CONQUEST OF NA'l'URE*
by Laurence Berns
The whole prospect and outlook of mankind grew immeasurably larger, ·and the rnul ti tude of ideas also proceeded at an
incredible rate. This vast expansion . was unhappily not accompanied by any noticeable advance in the stature of man,
either in his mental faculties or his moral character, but
it buzzed the more. The scale of .events .around him assumed
gigcintic proI:'ortions· while he remained cibout the same size.
By comparison therefore he actually became much smaller.
We no longer, had greatmen directing manageable affairs. Our
need was . to discipline an array of gigantic and turbulent
facts.
To this task we have so far proved unequcll.. Science be-:stowed immense new powers on man and at the same time created conditions which were largely beyond his control. While
he nursed the illu5ion of -growing mastery and exulted in his
new trappings, he became the sport and presently the victim
of tides and currents of whirlpools and tornadoes amid which ·
he was far more helpless than he had been for a long time.
_:...Winston S. Churchill
1
The so-called conquest of nature by modern science·, the science
associated with the names of Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton, has
transformed human life almost_beyond description.
The new dependency
of human life upon science, or its product, technology, pervades our
thinking as wel_ as our prac.t ical lives.
l
It might even seem, from
the recent suggestion to replace the term technology with the term
"technotronics", that logos too had become outdated.
*Base.don
1
Our awareness
a lecture given at St. John's College, Annapolis, April 25",1975.
.
.
Speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 1, 1949.
THE GATHERING STORM, Boston, 1948, pp. 38-42; "Mass Effects in Modern
Life" and "Fifty . Years Hence" in THOUGHTS AND ADVENTURES, 1.932.
Cf.
�-2-
of the depth ' of this fundamental dependency should help us to avoid the
hypocrisy of indulgi.n g in loose anti-scientific talk • . .Yet the threat
of nuclear war, overpopulation, environmental pollution, the imbalance
and disappearance of nature in the wild, and so forth, have all made the
problematic character of the great project for the conquest of nature
increasin~ly
evident, even to non-philosophic thought.
But dangerous consequences can be dealt with in more than one way.
If the conception of nature underlying the cOI:iquest of nature by science
is sound, the remedies for the ills consequent .upon the sO-calied conquest · of nature· are to. be found not in less, but more science, or in a
fuller use of science to solve the problems inherent in the application
of_ science to practice-.
If, on the other hand, the dangers brought on
by modern science are natural consequences o.f fundamental defects in
the understandi.n g of nature presupposed by the project, we are directed .n ot
only to the correction or reform of modern science, but to a consideration of the fundamental' alternatives to it.
In
either case the funda-
mental problem turns out to be not only the problem of dangerous consequences, but rather unders.tanding the truth, . or adequacy, of the conception of nature underlying the notion of the conquest of nature.
The modern project, especially with Bacon and Descartes, was worked out in explicit opposition to classical philosophy and science.
is
~ot ' simply
historical accident.
This
The meaning of the conquest of na-
ture cannot be adequately understood ·without understanding the reasons
for rejecting the view of nature it was formed in explicit opposition
2
to, the classical, or Platonic-Aristotelian idea ~f nature.
The idea
of the conquest of nature cannot itself be adequately understood apart
from an understanding of the fundamental alternatives to it.
I
The first word of the first aphorism of
Bacon'~
NEW ORGANON is
"Man", · the . second "nature": "Homo, naturae minister'· et interpres, ••• ";
2 The common, Socratic, element in the philosophies of Plato and of Aristotle
is discussed in my "Socratic and Non-Socratic P?ilosophy: a Note on Xenophon's MEMORABILIA .1.1.13 and 14", THE. REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS, September,
1974, pp. 85-88.
�-3-
"Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, does just so much and
understands just so much of the order of nature as he has observeq in
the thing or in the mind: he neither knows nor is able to know more."
Man is the
~ervant
of nature in so far as
h~
can do or make nothing
except by obeying the . hidden chain of causes •. Man is tbe interpreter
of nature in so ~ar as he does not ·accept what ·he receives as self-evident,. but .rather · as results and signs only of t .h e hidden chain of
causes.
s.igns must be interpreted.
Man should distrust l:>oth his
natura·l faculties for judgement and the signs which nature on her own
provides. him.
It is in the third aphorism that we find the decisive phrase:
.
"For natu- e is · na·t conquered, except by being obeyed."
r
3.
The phrase ·
is on its .face .aosu~d~ or self-contradictory: the same thing .cannot
both be. conquered and obeyed.
Bacon too soiicits :interpretation.
The word nature here .is . being used . in two senses.
In his discussions
of natural history Bacon provides us with the distinctions which resolve the contradiction.
Natural history is divided according to
the three ·conditions . in which nature is found. - There. is 1) nature in
its-ordinary course, free and left to itself, as it presents itself to
the ordinary understanding in the normal movements of. heavenly and
terrestrial bodies, the normal generations of plants and animals; then
2)
there is nature wandering, or in .error . when prodigies and monstro,
sities are produced;. and finally 3) nature constrained and vexed,
forced out of her · "natural" state, pressed an.d moulded by the . art aritl.
hand of man. · It is from this third kind of ·history that. Bacon ·expects mqst. · "For just as in civil affair~ a man's disposition and
the secret sense of his mind and affections are better discovered
when he is troubled than at other times~ so likewise the secrets of . nature brin9 · themselves forward through the vexations. of art more .than
3unfortunately, in the· most widely read English translation, Spedding•s,
among ·other 'inaccuracies, vincitur, "conq.lered", is usually translated as
"conunanded". Spedding was probably misled by the ·imperatur of aph. 129.
See ·Library of Liberal Arts; THE NEW ORGANON, ed. F.H. Anderson, pp. 19,
lines 18 and 1 1 , 29, line 8, and 39; Modern Library, SELECTED WRITINGS ••• ,
ed. H.G. Dick, pp. 441, lines 21 and 22, 451, ·line 10, and 462.
�-4-:when the}' go their own way."
ill its ordinary course.
4
The nature to be conquered is nature
The conquest is . to be accompl{shed through .
the discovery of and obedience to the secret chain of causes hidden
withinand operative throughout nature; which are to be revealed by
experimental history and true interp.r etation.
What is given to .human cognition in its
ordi~ary
course, by nature
in itls ordinary course, does not provide the clue to the discovery of
natw:;e's fundamental structures and laws. · We cq.nnot assume, as the
'
ancients did, that·there is a natural harmony between the mind of ma,n
and the world, that science and philosophy are the refinement and perfection of the
~atural
cognition by· nature.
understanding working on what is given to human
Oil
the contrary, whaf is given by nature to or-
dinaxy cognition obscures and obfuscates man's way to the discovery of
i
the fundamental course of nature, to nature's fundamental laws.
The
first part, then, of the way to the conquest of nature is the "refutation of the natural human understanding."
This culminates in the
refutation of those philosophies that have been based upon this understanding.
.These are, most . notably, the philosophies of Plato and
Aristotle, which take as .their fundamental task thinking through the
. presuppositions and implications of the orientation of the natural
5
human understanding.
The refutation of the natural human understanding is set forward
most fully by Bacon in his discussion of the Idols of the Mind in
4NEW ORGANON,
5
(hereafter designated by" N.O.), I, aph • . 98.
The refutation, or rejection of the natural human understanding has been
tried in different ways. Cf. Descartes's "genium aliquem malignum" in Me-:ditation I: Hobbes's "feigning the world to be annihilated" in DE CORPORE,
chap. 7; ahd LEVIATHAN, chap. 13, where .it is shown why the "condition of
nature" is intolerable: John I.ocke,ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING,
Book I; and ESSAY CONCERNING CIVIL GOVERNMENT, chap. v, where the part
which nature (compared with labor) contributes to the value of things shifts
from !/10th to l/lOOth to l/lOOOth, to "the almost worthless mate:i;-ials":
Spinoza, ETHICS, Part I, Appendix: _ and G•.W
.F. Hegel, PHANOMENOLOGIE DES
GEISTES, Hoffmeister ed., 1952, Einleitung, pp. 66-68; Baillie trans., . pp.
l35~137.
Cf. _
Jacob Klein, GREEK MATHEMATICAL THOUGHT AND THE ORIGIN OF
ALGEBRA, M.I.T. ~ress, 1968, pp. 72-74 and 117-121; and Leo Strauss,
WHAT IS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY?, Glencoe, 1959, "Political Philosophy and
History" and "On Classical Political . Philosophy".
�-5aphorisms 38 to 67 •
6
The idols are first mentioned in aph. 23 as
·"certain empty d_ grnas" in contrast to "the ideas · of the divine mind"
o
which are "the true s_gnatures and impressions ·made on creatures, as
i
they are · discovered."
What Bacon intends by "ideas of the divine mind''
is not at first .altogether clear • . The next aphorism, . as if in answer
.to the question, How is one to know what kind of. principles to. seek? 1
remarks that principles .c onstituted by arguments are not to be
relied ·u pon, since the subtlety of
!
nat~e
is
gre~ter
many times over
.
thaii the subtlety of argtiment.
.
dis~overy
Rather, principies that iead: to the
.
.·
.
.
.
.
of new works; new particulars, that render the sciences ac-
.tive, are to be
sought~
In the search for those true signatures and
impressions of the divine mind one is to look not for the divine ideas
s
themselves, as ideas, but as forces and laws, a_ it were, impressed
..
in and shaping and_·governing creatures.
This is not because Bacon
was more :interested in practice, power or useful inventions than he
was in theoretical
truth, but because he thought that the active
principles_ gdverning nature . are to be discovered primarily by determining what, how, .a nd under what; conditions things can be done, or produced.
A theory is not confirmed as true simply ·because it leads to
the production of new works, but new work;s are signs or pledges t J
-iat
one is · t least on the track of . truth.
a
Bacon's emphasis is on light-
bearing over fruit-bearing experiments, that is on discovering causes
rather . 1;.han on immediate usefu_lness.
He was fond of recalling "the
divine. procedure, whi_ in its first day's work created light only
ch
and assigned to it one entire day, on which it produced no material
.·
work."
i
Those who confine themselves too closely to practical utili-
ty, he a.r gties, defeat their own purposes in the long ·run; .for from . the
right kind. of light-bearing experiments and theories, not just occasional and isolated inventions will result," but whole "troops" of inventions.
gether.
The right kind of theory and inventions, or -works, go to8
6Aphorisms, Bacon wrote in DE AUGMENTIS ••• ,Book vi, chap. 2, represent
knowl~dge as fragmentary and incomplete, thereby inviti_ g. the reader to conn
tribute _
and supply what is .missing.
7 THE: GREAT INSTAURATION, Prefkce; and N.O., Boo~ I, apn. 70.
�-6-
Human reason as ordinarily used in the study of nature is
by Bacon "Anticipations of Nature,
call~d
(as a thing rash and premature)."
Anticipations of nature are contrasted with what he calls Interpretations
of Nature, human reason rightly used.
for rhetorical
lectic,
9
p~poses,
For gaining.assent, that is,
an ti.cipations and the "sciences" and dia-
or logic, based upon them are far more · powerful than Bacon's
art of interpretation.
They are more powerful as rhetoric pre- .
cisely because they base themselves on and merely refine those universally shared delusions, or radical errors, inherent in the primary
experience.s and notions of the native human understanding·.
The analogies
by which new '!=hings are related to old in philosophies based on anticipations,· like the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, lie in every
man's common experience; the way of interpretation, on the other
hand, must at fir·st sight seem forbidding and uncongeniaL
It re-
quires an initial suspension of belief about common· experience itself, and it? expositors must supply their own similitudes and compar'isons in order to gain passag·e to men 1 s minds.
What .they must most
rely on, hOWeVer r iS leading men tO particular things I Or faCtS I .themselves, or to those new experiences based on experiment which the understanding left to its natural inclinations would never come
to~
The first class of idols, or false notions, whi.ch are rooted in
the cbmmon natlire of 't he human mind · itself, Bacon calls Idols of the
Tribe, that is the tribe or race of men.
The human intellect is prone
to suppose there is more order and regularity in things than it finds
there • . It is more moved and excited by whatever agrees with and affirms opinions already a.dopted than by what negates them.
It is per-
meated. by infusions from the will and affections, and especially those
wants that foster superstition.
Without warrant it restlessly press-
es on beyond all ends or limits, on to the unconditioned, as Kant
would .say.
"But by· far the greatest bUpediment and aberration of the
8
Cf. Paolo . Rossi, "Truth and utility in the Science of Franc.is Ba:C-on•\', in
PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS IN~HE EARLY MODERN ERA, Harper Torchbooks, 1970, pp. 146-173; and Hans Jonas, "The Practical Uses of Theory",
in THE PHENO'MENON OF LIFE, Harper & Row, 1966, pp. 188-210, esp., sec. v.
9 Bacon's usua. term for Aristotelian logic is dialectic, usually rendered
by Spedding .... s "logic".
�-7-
human · intellect," Bacori'says . in aphorism 50,
0
proceeds ·from the dull-
ne.s s, incompetency and deceptions of the senses."
In his less popu...:
lar natural history, S~LVA SYLVARUM, . (paragraph 98), .there is an interesti.n g discussion of the subject of· this aphorism, given as "touching the secret processes of nature .• "
The knowledge . of man hitherto hath been determined by the
view or sight; ·So that whatsoever is invisible, either in.
respect of the fineness of the body itself, or the smallness
of its parts, or of the stibtilty of the motion, is little inquired. And yet these be the things that govern nature prin...:
cipally; 'and without whic:h yeti cannot make any true analysis
and indication of the proceedings of nature. The spirits or
pneumaticals, that are in all tangible bodies, are scarce
known~
Sometimes they take them for vacuum; wherea·s they are
th~ most active of bodies.
Sometimes they take them for air;
from ' which .they differ exceedingly, as much as wine from .wa- .
ter; and as wood from earth. Sometimes they will have them
to be natural heat, or a porti9n of the element of fire;
whereas some of them are crude . and cold. And sometimes they
will have them to be the virtues and qualities of the tangible parts which they see; whereas they are things by themselves~
And then,. when they come to plants and living creatures, they call them souls. And such superficial specu. lati<:ms .they have; like prospectives, that shew things inward, when they are but paintings. Neither is this a question of words, but infinitely material in nature. For spirits
are nothing else but a natural body, rarified to a proportion,
and included in the tangible parts of·bodies, as in an integument. And they be no ' less differing one from. the other,
than the dense or tangible parts; and th~y · are in all tangible bodies whatsoever, more or less; and they are never
almost at rest: and from them, and their motions, principally proceed arefaction, c;:olliquation, concoction, maturation,
putrefaction, vivification, and most of the effects of nature ••••
·Aphorism SO . in the NOVUM ORGANON goes on:
For the sense by itself is a thing infirm and erring; neither can instruments for enlarging or sharpening the sense do
much; but all the truer kind of interpretation of nature is
effected by instances and by experiments fit and apposite
wherein the sense judges the experiment : only,· and the .experiment nature and the thing itself.
�-8-
Distrusti.n g ordinary sense experience, one must by. careful thinki.ng and
plann~ng·subject
the
th~gs
of nature to conditions of all kinds: pres-
sures, · £orces, mixtures, . and so on, which would never be found in the
ordinary course of nature, in ord.er that nature's normally secret
operations "which are. too subtle for the sense" are forced to produce
10
"some effect comprehensible by the sense."
Given nature is contorted
and transformed under the. guidance of the notions the experiment is
devised to confirm; disconfirm or illuminate, iri order to produce the
kind of experience the experiment aims at.
And it is still the senses,
but the senses lawfully married to the rational faculty, that are our
sources for evidence about the nature of things.
Bacon's refutation of
the natural human reason is not meant simply to disparage the intellect.
The controlled experiment is to judge "nature and the thing itself."
And the
co~trolled
experiment is the product of mind, duly warned and
chastened, but also instructed and .even inspired • . .,A complete separa.:..
tion and solution, therefore, of nature must be made; not by fire in11
deed, but by the mind, .as if by a divine fire."
In his preface to
the second edition of the CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON Kant speaks of this
"intellectual revolution" in natural science partly · discovered by and
partly inspired by Bacon. and carried on by men like Galileo, Torricelli and Stahl.
They learned that reason has insight only into that which it
produces according to a project of its own, and that it must
not ·allow itself to be kept, as it were, in nature's leadingstrings, but must itself show the way ••• constraining nature
·to give answers to questions of reason's own dete.r mining •
••• ~like 7 an appointed.judge who compels the witnesses
to answer questions which he has· himself formulated.
Bacon takes the name ·Of the next class of idols, Idols of the
10:rHE WORKS OF FRANCIS BACON, (hereafter des.ignated . WORKS} Spedding,
. Ellis and Heath, eds., London, 1875, seven volumes, vol. iv, p. 412;
I
11
N.O., Book II, aphs. 16 and 7.
�-9-
· cave, from what .he once speaks of as Plato's ,exquisitely subtle allegory.
Buthe . s.peaks of our spirits being confined within "the caves
of our bodies" and r.estricts these idols to those innate tendencies
to error risi.ng from the special nature of individuals, and their
special
~age
habits~
education and accidental circumstances.
Plato's
of the cave, on the other hand, could be thought of .as encom-
passing the subject matter of all of Bacon's first three classes of
idols, idols of the tribe, of the cave and of the forum •
. The idols of the forum, or market-place, being partly innate
and
. partly acquired . from without are placed between idols th.a t are innate,
those of the tr:i1be and the cave, ·and those which are not innate, t .he
idols of the theater.
The idols of the forum are most troublesome of
all, they stem f;rom the way ·words and names are formed.
Words being
for the most part framed according to the capacity of the vulgar draw
the .intell~ct along the lines and divisions that seem most evident to
vulgar .intellects.
More .acute and diligent observers find words stand-
ing in the way of communication of what they have seen in nature.
The
prudence of the mathematl.cians in beginni.n g with carefully framed
.definitions is. good, but cannot cure the evil in dealing with natural
and material things.
What is required there are methodical and order-
ly arrangements of individual instances.
Men form names for things
which do not exist, like Fortune or Prime Mover; and they form confused names ori the basis of hasty and unskillful abstractions from
12
things.
The ·last of the four classes of ·idols; the idols of the theater,
are from the dogmas; or fable's I or plays of philosophy.
themselves innate, .that is, they depend upon the
They are not
acqu~sition
or accep-
tance ·of some philosophy; yet like everythi.n g else they have a natural
basis.
The peculiarities of the dif·ferent idols of the theater are to
be traced bac:k to different special combinations of effects derived
l2'In aphoi;isms 60 ·and 15 Bacon condemns the use of certain generally .
accepted.names and notions.
seems to have Aristotle;s categories
in mind. But 1ames and notions from the category of quaI?-tity are not
among those co tdemned.
He
�;..10..;.
, from the workings of the innate idols of the tribe and cave.
The idols
of the forum affect all the philosophie~.
Bacon speaks of three prominent types among the idols of the theater.
The first is the sophistical, which to ensnare the assent o.f the
greater number, bases itself upon common experience and common notions.
The 111ost conspicuous example is Aristotle,' who led by the idol of the
~
cave .mentioned in aphorism 44 corrupted his natural philosopt"iy arid his
!
metaJ?hysics with his favorite study, dialectic, or what Bacon also calls
the Vulgar, or common, logic, the logic of the "Old" Organon.
Aristo-
tle fashioned the world out of categories, he tried to account for
sensible differences and substances with words like entelechy and act
which ·are words which describe certain kinds of thoughts rather than
things.
Even when he did resort to experiment in his more specialized
physical and biol_ gical works he framed his questions in such a way
o
that his resort to experience was bound to confirm the positions he had
decided upon in advance, ·a procedure warned _ gainst in aphorism 49 of
a
the .idols of the tribe.
The second class of idols of the theater is the empirical school
of philosophy, those who on a narrow basis of certain experiments and
experience fly or leap up to universal principles and try to explain
everythi_ g else on the basis of the principles observed in their experin
ments.
With great foresight Bacon warns that if his admonitions are
heeded and ~en begin to leave sophistical philosophy, by which he
.means Aristotelianism, to devote themselves seriously to experiments,
this kind of idol could become a much greater hindrance to sound inquiry • .
The third class of idols of the theater, superstitious philosophy,
the corruption of philosophy by admixture of theology and superstition,
is far more wide.spread, in his times, at any rate, Bacon claims.
While
contentious Aristotelian, sophistic philosophy ensnares the inte·1 1ect,
this more poetical, more fanciful philosophy misleads it by flattery.
The natural anlbition of the intellect to fly beyond all limits, warned against in aphorism 48, and the susceptibility of the intellect to
�-11-
influences from the affections and imagination, warned against in
aphorism 49, are catered to and
flatte~ed
by this kind of philosophy.
All idols are riot of equal rcink, and, Bacon explains_, this kind of
idol is keyed to the. natural dispositions of more noble and lofty
spirits .
The most important example here is "Plato and his school"; 13
but. this "apotheosis of .error" shows itself in scholastic
Aristotelian~
ism as well, in the introduction of abstract forms,. final causes and
first causes.
This unwholesome mixture of religion and philosophy
i
must !be stopped, Bacon said, not only becc:i.tise it makes for fantastic
phil<;>sophy, ·b ut also because it leads to heretical religion.
Ef-
fecting .this separation seems to be one of the most incontrovertibly
successful parts of Bacon's project.
!
The. great failure · of ancient phiJosophy, however, a fa.i ling even
.
.
.
.
.
of the atomists whom Bacon praises as superior to ·Plato and Aristotle
in natural philosophy, is that they m~e the quiescent principles ·of
things out of which they are produced rather than the moving prin~
ciples through .which things are produced, the · objects · of their inquiries.
The six received Aristotelian, or vulgar, distinctions of
motion are merely popular c:i.nd make no penetration into nature.
Bacon .
gives fifteen and, later, nineteen different motions in his own pub- .
lished accounts of the simple motions: 4
s
The· ultimate or natural causes of the. e failures are dealt with
in the last of the particular idols of the tribe in apborism SL
The hWnan intellect is carried to abstractions ac'"".
cording to its own nature; and things which are· in flux
it feigns to be constant.
The fault of abstractions is that they feign things ·in flux to be constant.
In aphorism 52 Bacon provides a further clue to his meaning
where he speaks of this idol arising from "the mode . of the impression."
What he seems to have in mind is that the moving thing makes
13Cf. Plutarch Is LIVES ••• , Nicias, XXIII •·
1
'\n · Book III, chap. 4 of the DE AUGMENTIS •• • .I arid aph. 48 of N.O. I .Book II.
These aphorisms dealing with superstitious philoso,PhY and the failure ·. to
search. out the movi.n g principles of things are at the center of Book I (N .0.).
�-12-
.
the sense _ memory and intellect,
,
an impression or impressions which remain constant in what is
impre~sed,
.
that is,
~n
thereby suggesti_ g that
n
what caused it in . the thi_ng itself is also fixed, !Vhereas. it is rea_ly
l
.in motion.
The aphorism continues.
But it is better to dissect nature than to abstract; as
the school of Democritus did, which penetrated into nature
more than the rest. Matter ought rather to be considered
both in its schematisms andmeta-schematisms, and pure ac~,
and law of action or motion: for forms are figments of the
human spirit, unless you are willi_ g to call those laws of
n
action, forms.
Bacon uses . the word form to describe the ultimate .objects of science because that word had become so venerable for so many of
those he wanted :to lead down the path of his new scien~e; what he
means are iaws of motion •15 The intellect in deali_ g with. things
n
in flux moves towards the c_ nstant, but "in nature nothing truly
o
exists besides individual bodies producing pure individual acts
according to law. 1116 · The given compounded bodies of nature are
to be dissected down to the · latent schematisms of more fundamen- ·
· tal bodies constituting them, the schematisms, or meta-schematisms
of the more·fundamental simple natures constituting them are to be
·. studied especially with a view to ·the laws of action inseparable
from their existence.
The natural appetite of the intellect for con-
·stancy is to be satisfied by fixed modes, . orders, or laws of change.
15 In theVALERIUS TERMINUS, which was never published but evidently circulated privately, the equivalent, or corresponding term is "direction"r
WORKs, vol. III, pp. 23?-41. Cf . Ellis's Preface, ibid., pp. 201-05~
This may be the best place to study what Bacon means by the remark
-"that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the
rule." (N.O., I, aph.3.) Cf. Paolo Rossi, FRANCIS BACON, FROM MAGIC
TO SCIENCE, London, · 1968, pp. 193-201; and Mary B. Hesse, ''Francis Bacon", in A CRITICAL HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY, ed. D.J. O'Connor,
Free Press of Glencoe, 1964, chap. 8.
16
.
N.O., Book II, aph. 2.
�-13...;
B_eginning with natur.a l history and the naturallY: given· forms of
the ordinary course of n_ature, like lions; oaks; . men and water, physics
studies their material and efficient causes, that is, their latent schema.tisms and latent processes, with a view to th:e discovery of the truly_
simple natures and motions out of which they are compounded.
What ·
simple ..natures are is not yet determinable, says Bacon, but he ·speaks
of them
as
being more abstract and general natures like heat and span::...
taneous rotation, attraction and magnetism. 17 .The s_ ggestion may be
u
that in the simple natures material ~onfiguration and simple motion
coalesce as two inherently connected factors of what we might call uni•tary orde~ed material dynani.isms. 18 However that may be, the simple natures. constitute the "alphabet of nature".
Met_ physics, in the literal
a
sense of "meta", after...;physics, begins with the alphabet and studies
its "gram:i;iar" , that i.s how the simple natures are
collected ·~
compounded
· and combined to form the bodies and to produce the operations of the
ordinary course of nature.
Metaphysics studies formal causes, that is
the laws of action of the simple natures, the laws which order and
constitute any simple nature in any subject matter susceptible of
that nature.
The operative part .of metaphysics Bacon calls ;,magic"
s_uggesting · by the term that on the basis of
the
new natural· science
men will be able to generate things ne:ver before seen in nature and of
such a character as to rival in power, fineness and durability the.
things
pro~uced
by natU.re in its regular course.
The term also suggests
that sue!) things · being alien to the ordinary course of nature could
17 .cf. on "simple natures", N.O., Book II, aph •. 5 and Descartes, RULES
FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE MIND (INGENII), Rule 12 •. For Bacon's influence on Descartes s.e e A. Lalande, "Sur quelques textes de Bacon et de
Descartes", REVUE DE METAPHYSIQUE ET DE MORALE, May, 1911, pp. 296-311.
18
.
Cf. DE AUGMENT.IS ••• , Book III, chap. 4, on "Abstract Physics';. Cf.
Laurence Berns, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF FRANCIS
BACON ••• , Ph.D. Dissertation, University . of Chicago, 1957, Appendix and
pp. 175-78 and pp. 193-94. Cf. Rossi; ·£2._~ ·· cit., p. 202.
�-14seem to be of supernatural origin.
Bacon's use of the term meta-
physics, li~e his use of the term form, cannot be _
understood · apart from ·
considerations of his philosophic rhetoric, for it seems to have been
designed first to appeal to those who .might still be attracted by the
traditional name, but only in order to lead them toward a very different
notion of the thing.
.,
"All physics, " Bacon wr_ote, "lies in a mean between
natural history and metaphysics."
Metaphysics is "itself -a part of
physics or of .the doctrine concerning nature. 11 1 9 That is, physics, in
the broad sense of the word, beg1ns with -natural history _ nd ends in
a
metaphysics, with the laws of action of the simple natures.
Bacon knew
that there would be little left of traditional metaphysics, if his way
were followed.
A private letter of 1622, to a FatherBaranzano in Italy,
reveals his intention in part:
Be not troubled about Metaphysics~ When the true Physics
have been discovered there will be no Metaphysics. 'Beyond
true Physics is Divinity only.
"The human intellect," he wrote in the NOVUM ORGANUM, "must not be
supplied with wings, but rather with lead and weights. 1120
Are Bacon's "forms", his . laws of motion, forerunners of the
m.;ithematical formulas of Newtonian physics?
certain.
It is difficult to be
He did say that physics should end in mathematics.-
He did
not seem to appreciate what might be accomplished by framing one's
initial hypotheses . in terms that are representable by mathematical
syriibols~ 21 One might say that he foresaw what· the 9-c;>als of mathematical
physics were to be, without
bein~
clear about the mathematical means
19 oE AUGMENTIS .•• ; Book III, chap. 4, and Book "IV; end; in WORKS, vol.
rv, pp. 347 and 404.
20 Book I, aph. l04 ~ .
2lcf. Jacob Klein, op. cit., note 5, above, Part I, Introduction, and
Part II.
�-15to those. goals. 22
"Inquiries into· nature have the best result when they begin with
physics and. encl in mathematics."
The nearer one approaches simple
· natures, he .said, the easier and plainer everything becomes, as one
moves· from the inconnnensurable to .the comine'n surable, from surds to
rational quantities.
.A gain, . "everything relating both to bodies and
virtues in nature I should_/ be set forth {as far as possible)
bered, weighed, measured . and determined.
num:~
For we pursue· works not ·
speculations, and physics and mathematics well .mixed generate practice."
And most interesti_ngly, we must · "measure virtues, · /-forces_/,
"3.Ccording to the; quanti.t y of the · bodies- in which they subsist and show
how far the mode! of the virtue depends upon the quantity of the body
••• we must pro~eed to inquire what proportion the .quantity of° a body
bears to the mode Of its Virtue. II 23
However, the technique of representing physical 'e ntities by
mathematical sym1Jols, so as to allow what one already knows from
. mathematics to suggest undiscovered relationships between the r'epresented physical entities, was evidently not known to him.
1
Mathematics, he
.sai·d1 "should terminate natural philosophy, not generate or give it
birth." 24 He does not seem to have been very weli informed about the
.
.
.
history of mathematics or mathematical advances being made during his
22
.
.
.
.
But cf. Lalande, ~ cit., note 15, above, pp.
speaks of Descartes's announcement (in RULES ••• ,
geometrical interpretation of sensible phenomena
nearly word for .word a passage from theVAL:J?RIUS
309-311~ · where Lalande·
no. 12) of the method of
in words .which "reproduce
TERMINUS."
esp~ '4 7; Book I, aphs. 96 and 98;
and P:REPARATIVE£-PARASCEVE_/ TO A NAWRAL AND EXPERIMENTAL HISTORY,
aph. vii. _ Cf. Hans Jonas, "The Scientific and Technologic'al Revolu:..
tion", in PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS: FROM ANCIENT CREED TO TECHNOLOGICAL
MAN, Prentice-Hall, 1974, pp. 63-65. Cf. Henry . Pemberton·, {editor of
the third edition of Newton's PPJNCIPIA .•• ,), A VIEW OF SIR ISAAC
NEWTON'S. PHILOSO~HY, London, 1728, Introduction, where the iinportance
for Newtonian science of Bacon's critique of the prejudices and obstruc· tions impeding knowledge . and his treatment of induction are stressed.
· 23 N.O., Book II, aphs •. 8, 45, 46, and
24
N.O., Book I, aphs. 96 artd 80; and DE AUGMENTIS ••• , Book III, chap. 6.
�-16own times. 25
Yet the Baconian experiment seems to lend itself to com-
bination with the approach of symbolic mathematical physics.
Both
methods approach nature with a view to discovering the extent to which
nature is subject to ·1aws devised in advance by human reason.
Both
the Baconian experimenter and the mathematical physicist, in the .K antian
phrfi~e,
"prescribe to nature its laws."
Baconian influence can, of
course, be seen in other approaches to physics· and also in other sci,
;
enc~s, iike chemistry and biology.
However this may be, we now turn
our' attention to an· area where the extent of Bacon's influence is less
questionable: the new relation which was to be established between
science and _society.
II
The ·"Great Instauration", great renewal, of the sciences called
for a radical change in t:'.he way. science . and philosophy were to oarr1
on their affairs.
And then let them consider · what may be expected (after the way
has been thus indicated) from men abounding in leisure, and
from association of labors, and :from succession of ages ••• in
which the iabors· and industries of men (especially as regards
the collecting of experience) may wi~% the best effect be
first d.i stributed and then combined.
Bacon's way was "not a way over which only one man can pass at a time
(as is the case. with reasoning)."
His way required a vast new insti-
tutionalized science, coordinating the efforts of
m~y
men in acom-
pleX, hierarchical organization, that was meant to outlast any of the
individuals who were parts of it; th. t is, as we say, it was to become
a
. "historical" and progressive.
This vast enterprise would require far
greater suppori;. from society at large than science and philosophy had
'\
ever received .before.
There would come a time, Bacon hoped and
25see ibid. I and Ellis Is notes to the same in WO~, vol. I, p. 577.
-26
.
· ~' Book I, aph. 113.
�-17expected, when society's dependence on -science would be extensive and
obviou,s; but before that time came about, and if that time was to come
about,_ the
po~V"ers
that be, "who are but in very few cases even moderate27
.
ly learned,." · would have to be won over · to the ne\."1 cause. He· devoted a considerable · amount of thought and :writi_ g to this, his rheton
rical task.
To the extent that his project has succeeded, the need for, .and
the understanding of, his rhetoric has diminished.
Yet without some
understanding of that" philosophic rhetoric, what he accomplished, both
theoretically and practically, - can.not be appreciated.
He regretted
that· it was necessary for him, the architect of the new edifice of
\
science·, to become herald,
recruiter~
and even ordinary workman as
well.
We have already seen some of the consequences of his need to re. cruit new men of science in an atmosphere domi_ ated by Aristotelian,
n
Platonic and Scholastic learning in his use of the terms "form" and
"metaphysics".
In
one . of his _interesting unpublished writings, which
are often more open and less colored by classical terminology, he
speaks about how his plans must be conununicated and transmitted :
inveterate errors like deliriums of the insane must be subdued by art and by wit, and are aggravated by violence and
opposition. We must, therefore, use prudence and humor them
(as far as we can with simplicity and candor), that contraqictions may be extinguished before they are inflamed. 28
~onathan
Swift in his FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE FOUGHT LAST
FRIPAY BETWEEN THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN BOOKS IN SAINT JAMES '-S LI BRA.RY pays _ certain tribute -to Bacon in this r _ gard:
a
e
27N.O., .Book I, aph. 91.
28rHOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS,~OGITATA ET VISA), translated in the Montagu
American Edl.tion of BACON'S WORKS, Philadelphia, 1855, vol. I, p. 434;
original in WORKS, vol. III, 589 ff. Cf. F .H. _Anderson, THE PHILOSOPHY
OF FRANCIS BACON; Chicago, 1948, -P· 38 ·. The trans_
lation in Montagu is
more literal han the recent translation in THE ~HILOSOPHY OF FRANCIS
BACON, . Benjam: Q Farrington, Liverpool, 1964, which also contains translations of "TL= Masculine Birth of Ti.me" and "Refutation of the -Philosophies".
�-18Then Aristotle, observi.n g Bacon advance with a furious mien,
drew his bow to the head, and let fly his arrow, which missed
· the valiant modern · and went hizzing · over his head; but Des
Cartes it hit •••
'Evidently Bacon ducked.
In addition to those whom he called "true sons of science", to
whom "the lamp" · is
to
be handed on, a new army of assistan-t:s, managers
and administrators had to be recruited.
Appeals had to be made to men
who never before would have been connected with scienc.e , to induce them
to forsake their green fields, humble workshops and profitable businesses to become partners iq the hitherto too fastidious, or too exalted,
quest for truth.
·Bacon encour.a ged them with the par.tial· truth that "our
way of discovering sciences almost levels · men's wits and leaves but
little to individual excellence," just as a man with a compass can draw
a more perfect c.i rcle than anyone else, no matter how excellent, who
uses his hand and eye alone.
There will be a vast array of new tech-
nical and mechanical activities that will leave little to special
.intellectua.l excellence; but B aeon was more aware of the difference
between ordinary men and men of talent and genius than those who criticize him for ignoring it.
Some four pages after his statements about
levelling in the NOVUM ORGANUM, he remarks that what he is attempting
"cannot be brought down to the apprehension of the . vulgar . except by . effects and works only."
29
This should be considered also in connecJ
tion with the question about the relative iinportance
of fruit, works,
or power, on the one h,and, and light and truth, on the other, for the
Baconian ·philosophy.
The new institutionalized science of the future, Bacon saw, required a new relation between science and political life.
Throughout
his long and eminent political career he .tried to gain official support
for his projects.
He was ·mu:ch more successful after his death·, as Abra.-
ham Cowley's ode "To the Royal Society" of science, written in the
29t.J.o., Book I, aph. 128.
�-19middle 1600 1 s, indicates.
From these and all long Errors ·of the Way
In which our wandering Pred~c~ssors went,
And like th' old Hebre~s mariy:'o: Years did stray,
· ::i;:n ·oesarts but of small Extent,
Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last,
The barren Wilderness he past,
Did .on the very Border stand,
Of the bless'd promis'd Land
And .from the Mountains Top of his exalted Wit,
Saw it himself, and shew'd us it.30
Bacon's success, . and that success being taken . for. granted, has made
it more difficult for us to see the problem as he saw it.
The
relation between political society and science and philosophy is
always a delicate one:
for, .he wrote, there , is no form of polity or
society that does not have "some · point of contrariety towards human
knowledge."
And conversel:y, the arts and sciences· are always somewhat
suspedt ·from the point of view of civil society:
For surely there is a great distinction between. civil affairs
and the arts: for the danger from new motion and new light
is not the same. In civil affairs, truly, even a change for
the better is supected as likely to bring on disturbances;
for civil affairs rest on authority, consensus, fame and
opinion, not demonstration. But in the arts and sciences,
like metal mines, there should be a clamor of new operations
. and further progress. 31
· Altha.u gh Bacon wrote extensively on political sub.jects and working
one's way through the labyrinth of his political thought can be a fascinating enterprise, 32 . we must·confine ourselves here to his specifical. ly scientific politics.
A most important part of his treatment of that
3oTHE WOP.KS OF MR. ABRAHAM COWLEY, London, 1721.
cap~ 26, in WORKS, voi. III~ p. 252: and N.O., Book I, .
aph. 90. Cf. Aristotle, POLITICS, Book II, chap. 8; Thomas Aquinas, S.T.,
I-II, Q.97, A. ·2; and Strauss, op. cit., not~ ·S, above, pp. 221-222; . et al.
:3] VALERIUS TERMINUS,
32 See Berns, op. cit., n. 18, above; and Howard B. White, PEACE · AMONG THE
WILLOWS: THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF FRANCIS BACONt Nijhof, 1968.
�-20subject is found in one small book, the fable, or scientific -µtopia, .
entitled the NEW ATLANTIS.
But there too Bacon's views are not simply ex-
posed to view, but become accessible only to a certain art of interpretation.
For · as he says in the ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING beginning his
treatment of government:
it is a part of kriowledge secret and retired, in both those
respects in which things are deemed secret: for some things
are secret because they are hard to know, and some because
they are not fit to utter.
And in the expanded Latin version of this book he begins his discussion
of civil or pol;itical science by telling an . old . story:
that many philosophers being met ·together in the presence of
the ambassador of a foreign prince, each endeavoring to give
a sainple of his wisdom, that the ambassador might be able to
make a . report of the wonderful wisdom of Greece; one of them
remained silent ••. the ambassador tur1J.ing to him, said, "What
have you to say for me to report?" To whom he answered, "Tell
your king that you have found a man in Greece who knew how to
hold his tongue ....
Bacon .goes on to speak of an "art", even an "eloquence in silence" on
these matters.
There is also
a
simpler reason for the indirectness of
the political discussion in the NEW ATLANTIS.
If it is the case that
the scientists control politics in the New Atlantis, · Bacon is in effect
asking the great political men of his own times to contribute to the
'founding and support of institutions which were intended eventually to
deprive
~hem,
or men like them., of any real political power.
Bacon had
surely read; but did not need, the advice tendered by Machiavelli, that
if you intend to kill a man and you want his weapons, you should not
say, "Give me your weapons, I want to kill you."
say, "Give me your weapons." 33
3 '.brscoµRSES ••• , Book I, .chap. 44.
It is sufficient to
Cf • .Ro·ssi, op. cit., pp. 109-116.
�'-21-
Baconis NEW ATLANTIS is written in . explicit correction of Plato'sCRIT!.
AS;_ both works are formally incomplete. 34 The old Atlantis in the CRITIAS, a. luxurious.; technol_ogical, or mathematically organized, society
•was destroyed by earthquakes; the New Atlantis goes back as _
far, but
thanks to .its science does not fall prey to· cycles of natural catastrophe as do all societies in Plauo's account.
-as Zeus is about to speak; what formally
The CRITIAS ends just
cor~esporids
to Zeus's speech
is the completed speech of· the ·Father from Salomon's House, the great
new scientific institute of the future, '"the noblest foundation ••• that
ever was upon the e?rrth; and the lanthorn I or as elsewhere, "the
very eye"_/ of this kingdom."
The speech is a description of Salomon's
House, - or as they also call it, the College of the Six Days Works~
The
soc_iety of Bensalem, for so ;it is called ?5 in the language of the na....,
tives, enjoys prosperity, all kinds of health~producing fruits and
foods, good health and medicines surpassing anything in Europe; and
most natural, most chaste and most pious customs.
Salomon's House, it
seems, is · the source of all their greatest blessings.
Science is de- ·
voted to the twin aims of findi_ g out the true nature e>f things, to
n
the_ ·greater glory of God, and the relief and prospering of .man's .estate.
The island is Christian, havi_ng received both Old and· New Testaments
through a special revelation, which was confirmed by a witnessing Father
from Salomon's.House as a true miracle.
But Jews, _Persians, Arabs, Chal...;
deans and Indians· also live there and are. left to their own·· religions,
and they··.too love and respect the ways of the nation of Bensalem~ 6
34cf. White, op. cit., note 32, above, the chaps. entitled, "Of Island
. Utopias II I esp-:-for the comparison with the TEl1PEST I and "The Old and the
New Atlantis"; see al.so White's chap.·, "Francis Bacon" in HISTORY OF POLITICAL PHIL.OSOPHY, eds. Leo Strauss and Jos~ph Cropsey, Rand McNally, 1972.
35Is it in contrast to Hierusalem, (the way Jerusalem is . spelled in the
NEW ATLANTIS) the good-peace in contrast to the holy-peace (from the
Greek hieros)?
3 6.:rhese things.are said explicitly only of the Jews.
�-22It is a Jew with the interesting name of Joabin who arranges the meeting
of Bacon's narrator with the Father from Salomon •'s Hous·e . · Salomon's House
itself was founded by Solamona, .the . great law-giver of Bensalem, who
reigned. about · 300 ·~B.C.
Although the founding of Salomon's House de-
pends upon the political act of a great king, and Bensalem is called a
· king;dom still, by the time Salomon's House . has come into its own the
power of the king is scarcely visible.
Orders are given to the visi-
)
tor~
not in the name of the king, but in the name of the "state".
When
I
the Father from Salomon's House makes his procession .into the.city, the
first such visit .i,n twelve years, his chariot, described in detail, reminds one of the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament.
He, as Je-
sus is often characterized, "had an aspect as if he pitied men."
i
Fif-
.
ty attendants of his own precede his chariot, and two others directly
pr~:cedi.ng
hook.
bear, one a cross, the other a pastoral staff like ·a sheep-
All political and other officials walk behind his chariot . . "He
held up his hand as he went, as blessing the people, · but in silence."
In some of the factories of Salomon's fiouse, the Father reports in a
private meeting with the narrator, they have all kinds of ordnance and
instruments of war, flying.machines of a sort and submarines.
There
are thirty-six Fellows of the College, under them are novices and apprentices and "a great number of servants and attendants, men and women."
The Fellows decide which of their inventions and experienqes should be
published and which not.
They "take all an oath of secrecy, for the
.•
concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret:
tho.u gh some of
those we do' reveal sometimes to the state, and some not."
What all this. indicates is that the ultimate rule both of the
state arid religion, ("which has most power over men's minds 1137 ), is
in the hands of the Fellows of
Salo~on's
House, the philosopher-scien-
tists.
Bacon envisaged a vast expansion of 'human power . as a consequence
of science's conquest of nature.
He evidently thought that these powers,
powers for evil as well as for good, were not. to be put into the hands
37
N.O., Book I, aph. 89.
�-23.;..
of mere st.a tesmen; control · was to be kept in the hands of those who
would be expected to comprehend them, the most powerful and highly
trained philosophic and scientific minds.
While the arrangement of : a
marriage between .science and society clearly forecast a new era bf mutual interest and concern between the parties, rule by the wise was
regarded as the condition for success.
The leaders . of science apparent_.
ly . were also meant to become masters of statecraft, of human philosophy,
to guarantee that the newly discovered powers would fall into hands
fit to use them well.
In aphorisms 127 and 80 of Book One of the .
NOVUM ORGANUM Bacon makes clear that he is speaking about perfe_ ting
c
not only natural philosophy in .the narrow sense, but the sciences of
·1
logic, ethics and politics as well; they were all to be nourished by,
and brought to perfection alo_ g with, natural philosophy.
n
The new
38
science, in its inception, was meant to be a universal science.
The failure to develop the expected human philosophy would seem to
be the most conspicuous failure of Baconian philosophy. · Can any philosophy or science which does not take the orientation of pre-scientific and
cognition seriously ever be adequate for understanding human things?3 9
pre~philosophic
38 More than 350 years after the publication of the NOVUM ORGANUM Maxwell's
and Rutherford's successor, the Cavendish Professor of Physics writes,
.,Phy~ics, indeed, should recognise that it is not in any useful sense the
fundamental science, since that peculiarity which makes it fundamental, the
fact that its laws are, we believe, applicable in principle to the systems
which other sciences investigate, is achieved by adopting an attitude of exclusive . concentration on cer.t ain approved aspects of the phenomena, such as
prevents the development of a scheme by which principle can be translated
into practice." Indeed, the claim of fundamental physics that it is "seeking out the Basic Truth of the Universe" is found to be ,;slightly pretentious". See _
A.B. Pippard, F.-R.S., "Reconciling Physics with Reality," an
Inaugural Lecture, Cambridge University Press, 1972, pp. 35 and 37.
. Old questions seem to be opening again. Is the very quest for a fundamental sdience now even more than "slightly pretentious"? (Cf. F. Nietzsche,
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, aph. 205.) Or is the way opening for new, and, perhaps, even old contenders?
:39 cf. Leo Strauss, op. cit., note 5, above, pp.23-25, and "An Epilogue"
in LIBERALISM ANCIENT AND MODERN, Basic Books, 1968.
�-24Howeve~
this may be, Baconian science wins the support of society
and the people at large by catering to their fe9-rS and desires_, as
they understand those desires, that is, by providing them with protection _ gainst injury from man and especially from nature, with prosa
-
perity, with .comforts and new pleasures and especially with stronger
and healthfor bodies.
The latent, and riot always · latent, antagonism
between science and philosophy and society is not to be bridged -by
mere words, by the flimsy art of the GORGIAS, by the consolations of
philosophy, by exhortations to virtue, but rather by the .tangible comforts of Baconian charity. · Consolation for and bowing to the ravages
of fortune are not as good as conquering fortune; for in trut?~ Bacon
says, fortune is a name for somethi_ g whic_ does not exist, just · as
n
h
the theoretical presupposition of the notion of fortune, variable and
unstable matter, does not exist.
The ancients produced theoretical ex- ·
cuses, blaming their ·f ailure to . radically improve the estate of man,
on the nature of things, rather than on their own _gnorance, especiali
.
40.
ly their ignorance of the forms, or fixed laws governing all matter. ·
The -depreciation of nature, at least of given nature, or nature
in its ordinary course, implicit in the idea of the conquest of nature
is a, or the, corrnnon theme of mbdern phiiosophy.
In Kant and Hegel
it cUlm.inates in a thorough disqualification of nature for
..
sion of ethical and political standard$.
Or, . in
oth~r
the . provi~
words, Kant and
Hegel found the nature uncovered by modern science, the natu+e which
Bacon said is to be obeyed, altogether incapable' of supplying man with
ethical .and political standards.
As a consequence, for Kant and Hegel
moral and political principles ' must be traced to some other non-natural
sources: . freedom, pure practical reason, spirit and history.
Some-
thing which anticipates, or corresponds to; the later development
occurs also in Bacon, as can be seen by considering the following
40cf. Bacon's use of the ambiguity of the word fortune in his "architecture of fortune", (ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, Book II), and his attack on
the classical subordination of art to nature, its breeding "a premature
despair in htunan enterprises." WORKS, vol.. IV, pp·. 294-95. Cf. also N.O.,
Book I, aphs~ 75 and 78.
�-2.5-
difficulty.
Men, like lions and oaks, are not fundamental, but rather
compounded forms of nature in its ordinary course.
But one of these
ordinary, compounded forms is to become the conqueror and master of all
_the forms of nature in its ordinary
course~
There must be something
speci_ l, or fundamental about this one of those non-fundamental forms,
a
man.
B~con'
s division of all
philosophy (apart from natural theology)
into natural and human is a kind of tacit ackri.owle_ gement, ·insufficient
d
though · it may be, of the new special status of man in hfs philosophy.
Yet, unlike Kant and Hegel, Bacon .still looked to nature and its funda. mental laws in order to di_ cern the principles of moral:i,ty. 41
s
Sometimes . he claimed to share the ethical goals of the ancient
philosophers, adding only the teaching they neglected about how to · attain those goals; but that position is not long maintained.
The dis-
courses of the ancients on ·morals and politics, he said,, are beautiful
a.pd lofty, like "the stars, which give little light because they are
so high." 42 Bacon, following Machiavelli (THE PRINCE, chapter 15),
lowered his goals in order to guarantee actualization.
to understand the so-called conquest of fortune.
~hat
This is one way
A Baconian might reply
goals which can almost never be put into practice cannot be re-
garded as serious practical goals.
In his widely read ADVANCEMENT
OF LEARNING Bacon divides ·the "Platform of the Good" into two basic divisions, Individual or Self Good; which concerns its.e lf with ·virtue, and
the Good of Communion, or Social Good, which concerns itself with duty.
Individual Good is subdivided into Passive Good and Active Good, and
Passive Good is subdivided finally into Conservative Good and Perfec_
tive Good.
The first division -is . explained as a.rl appetite imprinted in
· everything toward a twofold nature of good, the one as everythi_ g is a
n
totality in itself, the other as it is a part of another body:
Iron
moves toward the lodestone in individual sympathy, but if it exceeds a
41 Cf. also DE AUGMENTIS. ~ • , Book IV I chap. 1.
42 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING . Book II.
1
�-26-
certain quantity, like a good patriot, it moves to .the earth, the country .of its connaturals.
The conservation of the more general form, the
good of communion, controls all, the . lesser inclinations, as is emphasized by the Christian Faith, which more than any other sect or philo. sophy exalted the good of communion and depressed the private or particular good.
"All other· excellences
-·.t y adni.i tteth no excess. "
are subject to excess: only chari-
This also decides the question concerning
.
.
whether the contemplative or the active life is to be preferred, against
i
Aristotle.
· te~plative
For all the reasons he brings forth in favor of the
life are private.
con~
As far as the private pleasure and digni-
ty of a man's self is concerned, Aristotle is right.
;But men must know that in thi·s theater of man's life it is
reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on ••• for
contemplation which should be finished in itself, without
casting beams upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it
not.
In
his much less reserved and unpublished, . but privately circulated,
VALERIUS TERMINUS, these same divisions of good are discusf;)ed with no·
admixture of Christian theology or classical terminology, as appetites,
desires, and motions operating throughout material
nature~
He begins
t.his discussion with the remark, that uif the rnor.a l philosophers that
·have spent_ such an infinite quantity of debate touching Good, . and the
highest good, had cast their eye abroad upon nature," to see the "quaternion of g.ood" which he presents as laws _ motion, then they might
of
have"saved and abridged much of their long and wandering discourses of
pleasure, virtue, duty and religion."
In the expanded version of the
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,. the DE . AUGMENT IS~ •.• , . the section oil physics,
.
in the discussion of simple or elementary motions, these same motions
with still different names and no obvious connection to morality show
up in the central place·s .
sics.
gre~t
mod~rn
Morality, it seems, is to be reduced to phy-
It is in Bacon's tha.ight rather than Hobbes's that those two
powers of modern thought, Machiavellian political .morality. and
natural science, are first bro_ ght t _ gether. · The · Machiavellian
u
o
�-26a-
.Platform or Exemplar of the Good
*
Social, or Good
of Communion
Duty .
Indiv~dual or Self Good -- Virtue
Passive .Good
Perfective Gocid
Conservative Good
----~------
----------------
-------------~-
Quaternion of Good
----------------- ----------**
. Motion
of enjoying.
or fruition
of approach _
or assumption
of affecting
or operation
of consenting
or proportion
*. From the AD\ ANCEMENT OF LEARNING, 1605: and the DE AUGMENTIS
SCIENTARiuM, j 323
**
From the VALERIUSTERMINUS, est. 1603.
�-27principles, however modified, are found by Bacon to be operative not
only in human nature, but throughout nature as a whole.
But let us try to understand how this works out in hUI!lan terms by
tryi_ g to see what the bes;t, or h:i,ghest, way of life would be for Ban
con. The Active Good of extending and mqltiplying oneself, in conformity with the Social or Communal Good takes precedence over the
fective Good and the Preservative Good, that is, pleasure.
Per~
Internal
perfection, contrary to Plato and Aristotle, is secondarY: to acting ·
upon and relating to others in and for society.
Foreign policy, as
it were, takes precedence over domestic policy.
In his most popu-
lar book, the ESSAYS, · (No. 55) Bacon assigns the highest place of
honor. to found"Srs of empires, states and cormnonwealtlis, like Romulus,
Cyrus, Caesai:_ : Ottoman and Ismael.
,
In the NOVUM ORGANUM, however,
in disti,n guishi_ g three grades .o f ambition, the highest political ambi-:
n
tion is assigned the second place.
The first place goes to him who
would "endeavor to instaurate and extend the power and empire of the
human race itself over the un_v_ rse of things" thro_ gh the sciences .
i e
u
and the arts.
"And yetr to speak the whole truth," Bacon says later
in the same aphorism . " ••• the very beholding of the l _ght is itself
i
a more excellent and fairer thi_ g than its many uses: so surely the
n
very contemplation of things as they are without superstition or imposture, error or confusion, is in itself more worthy than all the
fruits of inventions."
And at the end of the First 'Book of the
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, .
We see then how ~ar the monuments of wit and .learning are
more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands
·••• the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books,
exempted from the Wrong of time and capable of perpetual
.renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images,
because they generate still and cast their seeds in the
minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actic:ms and
opinions in succeeding ages •••• letters ••• -as ships pass
through the _vast seas of time, and make ages so distant
to participate of the wisdom, illmninations, and . inventions, the one of the other •••
Apparently E lcon did conceive of contemplation .as the highest
perfection
o
man, but a kind of politic contemplation, contemplatidn
�-28-
of the most far-seei_ g pr'a ctice, or actiqri,. the theory which disclos.es
n
knowl€;dge of "all possible operations", the theory productive of the
most lo_ g range practice.
n
He evidently envisaged a .complete coincidence
of private and social good on the .highest level.
.
Ambition in the highI
.
est sense, the ambition of the founder of the empire of man over nature,
whq is that founder because he is the first discoverer of the cosmological truth, becomes at the same time the performance of the highest
of iduties.
The ambition of the founder of the greatest of all em-
pires is the highest form of the active or extensive good, it is
· realized by means of the highest perfective good, contemplation.
Since
i~
is aimed at securing the maximum of relief_
,·
for mankind as a whole, it
~lso
constitutes the highest of
as 'Bacon defined duty, the action of
an
of society.
and power
~i1
duties,
individual with regard to the
.
well~being
cornfo~t
.
In the ver_y last entry of his natural history
it is difficult not to think that Bacon had himself in mind~
The delight which men have in popularity, fame, honour,
Submission and subjection of other men's minds, wills,
or affections (al though these thi_ gs may be desired for
n
other ends), seemeth to be a thing in itself, without contemplation of consequence, grateful.and agreeable to the
nature of man. This thing (surely) is not without some signification, as if all spirits and souls of men came forth
out of one divine limbus; else why should men be so much affected with that which others think or say? T~e best temper
of minds desireth good name and true honour: the lighter, pop~
ularity and applause.: the more depraved, subjection and tyranny; as is seen in great conquerors and troublers of the world;
and yetmore in arch-heretics; for .the introducing of new
doctrines is likewisean affection of tyranny .over the understandings and beliefs of men.
As this quote indicates, the lowest of Bacon's classes o:t: good, the
conservative good, or. good of enjoyment, will also be fulfilled for the
founder of the empire of man over nature, through the pur_e delight
men have in fame, honor and the subjection of other men's minds.
The "
Father from Salomon Is House "had an aspect as if he pi tied men."
As. Bacon says elsewhere:
�-29-
There is implanted in man by nature itself a noble and
excellent spirit of compassion, that extends itself
even to the brutes which by the divine ordinance are
subject to his command. This compassion, therefore, has a
certain analogy with that of a prince towards . his sub~
jects. Moreover it is most true; that the more4 ~orthy a
soul is, the more objects of com:i;>assion it has •.·
The true temper of Baconian charity, of the Baconian
scientist~
evi-
derttly must combine the spirit of compassion with the spirit of domi.:..
nation.
A synthesis of these qualities along with Herculean, Prome. 44
thean courage
would seem to constitute . something like the grand pas-
~ion of generosity discussed by besc~rte~ in . hi~ PASSIONS OF THE SOUL •
. Both Bacon. and Descartes believed that the vast expansion of
.
powers to be wro.u ght by the new science would have to be matched by
corJl=espondinglY: great resources of courage in .the souls of those men
·who were to release and administer those · powers.
But moderation ·, the
ancients tell Us, is the core of almost all the virtues.
without moderation is rashness.
And courage
The beneficence of the project for
the conquest of nature has not measured up to Bacon's expectations
for · it.
Was it reasonable to think tha.t it woiild?
St. John's College,
Annapolis
43
wom<s, vol. I, p. 758.
.
44
See Bacon's WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS, No. - 26.
�
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Francis Bacon and the conquest of nature
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1975-04-25
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on April 25, 1975 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Bib # 57329
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Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626
Philosophy, Modern
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Annapolis, MD
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St. John's College
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<a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3874" title="Sound recording">Sound recording</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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GRATITUDE, NATURE, AND PIETY
IN
KING LEAR
LA.tJRENCE BERNS
Revised VersionOf
AFomal Lectlll"e Delivered At St John.'s: College
�27
GRATITUDE, NATURE, AND PIETY IN KING LEAR
LAURENCE BERNS
And they go to trial on a charge on account of which men hate each other most,
but go to trial about least, that is, ingratitude. And him who they know to be able
to return a favor, but does not return it, they also punish severely. For they think
that the ungrateful would also be most neglectful about gods, about parents, about
country, and about friends; and what seems to follow upon ingratitude most of
all is shamelessness, and it is this indeed which seems to be the greatest leader towards every baseness.
-Xenophon, Cyropaedeia [1.2.7]
I
In the fourth act of King Lear the cruelly blinded Duke of Gloucester
is saved and guided by a man disguised as a mad beggar. The strangeness
of beggar guiding duke is compounded by the fact that Gloucester's unknown guide is his son Edgar, who had assumed this wretched disguise
to escape the sentence wrongfully laid upon him by his gullible father.
Edgar serves not only as his father's eyes, he becomes his provider, the
nurse of his broken spirit, his teacher, and the saviour of his life. He saves
him from Oswald's murderous attack and from a more formidable foe,
despair. He concocts what for Gloucester is a divine miracle, to arouse
within him the strength to live ; and he preaches the lessons that enable
Gloucester to avail himself of that strength. Edgar fulfills parental offices,
and more, for his father. The once masterful father, helpless as a babe, is,
as it were, fathered , sustained, and educated by his own son. This unsettling reversal of normal stations is pitiful and thought-provoking.1
Small debts of gratitude can be paid without much difficulty. But what
recompense can be made to those who are the very sources of one's being?
Does not every recompense fall short, is not every recompense simply disproportionate to what is owed? Since one is always in their debt, the
command "Honor thy father and thy mother" can be invoked almost
without any reservations.2 Although this debt of gratitude is normally
impossible to discharge, Edgar either did discharge it or came as close
This article is a revised version of a lecture presented at St. John's College, Annapolis, May 1969.
Laurence Berns is a Tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis.
l Oedipus in a questionable way assumes his father's position through violence.
Shakespeare's Edgar behaves as a father to his father with perfect justice. Cp. the
beginning of this scene, 4.6, with Matt. 4.5-11, and with Prospero's "miracles~· in
The Tempest.
1 Cf. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1161a 20 and 1163b 12-29.
�28
Interpretation
Q.J;;;_ I 'I 'T «,
to doing so as any man could. The story of Edgar and his father seems
to have been designed to show what would be required for such a debt
to be paid in full.
The mercantile aspect of the language of gratitude~ebts, payments,
owing-is vaguely offensive, but apparently unavoidable. Lear, raging in
the storm, calls out:
... Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax you not, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription: .. . [3 .2.14-181.
The hunted Edgar, consoling himself with the thought that "The lowest
and most dejected thing of Fortune/Stands still in esperance," goes on to
say:
.. . Welcome. then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace:
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
Owes nothing to thy blasts [4.1.3-9].
Nothing good received, nothing owed.3 But what i(just being itself is good?
Although we prosecute and punish those who buy or borrow and do not
pay, such offenses do not evoke the gravest condemnations. But "sharper
than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." And ingratitude
is a "marble-hearted fiend, more hideous when thou showest thee in a
child than the sea-monster." The seriousness of the wrong can also be
reckoned roughly by its effect. Kent speaks of "how unnatural and bemadding a sorrow" is the filial ingratitude that Lear suffers. When that sorrow
has nearly done its work, Gloucester addresses Lear as "O ruin'd piece
of nature."
Gratitude is akin to grace and graciousness, as their etymologies indicate. 4 Capacities or incapacities for gratitude seem to be direct reflections
of character; the obligation when regarded as genuine is self-incurred.
It becomes suspect when external compulsion is in the background, when
it does not "come from the heart." To pay one's bills grudgingly is not
gracious but does not violate the spirit of commerce. Can gratitude be
paid grudgingly? Coming from within, it seems to be a natural movement
in the sense of the Aristotelian distinction.5 In this way it is akin to love.
Gratitude might be thought of as being between justice and love. Like
a Cf. 2.4.179 ff. and .252, 3.4.20, and Regan's (!) morally indignant words to
Gloucester, "Ingrateful fox" (3.7.28). She probably means that he is ungrateful to his
country: he is referred to as a traitor twelve times. All line numbers are from the
Arden Ed., ed. Kenneth Muir, Harvard, 1959.
' Cf. Aristotle Rhetoric 1385a 16-b 11, Cope ed., Vol. II, pp. 87-93.
6 Cf. Aristotle Physics 192b 7-23. Cf. 215a 1-5, 230a 19 ff., and 254b 12 ff.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
29
commutative justice, which seeks arithmetic equality in exchanges of goods
and services, gratitude involves an element of calculation. 6 Gratitude
should be proportionate to benefits or favors bestowed. 7 But unlike the
demands of commutative justice, these obligations are unenforceable, at
least by any human court. Unlike commercial and contractual obligations,
here there is no explicit promise to return an equal value for what has
been received. s What occurs depends entirely upon the grace of the benefactor. The beneficiary cannot be forced to pay this kind of debt, which
is also a debt that he was in no way responsible for incurring. Whether
he pays or not depends upon the kind of man he is. Is he to be held
responsible for the kind of man he is? Gratitude then, in so far as its
payment is unenforceable, in so far as it must be rendered willingly, and
in so far as it reflects the character of those engaged in it, is like love.
Where benefits causing- gratitude and where love depend essentially on
the personal merits of the benefactor or the beloved, distributive justice,
which concerns itself with the proportionality of rewards to personal
merit, comes into consideration.9 Despite their connections or parallelism,
gratitude and love, at least noble love, may be distinguished. Lear's failure
to appreciate this difference seems to have been an important part of what
led to his downfall.to
II
Lear introduces what has been called his love test with the following
words:
Tell me, my daughters,
(Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state)
Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge11 [1.1.48-53].
8 Xenophon's Socrates defines ingratitude as a certain kind of pure injustice:
Memorabilia 2.2.3. See also King Lear 1.1.183.
1 Cf. Aristotle NE 1163a 10-24.
s In circumstances where either rejection or acceptance is possible, acceptance
could in some contexts be understood as implying such a promise.
9 Cf. Aristotle NE 1160b 23-62a 9, 1163a 24-63b 27, 1167a 15-22, 1167b 16-68a
27. The subject abounds in difficulties. Cp., for example, 116la 20-23 and 1162a
4-9 (where it is shown why, in accordance with justice, children, like subjects in
relation to their kings, should love parents more than parents should love children),
with 116lb 18-30 and 1167b 16-68a 27 (where it is shown why, generally speaking,
parents love chil.dren more than. children love parents). Cf. Eudemian Ethics
124la 35-b 11; and Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica 1-11, Q. 100, A. 5, ad 4.
Cf. also Plato Republic 330c, 457c end-458b, 462a-e, 463c-465c, 472b 3-6.
1° Cp. Kent's love for Lear with Cordelia's. The love between Kent and Lear seems
inseparable from "service." Cf. 1.4.4-7 and 1.4.92-93.
11 The last line is difficult. Nature here could refer to filial or to paternal
affection; merit correspondingly could refer to good deeds, that is, obedience and
�Interpretation
30
He will give most, he says, to that daughter that loves him most, and
the implication is, each daughter will receive a share of bounty proportionate to her love for her father. If Lear intended to test or to measure
the amounts of his daughters' loves by their speeches, he would have
waited till each daughter had spoken and each speech could have been
compared with the others before making his distribution. But after each
speech, before hearing those remaining, he disposes of a share in accordance with what appears to be and is once explicitly referred to by him
as a prearranged plan (1.1.37-38). Moreover, the plan, which had been
discussed with, or at least presented to, his advisors and council, seems
to have been a sagacious one.12 The love test then may first have been
thought of by Lear as a mere formality, staged for the sake of a public
ratification of a well-thought-out succession scheme. The question as to
why this form was used still remains. It is through Cordelia's actions that
the love test becomes decisive for Lear and for the play as a whole : For
Cordelia's love and being sure of her love were, more than he knew, overwhelmingly important for Lear. Cordelia's experience in scene 1, in important respects, prefigures Lear's.
The Duke of Burgundy and the King of France are in Lear's court to
sue for the hand of Cordelia, Lear's favorite daughter. When Lear strips
Cordelia of all her inheritance, of her dowry, and of his paternal favor ,
the difference between Burgundy's and France's loves becomes plain.
Burgundy will take Cordelia only with the portion first proposed by Lear.
Lear says:
. . . Sir, there she stands:
If aught within that little-seeming substance,
Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd.
And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace,
She's there, and she is yours.
Burgundy replies, "I know no answer." Lear intensifies his condemnation and urges France not even to consider his former suit. France
wonders what Cordelia's offense could have been. She replies; and he
addresses himself to Burgundy:
... My Lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? Love's not love
conformity in ratification of the settlement Lear here proclaims, or simply love of
Lear. According to Muir, nature means "'paternal affection' and merit, in the
context, means 'filial affection' " (Arden Ed., p. 6).
u 1.1.3-7. Cordelia and her consort, with Lear so long as he is alive, are to
occupy the larger strategic center, balancing Goneril and Albany on the north and
Regan and Cornwall on the south. Cf. Harry V. Jaffa, "The Limits of Politics:
King Lear, Act One, Scene One," in Shakespeare's Politics, Allan Bloom and Harry
V. Jaffa, Basic Books, 1964, pp. 118 ff. This present essay is, in a number of important respects, an attempt to develop points first stated by Harry Jaffa.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
31
When it is mingled with regards that stand
Aloof from th' entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
After Burgundy applies to Lear again for her dowry, is rejected, and
withdraws his suit, Cordelia says:
Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respect and fortunes are his love,
I shall not be his wife [1.1.247-49].
France speaks again:
Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful, I take up what's cast away.
Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect
My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.
"Inflam' d respect" might well serve to characterize noble love.13
After being stripped of the accoutrements of power, wealth, and favor,
Cordelia does learn who loves her for herself, for herself and her virtues,
as France puts it, and who loves her for what she possesses, whose love
"is mingled with regards that stand/ Aloof from th' entire point." The
dismantling of "so many folds of favor," including the favor of gods and
fortune, not only reveals the qualities of her suitors' loves, but, more
importantly, reveals what she is herself, reveals her lovability. France, as
Kent conjectures (3.1.28-29), may have some political reasons for wanting
to marry Cordelia: these, however, need not be incompatible with those
manifest reasons that lead him to love her for her own sake. To believe
that she could have deserved the condemnation she received from Lear,
France says, "Must be a faith that reason without miracle/Should never
plant in me." Positively put, reason without miracle confirms Cordelia's
virtue and her lovability. France's love then could be described as a
kind of rational faith based on what he has learned about her character.
It is not easy for a king, a princess, or anyone with large and evident
powers to bestow benefits and ills, to learn what people truly think of
them. Lear finally learns who loves him and what those about him think
of him, but like Cordelia, he must be stripped and must strip himself of
the trappings of majesty first.14
u In Cordelia's speech (1.1.248) respect probably means "looking again" or
"looking back," respectare, to something else beside herself, to her fortune, that is,
comparison and calculation. In France's speech (1.1.255) the word means honoring or
esteem, but also involves an element of "looking," .of calculation, or estimation, of
personal worth. The sense of distance suggested by the admiration, estimation, and
deference usually associated with "respect" makes the unusual conjunction with
"inflam'd" all the more poignant. Cf. also 2.4.24.
14 Cf. 4.1.19-21, and n. to I. 20, Arden Ed., K. Muir, ed.
�32
Interpretation
III
Private and public interfere with each other for Lear: The very proposing of a love test evidences a certain confusion about the properly public
and the properly private. To command public declarations or testimony in
the execution of one's office is certainly appropriate for a judge, magistrate, or king; but Lear seems to have tried, as it were, to absorb the
private into the public, to have confused what can be demanded and
enforced by right of law and majesty with what can only arise naturally,
what is beyond all external command or control. 15
However one conceives of the Lear of the love test, 1 6 his vulnerability
with respect to Cordelia is crucial. Lear deserved gratitude from his
daughters, perhaps especially from Cordelia. And gratitude, or thankfulness, should be proportionate to how much one has to be thankful for.
But Lear demands professions of love. He fails to appreciate how demeaning it would be for Cordelia to allow her love to seem to be proportionate
to the magnitude of the fortune he bestows on her. The preciousness of
her love is tied necessarily to its proud independence from mercenary
influences or threats. It cannot be bought, not with fortune, power, sensual
pleasure, protection, or anything else less than virtue . Cordelia's refusal
15 See notes S and 9 above. Cf. Immanuel Kant, "The End of All Things," in
On History, ed. Lewis W. Beck, Library of Liberal Arts. 1963, pp. 81 -84. Ausgewiihlte kleine Schriften. Taschenausgaben der Philosophischen Bibliothek, pp.
89-92. [The end of the second paragraph, p. 82, Beck ed., should read: "for it is
a contradiction to command someone not just to do something but also that he
should like to do it" (auch gem tun solle).] Should not the "love" referred to by
Kant, p. 84, 1.5, be, more strictly, gratitude?
19 There is great division among the commentators. We may distinguish four
alternatives:
1) Lear is a weak, senile, old man in his dotage. Can this be reconciled with the
deep and powerful Lear of the rest of the play, with the man whose favorites had
been Kent and Cordelia, who wisely favored Albany over Cornwall, who killed the
man (probably a captain, 5.3.27) hanging Cordelia?
2) Lear is a sagacious, though not a wise, king. He is not altogether incognizant
of his elder daughters' characters and hypocrisy : he never accuses them of violating
their love oaths. He could have regarded the love test at first as primarily a
ceremony to ratify and to sanctify the succession; but being particularly vulnerable
in relation to Cordelia, he allowed "her most small fault" to wrench his "frame of
nature from the fixed place." It was this vulnerability, he rebukes himself, "that
let thy folly in, and thy dear judgement out." Why then did Lear in Act 2 seem
to think that he could rely on his elder daughters?
3) Shakespeare sim_ ly took over the old story and did not concern himself with
p
consistency here.
4) There is no inconsistency: A man can be .a weak, foolish dotard and under
great suffering reveal heretofore untapped great depths of passion and powers of
insight.
The argument of this essay is most compatible with the second of these alternatives.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
33
to participate in Lear's ceremony, her disobedience (and Kent's also), is
correctly diagnosed by Lear as rooted in pride.1 7 Lear, however, fails
to see how that pride with its occasionally offensive honesty, necessarily
goes along with the Jove for which he craves. In its critical pride such
a Jove reflects the lover's estimate of the intrinsic merits of the beloved.is
If Lear had succeeded in humbling Cordelia, he might have destroyed
what he loved most.
Lear never accuses Cordelia, as he does his other daughters, of ingratitude. Her love, or certain evidence of her l~ve, is what he wants. He loved
her most, he says, as if this gave him the right to command her to love
him most. But even if love, or noble love, could be deserved, it cannot
be commanded. There does not seem to be any court competent io grant
compensation for the "pangs of dispriz'd love."19 Lear, it seems, needs
Cordelia's love because it would be evidence for himself (and for others)
of his own excellence. If he were a wise man or a philosopher, he would
"know himself" and perhaps not need such confirmation.20 But Lear is
not a philosopher. Regan is not the best witness, but she is not entirely
wrong when she says of Lear, "He hath ever but slenderly known himself" (1.1.294, cf. 1.4.238 and .260). In commanding, or expecting love
where he could only rightly expect gratitude, in thinking that he could
simply disclaim "Propinquity and property of blood," in expecting full
honors of kingship, after having relinquished power and responsibility,
Lear presumes upon an intrinsic authority and self-sufficiency that he does
not, and perhaps no man could, possess.21
IV
"In none of the fifty or sixty versions of the Lear story in existence
before Shakespeare's play does the old king go mad."22 Gloucester and
Lear suffer most in this play. Reflecting on the madness of the king,
Gloucester says to himself:
Better I were distract:
So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs,
And woes by wrong imaginations lose
The knowledge of themselves.
It may be that her fault is "small" only when compared with ingratitude, for,
as Don Quixote says, "There are those who will tell you that one of the greatest
sins man can commit is pride, but I maintain that ingratitude is worse." Part 2,
ch. 58, Putnam trans., Viking, p. 889. See also Ulrici, in Variorum Ed., ed. Furness,
p. 456.
18 Cf. Aristotle NE 1159a 22-25, 1167a II 21, 1170b 8-14, 1172a 10 14.
tt Cf. Don Quixote, Part I, ch. 14.
20 Aristotle NE II 77a 12-79a 32; and Jaffa, op. cit., pp. 133 ff.
r1 Jaffa suggests that "In proclaiming love of himself as the principle of distributive justice," Lear was "pretending to the attributes of divinity," op. cit., pp. 132
and 133. Cf. George Anastaplo, The Constitutionalist: Notes on the First Amendment, Southern Methodist University Press, 1971, p. 791; and 2.4.252.
" Kenneth Muir, Arden Ed., Introduction, p. xliii, n. 1.
17
�Interpretation
34
And yet the contrast between the two shows rather how much more
pathetic Lear's suffering in the mind is:23 The loss of eyes-the wayfinders for physical movement, the conditions for independent actionis not so pathetic as losing the light of reason, the intellectual guide that
lets us grasp the general meanings of things.24
There is a connection, it has been observed, between pride and
madness.25 Proud men do not like to justify and explain themselves. Their
rectitude, they feel, should be taken for granted. They balk at the
inferiority, or equality, implicit in being required to explain themselves,
for example, Lear before Albany, Kent before Cornwall, Gloucester and
Regan, and Cordelia before the court (1.4.248 ff., 2.2.61 ff., and 1.1.87
ff.). The proud see or feel themselves to be within a definite hierarchical
order. They prize their place within the order and, accordingly, the order
itself. They are most sensitive to insult and most prone to the passion
most consequent upon insult, anger. Anger, unlike grief, contains within
itself a desire to strike back. And, most importantly for our argument,
the desire to strike back for most men, if not for all men, exists even when
there is nothing to strike back against. Men derive relief from cursing
the table or bench they have knocked against. When loved ones suffer
some grave and irremediable illness or misfortune, men can speak, not of
misfortune, but of "affliction," thus, as it were, striking back in speech
against the causes of the suffering. All the affections of what is poetically ·
called the "heart"26 may tend to personify, and thus obscure, the difference between the living and the dead, but anger seems peculiarly prone
to personification. Something similar often happens in love. It seems that
men desire what they love, or what they think they love, to love them in
return, whether such love is capable of being returned or not. Hope rises
from desire. Hope and desire find fulfillment in fact or in fantasy.
Cf. 3.4.6-25.
Cf. 4.1.27-28 .
u Cf. Thomas Hobbes, Leviarhan, ch. 8, Everyman's Library Ed., p. 59, and
Elements of Law, ch. I0.9-11; and G . W. F. Hegel, Enzyk/opiidie d .p.W., III. Die
Philosophie des Geistes, § 408, Zusatz, fJfJ), "die eigentliche Narrheit." Cf. inter a/ia,
Sophocles Ajax; and Euripides Herakles.
ze The word heart occurs rather often in King Lear (about fifty times). In
general it seems to refer to what is responsible for coordinating men's appetites,
passions, desires, thoughts and wills, their loves and hates. Cp. Dante's "animo"
in Purgatorio, Canto I 7. The word heart enters into Thomas Aquinas' discussion in
the Summa Theo/ogica, usually when citations from the Bible or Church authorities
need explication. Sometimes he interprets it as practical reason or conscience (e.g.,
II-I Q. 94, A.6. Cf. A.5 ad I, A.2, and I, Q. 24, A.I) and frequently as will
(e.g., 11-1, Q. 4, A.4; Q. 6, A.4 ad I; Q. I9, A.8 ad I, A.IO ad 1 sed con; Q. 24,
A.3). Nonmetaphorically he speaks of the heart as that organ that initiates all
bodily, all vital movement, the "instrument of the soul's passions" (e.g., I, Q. 20,
A.l ad l; 11-1, Q. 17, A.9 ad 2; Q. 37, A.4 ; Q. 38, A.5 ad 3; Q. 40, A.6;
Q. 44, A.I ad l; Q 48, A.2-4). Cf. Plato Republic, the discussion of E>uµo~
439e-442d; and Timaeus 69d end-72c 1.
{L 'lt.~L+-_'.,_
'"L ~~
1:J .......___ J 1.18 -J.~.
13
u
s-.
q ..
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
35
In some of its extreme forms this personification is what is called
madness. Lear insists that it must have been the unkindness of Poor Tom's
nonexistent daughters that brought him to such lowness (3.4.48 ff.). He
will take a joint-stool for his daughter and Poor Tom and the Fool for
Justices, if that is the only way he has to bring his daughters before the
bar of justice (3.6.20 ff.). Lear's pride, his self-respect, his sense of where
he belongs in the hierarchical order of things, is, so to speak, the point
of origin for his orientation in the world. As his self-respect is assailed,
he finds it increasingly difficult to be objective, as Edgar says to Gloucester,
to "Bear free and patient thoughts," that is, thoughts free from the presumption that everything that happens in the world has been personally
directed with a view to its effect upon himself. His pride and his love of
justice lead him to refuse to accept the existence of the world where his
worth is denied. He will try to see the world as it is only if the world makes
place for his pride. And yet one of the measures of his worth is the intensity with which he struggles to save his sanity. lf his pride did not have
some basis in truth, even his own love of truth and justice, his madness
could not be as significant as it is.
v
In the early acts of the play Lear swears by those specific divinities,
the sun, the night, Hecate, Apollo, and Jupiter; he also calls on the heavens
and calls nature goddess. He seems to see himself and his kingdom as
part of one grand natural and divine order, a just hierarchical order, with
the heavenly powers, the gods, especially Jupi~er, at the summit of the
cosmic hierarchy and himself correspondingly at the summit of that subordinate order, his kingdom. When his daughters, his ~ol, and his shame,
the correlate of his pride, destroy his self-respect, "abuse," "subdue,"
"oppress," "ruin," and "bemad" his nature, what is bemadding is that
at the same time they are destroying the basis of his orientation in the
world, driving his soul into a storm of questions, doubts, and partial insights too heavy for his patience and judgment to bear.27
The disorder in the moral and political world is associated in Act 3
with tumult in the cosmic order, the rage in Lear's soul with the raging
! 7 Cf. Robert B. Heilman, This Great Stage, Image and Structure in King Lear,
University of Washington, 1963, pp. 72-74. Cf. also Laurence Berns, "Aristotle's
Poetics" in Ancients and Moderns, Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy
in Honor of Leo Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey, Basic Books, 1964, p. 82. In that
essay the division on p. 82 should be marked "Epilogue"; part II begins on p. 72
and part III on p. 79; p. 70, last line, first paragraph, "man" should read "men"
and "his" should read "their"; p. 72, eighth line from bottom, "Book" should read
"chapter"; p. 80, 11.7 and 23 shonld each have a comma after "for the most part";
p. 85, n. 16, 1.6, "flow" should read "flaw"; p. 86, 1.14, in n. 16, "what lies bcnea:h"
should be inserted between "civilizing" and "politics"; p. 86, n. 23, 1.2 "Politics"
should read "Poetics."
�36
Interpretation
of the heavens. The gentleman who meets Kent speaks of how the
"impetuous blasts with eyeless rage" catch Lear's white hair in their fury.
But for Lear lightnings are "thought-executing fires," and the elements
are addressed as seeing and thinking beings. At first he bids them, "Let
fall your horrible pleasure." They owe him no subscription. However, that
soon changes:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. 0, ho! 'tis foul.
His outrage seems to tum toward the gods themselves.. But his faith
is not yet entirely destroyed. He realizes that patience is what he needs.
Perhaps his suffering is some divine affliction, later to be redeemed? He
calls out as if the storm were herald to a day of judgment when justice
and honesty will prevail and he will be revealed as a man more sinned
against than sinning.
Let the great Gods,
That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp'd of Justice; hide thee, thou bloody hand,
Thou perjur'd, and thou simular of virtue
That art incestuous; caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
Has practis'd on man's life; close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning 28 (3.2.49-59] .
Later, after he has agreed to enter a nearby hovel, he says, "I'll pray
and then 111 sleep." But he does not pray, if praying means addressing
divinities.29 He directs his words not to the high, to the gods, but to the
poor, the wretched and the low:
Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O! I have ta'en
Too little care of this. Take physic, Pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
. And show the Heavens more just [3.4.27-36).
zs Cf. Kent's speech preceding and Mark, 13, esp. 13.12; see Variorum Ed., ed.
Furness, p. 339; cf. Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus, 11.266-67.
n Cf. 1.5.47-48, 2.4.192, and 2.4.273-80.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety m King Lear
37
Like thoughts are expressed later by Gloucester, as he gives a purse
to the man he believes to be Poor Tom:
Here, take this purse, thou whom the heav'ns' plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier: Heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough [4.1.64-71).
Lear's statement goes further: The very justice of the heavens is called
into question. 30
The decisive point in this process is reached when Lear strips off his
royal garments, after he has encountered Poor Tom, the exemplar of
human wretchedness in the extreme.31 Gratitude, its bonds, its cosmic
and divine implications, have proved snares and delusions for Lear. Here,
with Poor Tom as his model, undeceived by a groundless reliance on
gratitude and the flattery of pomp and majesty, he thinks that he can see
the truly fundamental situation of man.
Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the
beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume .. .. Thou art the thing itself;
unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou
art. Off, off you )endings! Come; unbutton here [3.4.105-12]. 3 !
Tom owes the worm no silk because he has no silk, the sheep no wool
because he has no wool. Lear takes Tom, the unaccommodated man, as
the "natural man." But does Tom have nothing? He has his life and
he has his misery; and as gratitude is one of the chief roots of natural
piety, so fear and wretchedness can theologize and moralize as well. Tom
has his catechism:
Take heed o' th' foul fiend. Obey thy parents; keep thy word's justice; swear not;
commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array
[3.4.80-83].
Each of these six commandments corresponds to one of the Bible's Ten
Commandments: the last most tenuously to the Bible's Tenth, Tom's fifth
to the Bible's Seventh, his fourth to the Bible's Third, his third to the
Bible's Ninth, and his second to the Bible's Fifth.33 Lear has proclaimed
ao "And show the Heavens more just" is the last line Lear speaks before madness
overcomes him. See 3.4.48. In Aristotelian terms this is the point at which the
reversal, or peripety, occurs in King Lear; Poetics 1452a 21-52b 13. Cf. also Laurence Berns, op. cit., n. 27 above, pp. 75 and 82.
11 The extreme must include madness.
at Cf. 2.3.7-9.
11 Tom's replacement of the Fifth Commandment's "Honor thy father and thy
mother" by "Obey" corresponds to a replacement of gratitude by fear.
�38
Interpretation
twice in this play that "nothing can be made out of nothing."34 If nothing
comes from nothing, everything that does come to be must come from
something, something which itself does not come to be, that is, is unchanging. It is not altogether unreasonable for Poor Tom and anyone who
would take him as the man himself to regard what most men call God,
the ultimate source of his misery, as a foul fiend. Tom's first commandment
corresponds to the Bible's First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no
other gods before me."35 The question about filial gratitude, about what
children owe to their parents, to the sources of their being, is here extended
to the limit: What is owed, or due, to the guiding principle, or principles,
of life as a whole, to the sources, or source, of all being?
When Lear strips himself of his royal garments, those "\endings," he
tries to strip himself of every vestige of royalty. When Kent asks him,
"How fares your Grace?" he does not even acknowledge that the term
could be meaningful and replies, "What's he?" His divestment of his royal
garments is the outer sign of his soul's divestment of its former protections and supports, of those beliefs and convictions that heretofore had
sustained and guided his activity in the world. He thinks that now he is
in a position to come to know man, to know himself, to philosophize
(1.4.238 and .259). But the conditions required to make him want to
philosophize are those that he declared earlier would make a truly human
life impossible. "O! reason not the need," he replies to his daughters'
questioning his need for attendants of his own:
our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need.You Heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!-38 (2.4.266-73].
Not only does Poor Tom become the representative of humanity for
Lear, but because he of all men is least likely to have been blinded by
gratitude or flattery, he becomes after Lear's divestment the philosopher
for Lear_ "First," before accepting fire, food, and shelter, "let me talk
u See 1.4.134-39, 1.1.90, and 1.2.31-35. Shakespeare's presentation of the
"Angstphanomen," Lear's "eye of anguish" (4.4.15), seems to have been unnoticed
by Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit , Niemeyer, 1957, p. 190; cf. n. on 199.
35 Exodus 20.1-17, Deuteronomy 5.6-21, and King Lear, 3.4.80-83. The statement
following the Second Commandment tells of God visiting the iniquity of fathers
upon their children; Shakespeare, less mysteriously with a view to considerations of
justice, visits the iniquity of children upon fathers. See 3.4.74-75. Cf. A. C. Bradley,
Shakespearean Tragedy, Macmillan, London, 1961, pp. 222 ff_
18 Cf. 3.6.4-5. Edith Sitwell suggests that these lines were written under the
.infh1ence of Plato's Phaedo 64d-e 1; A Notebook on William Shakespeare, Macmillan, 1965, pp. 75-76.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
39
with this philosopher," he says. His first question is: "What is the cause
of thunder?" Shortly before divesting, he apparently had no doubts about
the cause of thunder, that is, Jupiter.
I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove [2.4.229-30].
But now such questions have become open. He never addresses a god
by a personal name again. During all the time of his madness he speaks
of the divinities ("Gods," 4.6.128) only once. Lear seems now to be in a
position to see deeper into the nature of things than he ever was before.
The word nature and words with nature as their root are used fifty
times in what has come to be the generally accepted text of King Lear.
The word unnatural occurs seven times, more than twice as often as it
occurs in any other play of Shakespeare. Lear uses words with nature as
root more than twice as often as any other character in the play.37 These
usages could be classified under five, not always clearly distinguishable,
headings. Nature sometimes means (1) the general order of the social,
political, and cosmic whole within which the activity of any one person
or group can only be a part; (2) the constitution, or character, of an
individual as a whole, that is, the unity arising from both endowment and
habit; (3) the original endowment of an individual with the powers
directed, though not necessarily compelled, toward definite ends, or purposes. This is the meaning expressed most often by Lear. Nature also
means (4) the original endowment of an individual with powers supplied
to be used howsoever their possessor wills. This is the meaning expressed
most powerfully by Edmund. (5) Nature is twice personified as goddess:
once by Lear conflating meanings 1 and 3, and once by Edmund conflating meanings 1 and 4. The play has often been understood as presenting the world as a great arena where the principles of ethical and unethical nature contest for dominion over the whole.38 The disagreements
of the commentators are just one more reflection of the fact that Shakespeare has been far more explicit about raising the question of nature,
Nineteen times. Gloucester is next with nine times. (Unnaturalness occurs once.)
Cf. G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire, Meridian, p. 179; E. K. Chambers,
Shakespeare: A Survey, Hill and Wang, pp. 240 ff. and esp. pp. 215-16; D. A.
Traversi, An Approach to Shakespeare, Sands, revised and enlarged ed., p. 185;
John F. Danby, Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature , A Study of King Lear, Faber &
Faber, 1949, pp. 15-19; and esp. Robert B. Heilman, op. cit., n. 27 above, chs. 4
and 5, and pp. 115, 133-34, and 179-81.
Heilman's careful work is a fundamental book, perhaps the fundamental book,
for any serious study of King Lear. By carefully and searchingly tracing out and
relating the amazingly intricate patterns of imagery in the play, Heilman lets
Shakespeare's philosophy speak for itself. The book's deficiencies, deficiencies
generally shared by critics of pre-nineteenth-century literature, stem from an
insufficient understanding of certain key notions of classical philosophy, especially the
notion of natural right (see Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, Chicago, 1953,
chs. 3 and 4) and the notion of "intuitive reason," that is, nous (see Jacob Klein,
37
38
�40
Interpretation
raising the question about the relation between nature and morality, than
he has been about presenting any definite solution.
There is more clarity, however, about who is wrong: The transgressions
of Edmund, Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall lead ultimately to their own
destruction. Nature repels simple viciousness. And about the meeting of
Lear and Gloucester in Act 4, scene 6: "What could better point the
transcendent issues Shakespeare has developed . . . than this encounter of
the sensual man robbed of his eyes, with the wilful man, the light of his
mind put out."39 Royal Lear's understanding of how morality is effected
within nature is certainly not adequate. He conceives of the relation between morality and nature as being more organic than it is (3.4.14-16); he
overestimates the power of law; he is insufficiently attentive to the limits
set by nature to what authority and law can command. He relies overmuch
on divine enforcement of nature's directives, and consequently is unaware
of the extent to which the accomplishment of nature's purposes is left
to chance and, on the basis of the conditions provided by nature and
chance, to human prudence. In other words, the substitution of divine
intervention for chance leads to an underestimation of the possibilities for
evil and an insufficient awareness of the need for prudence. Lear's faith in
the rightness of the divine and natural order is shattered by his suffering.
But what does his shattering experience open him to?
VI
In his madness Lear becomes estranged, not only from the divinities
he swore by before, but from nature as a whole, especially from nature
as the source of generation.40 From the outset in Lear's mind the themes
of generation, gratitude, and justice are intertwined. In his first great
storm scene he bids the thunder, as if it were a divinity with authority and
power over nature, to:
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world!
Crack Nature's moulds, all germens spill at once
That makes ingrateful man! [3 .2.7-9].
Destroy the world's pregnancy, he cries: Destroy nature's means for
producing man, who shows by his failure to appreciate rightly the sources
"Aristotle, An Introduction," Ancients and Moderns, Essays on the Tradition of
Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey, Basic Books,
1964). Thus Heilman tends to identify · "reason" with calculation, so that insight
and the perception of "value," that is, the good according to nature, are attributed
to a "non-rational" imaginative awareness. See pp. 161, 170, and King Lear,
4.6.132-33, .177, n. 13, and pp. 30-31 above.
at H. Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Shakespeare, quoted in Edith Sitwell, op. cit.,
n. 36 above, p. 47. In later editions Granville-Barker has apparently substituted,
less aptly in our view, "despot" for "wilful man."
.'° Cf. 4.6.115-16.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
41
of his being how undeserving he is of the gift of life. What Edmund can
speak of as "the lusty stealth of nature" is, for Lear, associated with:
hell . . . darkness,
... the sulphurous pit-burning, scalding,
Stench, consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
To sweeten my imagination [4.6.129-33).
Mad Lear comes to a view of nature somewhat similar to Edmund's,
nature as the primitive, undeveloped beginnings of things. But his anguish
and revulsion indicate how much more he originally expected from nature:
He feels and suffers the absence of what he can no longer believe in.
Like Jesus he speaks against the Old Testament sentence for adultery.41
He goes to extremes and, as if all possibility of redemption were lost,
declares: "Let copulation thrive." Jesus was more sober: After delivering
the adulteress from condemnation, his last words to her were "go and sin
no more" (John, 8.1-11). Lear, however, condemns women generally,
confounding sex with Biblical, mostly New Testament, images of hell.
In his condemnation of the world's justice, Lear cries:
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener [4.6.162-65).
Again we are reminded of the New Testament: "But I say unto you,
That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt. 5.27-28) and "He that is
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8.7).
Yet universal sainthood failing, decency requires that offenses be
punished whether the intentions of the punishers be pure or not. Should
thoughts and actions be equally punishable? Do men have as much control
over their thoughts and desires as they do over their actions? Are others
harmed by thoughts directed against themselves when those thoughts are
neither divulged nor acted upon? If in the New Testament, as some would
claim, these are deliberate rhetorical exaggerations, Lear seems to have
lost the capacity to make the required qualifications.
In a farmer's dog chasing a beggar, Lear says:
There thou might'st behold
The great image of Authority
A dog's obey'd in office.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
u Lev. 20.10. He "pardons" an adulterer rather than an adulteress. Cf. 2.4.12933 and .233-35.
�42
Interpretation
Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none, I say, none; . ..
If none does offend, and consequently none can rightly accuse, at least
none who are not themselves spotless, perhaps none could ever rightly
accuse: "Judge not, that ye be not judged."42 Edgar's commentary on this
speech is: "O! matter and impertinency mix'd; I Reason in madness." An
attempt should be made to separate some of the reason from the madness.
The farmer's dog does often chase away the thief, but the dog cannot,
unfortunately, distinguish between villainous and innocent, not to speak
of undeserved, lowness.
Authority and law are usually more rigorous with the poor and weak,
partly because they are less capable of protecting themselves, and partly
for less simple reasons. Wealth, power, and authority usually go together.
And just as the unsuccessful can exaggerate the part played by chance
and accident in human affairs, so the successful can flatter themselves
by exaggerating the extent to which their good fortune is owed to their
merits. By reasoning obversely about the misfortunes of others, they can
allow themselves to become obtuse and callous to the miseries of the
unfortunate, smothering charity in self-complacent rigor.43 Such is the
man "that will not see I Because he does not feel . . ." When Gloucester
in the fourth act asks the disguised Edgar who he is, Edgar replies:
A most poor man made tame to Fortune's blows;
Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,
Am pregnant to good pity.
The sufferings of Lear, Gloucester, and Edgar would seem to be the
remedy for this, the occupational disease of greatness. 44 Yet if suffering
of such magnitude is required, the price of sufficiently educating authority
in mercy or equity is hopelessly high. Few can do as much, perhaps, as the
educator Shakespeare, who by his art, his presentations of feigned experiences, has made it possible for some to feel, without fully suffering,
what they might need to feel in order to see.
Lear's suffering, however, and the perspective he has come to adopt,
have not prepared him for governing more responsibly, but rather ·for a
renunciation of the "world." His suffering has completely destroyed him
as a political man. Perhaps the most poignant expression of Lear's death
as a political man is his reception of Kent in the last scene. Kent's affection
for Lear is never severed from a political context. He always approaches
Lear, even in defiance and in death, as servant to master, never simply as
man to man. 45 At the end, although other explanations are possible, Lear's
u Romans 3.1 -18; cp. 3.10-12 with Psalms 14; and Matt. 7.1-5. Lear is open to
the charge the Apostle Paul said was made against himself, loc. cit. 3.8.
" Cf. Laurence Berns, op. cit., n. 27 above, pp. 75-77.
" For another approach to the problem see I Henry IV, 1.2 and 3.2; and
Henry V, 4.1.
" Cf. n. 10 above.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
43
cold reception of Kent indicates that Kent and what he stands for have
faded into almost complete insignificance for Lear. Yet his renunciation
of the world is not complete. The desire for vengeance remains: "And
when I have stol'n upon these son-in-laws, I Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill,
kill!" (4.6.188-89).
VII
When Lear awakes after his long sleep, "Our foster-nurse of Nature"
(4.4.12), "the great rage," the doctor reports, " .. . is kill'd in him"
(4.7.78-79). Clad in new garments, the images Lear uses are resurrection
from the grave and entry into a new life, a life characterized by the
interchange of blessing (from Lear) and forgiveness (from Cordelia) and
mutual love.46 After the battle and their capture, Lear is given over
almost entirely to love, the love of Cordelia.
Come, let's away to prison;
We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
.
•'\s if we were Gess spic1r aAd we'll wear e1d,ati~ ~, o-J...
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
~~~
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon 's the mystery of things,
As if we were God-s"sPies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, pacts and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon.
Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The Gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence like foxes [5.3.8-23].
Lear seems to be perfectly fulfilled. He has no lingering regrets. The
worth of being reconciled in love with Cordelia is beyond price: It cannot
be measured by any of the measures Lear used in the first scene. No
sacrifice, be it rule, extent of territory, honor, even freedom itself, seems
too great, or even comparable with what Lear has gained. And with his
love and the prospect of love's joy that he holds before himself has come
patience. His patience and his love go together with his renunciation of
the world. His desire for revenge is as dead as his pride. When Cordelia
proudly says:
For thee, oppressed King, I am cast down;
Myself could else out-frown false Fortune's frown.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?
Lear answers, "No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison." And at the
•a Cf. also 4.6.33-80.
�44
Interpretation
moment of his death, with the dead Cordelia before him, it is clear that
Lear can live no longer in the world where even these last hopes are
dashed. He dies in a vision of reunion with Cordelia living once again.
There has been extensive debate about whether these scenes are to be
understood in a Christian sense or not.47 Was Lear's moment of joy at his
death "based on an illusion"?4S Or, was it the triumphal culmination of
his purgatorial, his redemptive suffering, a loving glimpse into that better
world to come where all righteous hopes will be fulfilled?
What we have been describing is the development of attitudes and a
perspective that Shakespeare has presented in terms that are recognizably
Christian. 49
This development in King Lear, however, is presented as a natural
development. What was Shakespeare's perspective, as distinct from Lear's?
The dramatic poet does not speak in his own name. His perspective can
be inferred only from the play as a whole. "Hard were it for me, as if
I were a god, to tell of all these things," says Homer.50 The poet stands
as a god over the world of his play, but a god limited to what nature
leaves to possibility and to chance: For nature, or the poet's understanding
of nature, provides the framework. "ls there any cause in nature," Lear
asks, "that makes these hard hearts?" (3.6. 78-79). Shakespeare seems
to have asked: "ls there any cause in nature that makes these Christian
hearts?" Nature, or the problem of nature, as articulated by classical
philosophy, we suggest, provides the framework for King Lear.51
The major classical philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, of course, never
elaborated an answer to what we suppose was Shakespeare's question. This
could be due to historical accident. The serious question is: Are the
principles and the framework they first articulated adequate to comprehend such an account? Must not the rise and triumph of Christianity be
explained? Can the decision about the best way of life be compelling
unless all fundamental alternatives have been examined? It is incumbent
upon classical philosophy to try to see whether the revealed religions and
the souls formed by them can be rendered intelligible to natural reason.
Shakespeare seems to have been exploring this possibility, especially in
King Lear.
Yet, it could be argued, nature has its place also within the Christian
41 See K. Muir, Arden Ed., pp. Iv ff.; Barbara Everett, "The New King Lear," in
Shakespeare: King Lear, Casebook Series, ed. F. Kermode, 1969, pp. 184 ff.; G.
W. Knight, op. cit., pp. 187 ff.; and Susan Snyder, "King Lear and the Prodigal Son,"
Shakespeare Quarterly, Autumn 1966.
48 K. Muir, loc. cit., p. lix.
" Cf. Heilman, op. cit., p. 78; n. 11, p. 309; and esp. n. 1, p. 331.
'° Iliad XII, 1.176.
11 Aristotle NE 1134b 18-35. Cf. Leo Strauss, "The Law of Reason in the
Kuzari," Persecution and the Art of Writing, Free Press, 1952, pp. 95-98; Allan
Bloom, op. cit., 11- 12 above, Introduction; . and Howard B. White, Copp'd Hills
Towards Heaven: Shakespeare's Classical Polity, Nijhoff, 1970.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
45
cosmos. Could not Shakespeare have been showing rather how God's
invisible law might, "from the creation of the world," have been written
by nature in men's hearts? Might he not have been showing what would
have to be endured by a "natural man," that is, a man with no knowledge
of Jesus Christ and the Bible, for that law to begin to become visible
to him?52
If the issue were to be put in terms of the primacy of compassionate
love as compared with the primacy of insight, Shakespeare may have
provided a clue to his own opinion in Act 4 of King Lear. An unnamed
gentleman describes Cordelia's tears while she reads of her father's sufferings as "pearls from diamonds dropped." "Tears of compassion are
pearls; eyes are diamonds ... ": Tears of compassion are compared to
rare and precious stones, but eyes, that is, insight, are more precious
still. 53
"Hath not God," wrote the Apostle Paul, "made foolish the wisdom
of this world?"54 For Paul the "foolish" of faith possess a wisdom far
deeper than anything accessible to natural reason. Is this what Shakespeare suggests by echoing this language about wisdom and folly in his
articulation of the problem of morality and justice in King Lear? The
Fool tells Kent:
That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the Fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly:
The knave turns Fool that runs away;
The Fool no knave, perdy [2.4.78-85].
In this play the word fool moves through a range of meanings.
The official Fool in motley is "foolish," funny, and privileged because
he seems, or is licensed to pretend, not to know the most ordinary conventions.
In general, a fool is a man who does not know what every man is
expected to know. Somewhat less generally, assuming that in everything
a man chooses to do, some benefit to himself is intended, a fool is a man
who does things that harm himself, who lacks judgment about what
benefits himself. This is the elementary meaning of the word in the play
that is presupposed by the four meanings following.
The honest fools, best exemplified by Gloucester and by Edgar of the
Cf. Romans l.20, 2.14-15; and I Car. 2.14.
Heilman, op. cit., pp. 155-56. Cf. King Lear, 5.3.189-90 and l. l.56.
5• I Car. 2.20 and ibid. chs. 1-4. But cp. A Midsummer Night's Dream, 4.1.1026: and cf. ibid., 4.1.218-21 with I Car. 2.9: ibid. l.2.22-99 with I Car. 9.22: ibid.
1.2.8,15; 3.1.1-81; 4.2.30-end with Galatians 2:11 ff.: also ibid. 5.1.195-96, 311,
and 360-62.
52
53
�Interpretation
46
early scenes, are overtrusting and, as in Gloucester's case, overcredulous
about heavenly influences on human actions. They fail to understand
people unlike themselves, to understand vice and malice. They are easily
gulled by those clever and unscrupulous enough to exploit and betray their
trust.
The loyal and dutiful are "moral fools ." So Albany is regarded by
Goneril and Kent spoken of by the Fool. The same could be said of the
servant who mortally wounds Cornwall and is killed by Regan. Lear in
acting on the expectation that his elder daughters would be bound by filial
gratitude and duty is another kind of "moral fool." The moral fools tend
to act as if moral laws were as inviolable as natural laws, as if moral
laws were natural laws. They are regarded as fools by the "worldly wise"
for not appreciating sufficiently the arbitrary and conventional factors
in morality, the bestial elements in human nature, and for not appreciating
sufficiently how self-seeking usually masks itself in moral guises. For the
worldly wise self-seeking is the only kind of seeking sanctioned by nature.
What the moral fool senses or sees and the worldly wise are blind to is
the extent to which the humanity of any one man's life is a function of the
larger moral, social, and political orders of which that individual life can
only be a part.
Examples of what we might call the "noble fool" are France, the Fool,
Edgar, Cordelia, and Lear: those capable of being touched and moved by
noble love, by "inflam'd respect."55 By their willingness to risk themselves and everything that could be subject to calculations of worldly
success, they exhibit their own conviction, and rouse admiration and
hopes, in those capable of appreciating them, that mankind is capable
of attaining states of being that are simply good in themselves. The
worldly wise are blind to this possibility.
In the light of what the moral fool and the noble fool see, the knavery
of the worldly wise reveals itself as the final folly. By their blindness to
what raises man above the beasts, the "wise" knaves finally bring themselves down with those whose justice they violate. By their blindness to
what directs men toward the divine, to what is good in itself, they are
deprived of nature's graces, the love and friendship of the noble.
But do the love and insight that Lear and Gloucester attain fully
redeem what they have suffered? What is to be inferred from the disproportion between their sins and their terrible suffering?
"We glory in tribulations," wrote the Apostle Paul,
knowing that tribulation work.eth patience; and patience experience; and experience,
hope. And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. [Romans 5.3-5].
And from the Apostle James:
Be patient therefore brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman
waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he
11
Cf. section II above.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
47
receive the earlier and the latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts:
for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
It is Cordelia, her love, "The holy water from her heavenly eyes"
(4.3 .31), that near the end sustain Lear's patience. The gentleman describes how she read Kent's letters recounting Lear's ordeal:
Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
And now and then an ample tear trill'd down
Her delicate cheek; it seem'd she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o'er her.
"O! then it mov'd her?" Kent asks.
Not to a rage; patience and sorrow strove
Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once; her smile and tears
Were like, a better way; those happy smilets
That play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropp'd. In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most belov"d,
If all could so become it [4.3.12-24].
Later Cordelia prays:
All bless'd secrets,
All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears! he aidant and remediate
In the good man's distress! [4.4.15-18].
In the reconciliation scene, Lear asks, "Be your tears wet?" He answers
himself, "Yes, faith." These scenes too are often taken as argument that
"King Lear is a Christian play about a Pagan world .... "56
Sunshine and rain, however, suggest natural growth, that Cordelia's
smiles and tears were· nature·s means for curing Lear's abused heart. It
does seem, however, to be a most Christianlike use of nature. But, unlike
Lear, Cordelia, whose patience is so movingly described, is proud to the
end. She never asks for forgiveness. She is prepared to "outfrown false
Fortune's frown. " Is she prepared to live out her life "in a walled prison"?
She has not renounced political life: She calls Lear king and queenlike
puts down her rebel passions. She is ready to confront her sisters: "Shall
we not see these daughters and these sisters?" Yet what is perhaps most
significant, though obvious, for the question of Christianity in King Lear
is that there is no promise or expectation "for the coming of the Lord."
The word patience is ambiguous. In the Christian sense it seems to mean
bearing tribulations in the loving faith that their promised miraculous
reversals will surely come to pass. In the classical, or stoic, sense of the
58
I. C . Maxwell, quoted in Muir, op. cit., p. lvi.
�48
Interpretation
word it seems to mean endurance: endurance that does not anticipate
miraculous change, that accepts evil in the world as a necessity, that bases
itself only on rational hopes and the conviction that what is itself good
deserves loyalty whether that loyalty receives any other reward or not.
The unforeseen mischances of the world that bring down the just and
innocent too often with the guilty, in the classical view, engender the
wish for particular providence at the same time that they constitute
evidence for its absence. It is not incompatible with the love of truth to
respect the love of justice that is the father to that wish.
VIII
Who is the paradigm of virtue m this play? The gentleman says,
addressing himself to absent Lear:
Thou hast one daughter,
Who redeems nature from ·the general curse
Which twain have brought her to.57
Why then was Cordelia killed? Cordelia's honesty, her proud refusal
to join her sisters in their demeaning hypocrisy, precipitated the catastrophe of this play. Her death raises the question about what the moral
limits of proud honesty in an imperfect world might be.58 Pisanio and
Cornelius in Cymbeline avert tragedy by, as they put it, being false (to
the bad) in order to be true (to the good) (1.5.43-44 and 4.3.42). In Sonnet
94 those "who rightly do inherit heaven's graces I And husband nature's
riches from expense" are also those "that have pow'r to hurt and will do
none, I That do not do the thing they most do show." This last line could
never apply to Cordelia.
Edgar is the character in King Lear who most of all does not do the
thing he most does show. He successfully assumes six different guises
in the play. During the play from
a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
the practices of a confirmed villain ride easily, he develops into a model
of virtue armed and resourceful.
Edgar seems to be a mean between his father and his bastard brother.
Their opinions about heavenly influences over human affairs are at
opposite extremes. The father is overcredulous, Edmund undercredulous.
17 Does this indicate that ingratitude more than prideful disobedience is chiefly
responsible for the "general curse"? See n. 17 above.
58 Cf. Ulrici, Variorum Ed., ed. Furness, pp. 456 57. See also Gervinus, ibid.,
pp. 459-60, on the significance of her leadership of the invading army for the
question of her death. Cf. H. Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Shakespeare, Botsford,
1970, pp. 23-24 (277-78) and 51 (305) on Cordelia's silence.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear
49
Both are perhaps equally at fault intellectually, but the moral fault is
clearly more the son's.59 In Shakespeare's world he who scorns all idea of
heavenly influence on human affairs rarely comes to much good. Edgar's
speech to his dying brother gives the last word of the play on the adultery
theme and constitutes an answer as well to Gloucester's "As flies to wanton
boys, are we to th' Gods; I They kill us for their sport."
The Gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us;
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes [5.3.170-73].
Edmund replies, "Th' hast spoken right, 'tis true. I The wheel is come full
circle; I am here." Edgar spoke of the gods, but Edmund speaks of
fortune 's wheel. Lear preaches to Gloucester, drawing lessons from man's
beginnings:
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:
Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air
We wawl and cry . ...
When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools• 0 [4.6.180-85].
Edgar preaches to his suicidal father on the same theme:
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all [5.2.911].
This sermon is more adequate because it is more comprehensive. It
considers not only the beginnings but the middle and the end as welJ.61
Man's chief concern, the image suggests, should be not with what happens
when the fruit falls and dies, nor especially the beginnings, but rather
with coming to fullest maturity in the world.
IX
King Lear is based on two stories, the Lear story and the Gloucester
story. Critics have long been concerned by the apparent lack of complete
unity between them.62 The unity of King Lear comes to sight on the
level of reflection, reflection on the one philosophic theme underlying both
stories, of which both stories are necessary and complementary parts:
58
Cf. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Rea·on , B 857 58.
All the world's a stage in Shakespeare for him who, like Lear, Jaques, and
Antonio, is coming to feel himself to be an "exile in 'this' world." Macbeth (5.5.25)
is a special case.
61 I am indebted for this observation to Hilail Gildin of Queens College, N .Y.
62 Cf. Bradley, op. cit., pp. 118 ff. ; Heilman, op. cit., p. 32 and n. 28, pp. 298-99;
and "The Unity of King Lear" in op. cit., ed. Kermode, n. 47 above, pp. 169 ff.
60
�50
Interpretation
namely, that nature, while constituting the ground and limits of convention
and law, requires in man the cooperation of law and convention for its
fulfillment.
Lear in trying to command love and gratitude fails to see that the
natural growths of noble love and gratitude are beyond the control of
law and political authority. The Lear story illustrates the natural limits
of legal and political authority and the tensions that arise between nature
and law when those limits are not rightly observed.63 The Gloucester
story, the adultery theme, and the stories of Lear's elder daughters
illustrate the other side of the same coin: how certain natural passions and
powers, most manifestly the power of procreation, need to be controlled
by conventions, laws, and authority.64 Ordinary love and passion, not to
speak of base love and passion, need to be controlled by law and authority. Being conceived outside the "order of law" (1.1.19), Edmund was
banished from the family circle. He is, not altogether "unnaturally,"
devoid of family feeling. As the bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought
in, the dying Edmund exclaims, "Yet Edmund was belov'd: I The one
the other poison'd for my sake, I And after slew herself." Goneril and
Regan as well as Lear seem to have died for "love."
How would nature and convention, or law, be related when cooperating
harmoniously? Nature provides the materials, the human materials and
powers, and ordains, or manifests to natural reason, what purposes and
ends would perfect the materials and fulfill the powers. But the accomplishment of nature's purposes is left to chance and to men: On the basis
of the conditions provided by nature and chance, the responsibility for
forming the materials and developing the powers so as to function in
accordance with those ends is left to men themselves through custom,
habituation, training, law, art, and education .65 Human nature is so
constituted as to require the formation of conventions and laws for its
fulfillment.
Edgar does represent the natural man in this play, not as the poor,
bare, forked animal Lear saw, but as he is in himself, the man of many
disguises, the educable man, whose heart does not enslave his mind and
whose mind does not silence his heart,66 whose heart and mind remain
sound no matter bow his outward trappings change. He is the natural
man, not in that sense of nature that means only primitive beginnings,
but where "nature" includes fulfillment, "ripeness."67
ea Cf. Jaffa, op. cit., p. 131.
14 The control is, of course, guided by other natural powers, such as reason and
judgment. France, the king, acknowledges the law's authority even over his noble
love for Cordelia (1.1.253).
u Cf. Plato Meno, esp. beginning; and Aristotle NE Book ii, ch. 1.
H Cf. Leo Strauss, in Jason Marvin Aronson, Three Funeral Addresses, University
of Chicago, University College, December 6, 1961, p. 8.
17 Cf. Aristotle Physics Book. ii.
�Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in lGng Lear
51
The same consummate irony that led him, correctly, but for the wrong
reasons, to be called "the thing itself," that is, the natural man, by Lear
may be at work also in his being called "philosopher."68 Edgar, though
not the most tragic, nor the most pathetic, character in the play, is the
true hero of patience in King Lear.
es This is not contradicted by the fact that Edgar is the only major character
in the play who never uses the word nature or any word with nature as its root.
Cf. n. l, above.
�
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26 pages
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Gratitude, nature, and piety in King Lear
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1969-05
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Revised version of a lecture delivered in May 1969 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Bib # 53000
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Annapolis, MD
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Friday night lecture
Tutors
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PDF Text
Text
RArIONAL ANILlAL - l'OLlflOAL ANIMAL:
.
.
· Natur- and uonvention 1.n auma.n Speeoh and Politics•
bJ Laure.noe Berna••
In tne beginning of his Poli tioa Aristotle argues the. t "man
ia b7 nature a politioal animal." .· In faot man ie more a politioal
animal than a111 bee or a.n;v
herdin~
anim!il, for "man alone of the
uimala ha• apeeob, 11 "man alone of the &nimala baa reason," "man
alone of the an1JD$la haa loaoa."
A word should be said about this
word logo1, whioh oan be translated ae ward. speeoh. aooount,
•
araument, rat1Q, or reaaon.
Logos ie oonneote~ to the verb l~,:2
whioh mee.na to 1peak .and to piok out, to seleat, to oount.
·words oolleot, aeleot, and eleot are oonneoted with the
Our
a~me ~erb.
Logos la aeleoted, eleoted, and ohoaen speeoh, meaningful apeeoh,
thoughtful B.Pe•oh.
'When people •peak of Arie totle' s definition · ot
man aa the rational animal t hey are referring to hie statement that
man alone of the animala poaaesaes logos, possesses thoughtful spee r«·.·
~riatotle
goes
o~
to say:
Uow voiae funotions us a aign of pa i n ~nd pleasure ~nd
thereforo is possessed by the other animale too (for
their naturehd& gone ~s far as having eenaat1on of
*"'
leoture diven at ~t. John's College, Annapolis. May, 19'10.
••1utor, St. John's uollege, .&\nnapolia;
Clliougo.
ot
Ph.D., 195'1. rhe University
�2
pain u4 pltaaure ·Uld 1lgnifJ't111 tb9•• thing• to • •
e.noth••). a.s h&D. i• to• aald.q ol• u th• a4••'aa•ou•
a.n4 the h&l'lltul~tllereto•• •1•• th0 jaat and th, un-
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·t h• otbar entaala; h• alont has 1.u ,~ tioa. or soo4 ci:;. 4
1
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,
.
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.
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ati•• or authoritatiYe, in eaoh. 1
. ..
.
t•• baM io
I
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I• ·not th• b1atote11Q oonoeption ot natue obaol•t•T Do·•'* •' not
.
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tean what nature
tPCm 11•4.e rn n&ttµtal aoiene••, aDd traa·
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'•'
�.3
the aooial aaienc•a t hat model themselves on them?
But before
taking up the theme natur• and Ari•totl• 1 a unde:rstan41iag
trr
Ntture
we should, perhapa, explain wh7 we oonoern oUl'a•lves with Aristotle
I sball try to deal with taat queation under t'j.ve heada,
at all.
41aouaaed ·in 1nor•aa1ng order ot importance • .
1)
Ariatotl•'• a;pproaoh to nature and philosophy- was t he
approach oppo1ed by th• found.era ot the modemaoientitic approaoh.
a1 •••ing
what they ••r• reaoting againat, what they rejected,
we come to underatand better the point ot view dominating our
tb•usht an4
O\U'
tlm••;
we aoa• . to under1tand ouraelvea b&t.t e:r,
Pi'em thia point ot view we approach Ariatotl•'a philosophy aa a
hiatorioal datu..
2)
Aooording to the view
~hich
trie• to understand modern
lit• in 1uob • vay,; ·they olaim, as 11 appropriate to the unique-
ness
o~
our situation, the Exiatentialiat, or HistoriQal Relativist,
or Radical Hiatorioi•t, or Heideggerian view, world views are pri-
marily creative projeets ot ditterent ages or different men in
4itteNnt
as••·
True openness, openness to determine the way which
would ba the
•ut~entia
impoaed upon
~·
were •oat
way tor ua, requires treadom trom the blind.er1
bf our tradition.
deol•i~•
in torming the
A.r1atotl• wa1 &DlOng
tr~ditiQn.
thoe ~
To clear out.
who
~he
cobv•ba, to liberate Oiu'aelvoa :rrom th• ti-adition fn ourselves.
since it la a tradition of thought, requires µnderstending it. _
Liberation from the · tradi.t ion, baaed on undars tariding 1t, ia require.,
in order to · open ourselves to the broader perapeotivas that a unititH
planet requ1rea.
3) · There· ia what oan be called the
of the Modern View
or
Nature.
Cr~sia
of Modern Science,
That is, modern scienoe, the :m.odern
�4
vl•v et aatuae ••- . te b• ua'91• to aaJI• liqae ot .._
...-u •t
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po•t• that ••1entitlo
r'
~·
••U• •._otJ •••"•~la•• "•due juq--~~.•
..
. Inatea4 ot r•ti..-1 J•l••ipl•• et aatt.. guitaaoe
ar 'WUlea••• ·•
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I•• 111• l•
·
abtuil4""•• to wul•• ; _
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th91e 4!atln•"1•• nieh.v• flD4 ......... uaad.neJWl. t • . .
pr•.. ••'•'itt.o ·1•aottea1
'between go04l · U14 ba4,
,souild
view
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•
•*• aeue.
·o t h"taail Jit•
v•
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look t~ ••• it pel'bapa AIPl~tMl•'•
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i:teti
I·
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au 1111.at
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Theugbtt\ll 1tdu.ta ot oluaiaal O.ei.k nOlf uattat4' :b•tOll'• tliUltt•
lat;" •Ri•tilli wtth tU wo1'14 aoien••• beeau• ·to ua. 1oien::lai· ·
uuall,- uana _.. . ••tenoe, pr•-.t.••ntl7
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I.DA .,hla aoi~n•• d••• 8" • • • to 1>• n.e......s.17 acoc..,anle4 "'
lllJ.dat-atandtng.
4)
Some look to u11totl• with a Yia·E to tM aeed
OQ!ll'•eh•naiv• natu.iral pb.iloaephJ' llhleh aoul.,,t u b
•11puation ot ae4•ftl .
r.. a
•en.a• a.tt
ot the
••t.ao• hCli 'ih• vu14 ot tnaan uaalag b7
�s
relating both within a unified view ot th• natural vorld. 1
.$)
We atu47 Plato and A.riatotl• beoau•• we auapect that
th.~y
may have articulated and claritled moii• ad•quatel7 than •llJ'On•
•l•• the preauppoaitione and prinoipl•• ot tbenatUl'al human
underatandlng, that ia, pre-aoientitio or pre-pbiloaophio thinking, . that order ot un4eratancl1ng with vbioh ·•very aan muat begin
all ht• thinking, that order ot underatanding which the ditterent
ot,
kinda ot aoi•nt1t1o thinking are neoeaaarllJ aoditic·ationa
that order ot understanding ot thing• Wb.ioh la :r•••aled through
our 41acou:r1e about th• object• ot ordinar1 experlenoe.
..
.
.
'I'hat aen
.
ue oampell•d to think about .thiqa · in certain preaorib•d va7a .
;
doea not ••tal:tli•h that th• tliqa thought abou• ln th. .elv••
are, or are not, •• they are thought to be.
It ve want to a9'o14
dogmatic t14ei.am (th• unp•tloaophioal faith
tpat~ t~nga
a• ju1t
a• ve experienoe them) or 4opatic •o•ptioi•• (th• dOf!'Pl& that we
know that thing• 1n th ... elv•a cannot .be u
v• e.q>erienoe th•)
a mu.oh more povertul dogaatlam . .ong· the lea.med ot our
ve au.at be open
a~ · ieaat
to the poeaib111tJ
tha~
tilll•••
th• orientation
ot the natural human understanding e.nd h\llllan diaoowae ma1 be
that inatrum•nt ot 1.•arning, underataDiing m d oaamnm.icaticm. ·
ope~
emplo7ed by vhat ia perhapa th$ only animal
and to the eaaeno•• ot things.
to the whole
Ve turn to Plato and Afl•totl•
tor help in exploring thi• po1aibilit7.
Ariatotl• take• hu.mftn
ap•eoh very aerioual7 becau1• the ••aning .of, th• · lmplioationa qt,
ordinary apeech, properl7 refined, aore . than an7thin; •l•.• ,
aooordins to hia, aoJte, ••Y• than a,.ltelio 11atlh. .atsics,
.
-.-.-g-..
.
.
.
••7 lead u•
--.2..- ."!""uf"""
...
....
.
J. A. W•i•ll•ipl~. . , . , "R'l Jl!:t•\ lfeio,.
M&linua L:yo••• BJ.••~ ~··~· Ill. t 9SJ, ·
· .
I
Al,.bertu11
�The 14•• ot nature hu . al~•J• opcn1pl•«S1 a, it not·
th• ·~
k•f
position in Wbat we o~l th• •••t;•r" tr-41tion ot thollgbt •.
.
·.
.
..
.··
. . .. ·
at v•at•:rn
Tbroug1lout tbe ·h111i91"J
,
.
thC)\lpt tbe ~-enta.). la fuel
v•r• ~su•4 in t•"'8 ot oppo11itlpu
ela•:
Hat'Ul"• an4
~aoe,
~Jtw-_. · and aoa,t).l.inc_
b•tw••
.
.
.
Jfatiire an4 Supernatui-e, th• nat11zt,i
~
·
the 41vine; b•tv-.i.1 Hatur• all4 AJ-t; b•tv••n JI'~~- and Con••ntiPlll
. between NatUJ'•
anA- Pr•,4Qll; between
~ft~•
an4 Spt;1,, ·an,4
~•twf•D
BatUJ1• and Hi•to17. 3
•ons
ocm.e, l~to th•
.
~- tact Aria1io11••
eno•. thema•lv••
.
;
other•, f~f•1;• .,hi~~aoptiJ ~d r;o!-
world
.
vfth
the
4l•oov•l"J ot ~·~\11'•.4
There . v•r• and. at1ll ~· . P•OPl• Who hav.- ~ ,,.. 4l•t1not ~d~a.. "of ' D.~'W'P·
.
..
•. , .
.
.
. . . -.
.
. .
. . . ,. .....
...
.
~
.
'
.
'
I
.'
•
•
••
.
'
•·
,
'.
'
.
'
•
'
•
The_10or41 nature . an4 nat\11" ~. ( Gre.-k Vi{.~l• and . $J•llf~~ 4() 110~ ·
.
oootQ" in th•
Ol~
.'
.
.
.
.
Teat. .nt, or in the ao,pel'.
-~•f oooQI'. t~~,\·~~
thl•• in th• l•tt•r• ot th• mo•~ aophl.i;io-tecl ~~ 'h-.
••nt vritera, th• .J.po1~le
th• lf•V
fa\ll_ ·a¥
,
~'1
in
T•ilt~ent.5
He;.
tf v•·o1;her
'l'~:JtiJ• . ·
pl$<fGf1 iJl
Betol'e nature vu 411oove:r•d, vh•ii _Q,ouahttul m•n von4eed
t
an4 ·41•oourae4 mbout
about th• soda~
logoi. ·
The
why
thin&•
The theoiosot.
are tbe ·vai th•7 are, tb•J talk•d
th• gt!}olo.ot. - ~r•o•ded
gods ordered and oomand•d thing• to wallc : o~ . to go 1:'::
th•il' ouetom..PJ'
W&J'8•
The word way_ (4erek) oooura over: 1700
3-• . The iut··:·~••
~•t1.ll"al 1foieno• -'d
4~
tu -~1!0t~
·oppo1:it:Loti• ·Pl'.•\\PP~•~ -tb~~aatur.• -. .,t .ao4••·
oQ~•ot•4 wt~la
_"o•c"•~t ot J'latw..Y~." .
~1• . diaouaa:l.on.: .la ~u.ad '. pbt*P11f \on; :th• cllaoua•lon in' IA•
o•
"1'.'•·
Strau••a Hf!t!p!J. Rlftf P4£!'tlf,(041o.~J -1953),. oh.~. _. .
S. · miese ·:. en•••~ ena, ,. ;I) '.i4 : _,iii - qw t.t: i1HQ1t\1fl.· Otnttr•
J
!.mo•
to the Bibl• • . ll!ePdaana,· (1955).
.
�7
....a th• 014 teataaent ·and (ho4oe) ••·leu•: 83 time• in the lev
ut.it.
~••t
Th• god1 ordained that tire ebould bura. olouda gi'W'• rain,
that th• earth ahould bri,.ng ,.torth crop•• that voaen .a:t).ould bear
ohildr•n. that aoae 1hould · ot eat pig ••at
n
~
others ahou14 not
kill oowa, that ••• ahould bury tb•ir .dead &n4 that other• •hould
bUftl th-, that . 'JltbdU'era •hou.14 b• put to death, or that th•J
should pa7 thett- vlot1• 1 • relatives at lea.at one ox.
the gods -ver• deli••red to tba
The oomwan.4• o:t'
anoe1tora· who were, oloaer ·to th• an4
tranaaitted by elder• to th•i:r ott1pring bJ word ot ·mouth or b7 . writt"
:reporta. Authority went v1th age, Vltb nearn•aa
t•
the
Of
IOUl'O.
authority •.
At a certain polat ••• eui-1·eu.a uut thouP,•.flUl. aaa
11111•.
ll•••
not1oe4 that . •o•• th.tn11 an• aome wa1• are alva71 ••• ••• ao 1Utta. . .
still oth••• would var7 hca tilll• to ttae
thea h11ppen th• ••• · wa7.
between th•
.n•o•••&PJ" and
t•- 11.m• tao ti.at
--
:
' what any one doe1 aluM.1t th-, an4 eth••• v..,
.ao•e
if
aen
B• b•1in1 ii• be•Qll• •'-a»•
th•
aooidea~al. th•
aa4 ·
,.
dU
or
110·
1
ll&1M
the 41a.ttr ,~ ti ·
a•o•••U7 an4 tllle
cu.;.
tcnary, and the n•o•••UJ ·and th• urat:flioial.
••Z-• to beocae .a .tra.v•ler, lit•
&l.•o notice hov •*• wa:ya are tho . _ . •••l'J
It the .... ·aanor one like bia
Herodotua, h• then von14
Vb•••• -tor u-.ple, ti•• b'lirna tb•••• ••7 -both b-1'• and in P•Mia.
ud other va7aYar7 1'P• plao• t• plaoe ua4h1111 -uibe, to ~,lbe
•
. ·..-
What •1U1.t . hav• be•Q. laQJ.~ . •~r1k.1q , at tt:rat; b,t c•q•· th•J' uat
oontradiet ·
••ov
••J• ". '11ii-e
th• wa.7a that
•UJ' trait tribe to
tribe, the way• :that depend aoat on d•oiaiona aacl op1rl1Qna ot ,,,.,~;
�8
beeau1e th• optnlou ..n hold about the wa7• *hat VUJ .t'!'ca plaae
t~
plaoe
oont~a41•t
eaoh others ·••I•, the deacl au.at be b•l•dJ theJ
au1t not be burl••• but bUJ!"ll•d·
!b••• oontra•iotion•
l•a4 to even
•o:re 1\md•ental oontradiotOl'J' opin1on1, oono•rning the veP, originl
ot th• 1041.
on•
JlrQI
poi~t
ot view one lea.ma th• truth about auoh aatt•••
.
'
.
li•t•nini obed11tntl7 to th• aqthor1tat1v• voio•• ot the -.1dem1
~,.
1
tram an'ther
o~• l,~arn•
aoa~
alv.,-1 in
th• . t"'-th l»J
aat,•r• hav• aad.• a 41ati.Qat1on
•v14•n•• and •••1"1 tor on•••lt.
that eat one oan~;·~•1iie .: '.· b• :
•an•at an4.
•••inc t• on•i•lt.
tund.-~-al .
.
au
••naient an4 , 4••1•&t1-.e.
~·~v••n
h•ertaJ
'lb:• ,u1plolol\ .b4tlim to a1••
•••.,.•I'• •• ,_. '" Dl!it\df,
•tla•• tkW•
tba- ilbe
" .
1_
0
•••* i-•~ •••-.4.ti ~1'£n1•
J\~th•r-, 0'1~
ditteitent, P•rllap1 tb•ir •o
V~~~t.
»•r-
&Jt• ••aon4~,
o•• their ••i•t•ao• te t•r•ihoupt1 £! la• nqa\•Q4d•
u•
Han aut
•ti •
...- .· t~•ir
-.a1•
••1•tl•no1 '•
lo••"'
Thq1e illlin11, wh:\cala • • eya""'*•ltl t)t• ,._., tda1oh i i
not •vi,•ntly dep•nd ppoa 4eo1atona ot •an ••119 t• do ¥ha• tq••
do b7 th•••lve1, thPough e<m• internal power ot th.air own.
I
aan Who h•• b•oOlle ·aware ot
IUi•b betwe•n
that
th••• dlatinotiona begin•
Th•
.• '
vbJ.~h
01.11"
W&7
11 riS)lt
and !bl· V&J1
.~
the
W&J
to 41stln·
aooording to nature,
food· in it••lt beoaus• it i• in aooord
with nature and that wb.$.oh 11 rigt:lt and goo4 beoauae it ·bd been
in1tltute4, l•sialat•4 etr ooma111d•d b7
. Th•l'e.tor•. to
IU9lll'i&e,
o~
on the bMili
autborit1ea •
or
the dletinotiona
between that wh1oh 11 ever,t.here th• • _. and that which varios
from place to plao• and trca time to
t.w
and trom tribe t o tribe,
�9
l»oitv•• W.at • • .IM .•••
.
. ..
.
.
.-.
'·:
·
-
-
;e-4• on
Qn•••lt U\4 vb.at one Jl.•u• trcm authoii-
tQI"
'
-
Q..'\ totion• qt
4eo1•i~
>
i;o ••• in11o an4 r-..J.p. :ln
.
,1~ts 'f•f ·~~J~ -- Oll· th• bull
-.~
-
•
b•i1:11 1 bet.'-!~en qur 4'14 ••7 MA 1;~
.
. Qt th••• 4i•t!Ji•tj,on1
th-.
~~1,ll•Yd q4'tiot)
tu
t~.a.
~O. ·~i.~nt;l•t a, ~tl1• t~. 'tbJii1':
!~1J••Qnµ
-.••••ltr,
·ozt
-
ll7
In
·~ol\)V,l\t18'' • -
u'••• ••• ·~ nft · ~Wq iao•1i n••cltul~
bt pt\M'• a:n4 •at 1• ·_
·4o~v•:ntlon.; good ~'''-~'
Oi'\J.O~al
it JI po•it•f• q.t~ - po:l.~t,,.qtl •
tthi~rJ.
Plato•• ll!z!blio, 1n 'th• - great-· debate abCll t th{'!
,,
nature and worth ot
juatioe~
.
ia truly good -arid what tnl.7
C\9epit• peat 411as:r•-•nt1
..
·
in acooaMllo-•vith nature,
oonventiona an41ava tr• thil
point
l&OJ'•
are
ot view
'
...
llhat
•ha• th•
Humu. ooBAuota
evaluated not -in
.
oo~ona .Ol'
ab~·::.
,apeo1.tioa117; :i.a _that
or goQd b7 nature.
.
terma t.t Vheth•r tb•J'
'·
bu, all th• interlooutora
premi•• that the good, Wh•t•v•r it •1 be
whioh ia
Qt •••~• or v~ 1• ,.,11t
tbat ~kno•l•4&• f't thia 11t.ppuaatl7
l•s1•1•'''' b,•.,....
leld down, or
.philosophy.
.
•.
,_. o,.. ,o .b• 'al.1~4 ~wa·o~-·
_
'l'h• 4i•ti.U,.~1Q~ -ll•tvetii 1')1.a.~ ~· - goq4
gQ04 ._J l•lf,
•
.
.-,.t""-'•' t , aq. 1iht qr•• h~, . ~d
nD~1... •t
6
' o_ th• ot-... • · 0•1'taia -JND1
n
up i~to
·
-
.
11
'
-
not 140 di.vine iav, but
are in aooord with, •• agi.in•t, nature;· aln b•o••a
1"'.!:>:~tha th.,-
p~v•ra:t~.
Philo,ophy, b-qma th1• po~t of ,vlfli, beo~,. - ~e •f~ .,~iO\d
ot _ -lwll.4 Pu.l"•ult,. - But . w~t-•v•r 1illare - ~• ~h~loeopb'r'' a clua
all
vhichcan lJaolll4•
•r•l!1$ p~~P•~•••
~lltr• •~f'l' , t~ at-1~~ ~tatora,
or - magea, ot ·pi,J.1o8QpAe,a, ••ii 'llho Ar~ •W~• At tb• 41,at~potion
i
between l\.tQJ'e
and
Q(m\'Jl91\tion, l>ut
.6. L. · Straua•, . ~· o\t. tJ
P•
·*Q ~·v•r ·~ti.c~·n~l.1 ~~t,).eot on
90.
�10 .
·oan
th• rea•ona tor th• oonventiona; tlho tail to under•tand hov it
be natural !or aen to live in aooordano• with oonventiona.
Suoh ..
••n, oall•d aophiata or int•llectuala, abua• th• diatinotlon between
nature and oonventlon ao aa to und•l'min•
undel'mine ord.1D.U"J 4•e•o7.
undepatood 1D thi•
••'1•
a ~,l
oonventloaa, ao u
to
On• peraaaentt••k ot philoaopft7, then,
th• Sooratio va7, I believe, voul4 b• to 4•-
tend · ordlnar7 pre-philoaophio practioal ·w1a4-· h'Gm ~:Qphlatlcal at•
tack'; to pr.par•, it n•o•e••l'J'• a theeretiea1 4•1'•noe e:' ~•t1u~197 4$.;.
o•noy agai]\at 1e:phlaticai aolenti•• .·~theraere, Plate'• 4t.ale8"••
voul4 ••ea to auggeat that vh•r• there 1• 11toorru,pt1on ot the 701UP)l,"
aophiata produce lt, but both aophiat• an4 philoaophera pa7 tor it.
One task ot politloal philoaoph7 then wuld b• W.
edtatt••
philoiaoph7
trait the opprobrium brought upon it bY its 1.aitatora.
II
Ve r•turn to 0\119 thtm•;
ality, hi• having
~~goa,
In hil di•cuaaion
ot
~b••-,o~eotiQD.
~at\ir•
and hia being by
th• •ooial and
between
eOC)DOL- 1!. 0
-.ii'•
:ration-
a political
a~1mal.
preoon41tiona ot polit• ·
lcial 11t.e .&J'ia·totle ret•r• . twioe to tba Oyolope ator7 in
bo~
U.•.o'
Tb• Cfclop• 1toi-y migh~ be thought ot •• Bom•~,••
the : 04>•••1· 7
anticipation ot Karl Marx • .
••11•4 on,
'l'h•noe ••
8J'i•v•4 at heart, and we cam• to
th_ land ot th• C7olopea, an overv•en1ng .c d 1.awl••• .
•
tolk, Vho, trusting in th• illlnortal god.a. plant noth1ns
with their _ an4• nor plough; but all _th••• thing• apring
h
up tor th• without ·~11ing or ploughing, . Wh•at,e.and . ·
barley, and vine.a, 'Whloh bear the rio~ oluater ot wine,
~ the rain ot Zeua g1vea tb . . increase.
Heither ......
bliea ~or oouncil have they, new appointed lava, but tba7
dwell on th• peak• ot lofty m.ountaina 1n hollow oavea;
and. eaah one la lawgiver to .·b1a . ohildren arid hi• vlvea,
.
.
.
7• . fo11tlot.
.
1252
b
22 ..: 23 and 12.S.3
.
.
a .S.
·
�11
u
"'4 ~•J
n~t t;.-.,b~_•
kn.ow~
047•••ua not
a,t;4!)•t • • ~9t~~· - _ I
th._•lv••
(11. 105-11, .. ) .
al.l that yet want• "to go and JU.k• trial ot
tho•• aen, - to l•un 1dlether·th•7 are both inaolent uid wild and
not juat. or 'tihether they love atranger• an.4 -ue go4-.r•u1ng .1n
thought. " -( 11.· 174-76.) 9 - The OJ'olop1, Polnhemu• vaa a . aonatroU.
•an, •who
•h•ph•~d•4
hi• tlooka alone an4 a.tar, and DliDgl•d not
with othqa, but lived apart v1.th hi• heart aet on lawl•5eneaa."
187-89~)
(11.
Odyaa.u1
oave.
-v!t~
twelve ot hia beat OOIU'a4ea
He aupplioatea the
C7ol~p•
en~4ra
th• Oyolopa•
in th• nan• ot Zeua, the go4 ot
atrangera and gue1ta.
h"• _
•mm
so I apoke, e.nd h• atraightv-.,. 11t.ade anaver with pitil••a
b•art: 'A tool a,~ thop, atr~g,r,
pt 0(90
lf-ff.18,
•••ing tbat tbau-bid4eat ae .eltb•r to tear or to
th• 1"-' • P• ~· C,ol~P•• t~• ~o · t~cn~lJl• tos- z.,,.,
Q"
Who beara th• aeg1•, nor of' th• .blea11t.1d goda,, ainoe .
- v•r11~ wi.
b•ti4•r t~ tb91l t ••1"' N'-Ir, ..\ll.d l, ~P '~
the wrath ot Z•ua, · apar• eithe- th•• · .Ill' th7 OOlll"ade••
r
u•
~·~t
•bic>ul4 pld ••·
(~l. 272~7a,)
Sho~tl7 tb•r•~ter.
havlAg.blop-•4
o~~ i:fb,•
w:t.l,•a MY
QtlQl
CJ~lops kill• Ind
••i;•
t!•o
'
oa••
o.-•4••.,
ot OdJf•tnW •
..
-..:t~,,~1
~· ~·• Qle$.f
th&t h• int"14' t~ UQ ~~· ~Ml• ~~ - •11 ~t ~~..,
- <>41.1•a•iw ~~•~v'~
.• :p:J.'° t<a P¥t out
r-..IJlda ot hi• •M q~l ...,. Qµ~
tti, Of~l-,P•' .,~, •::.- 1'}l~1.- . 1-•· ~-~ - I, ~· - J1-•tp,10 ft>,,
A•
.
~ wi,t~
tnt
•f~•' out a.ad. Q~Jl~ to
~av••·
•ll th•
QJ'olqp~
l1ytns .ftt'tifbJ
Th•Y tb,rpng ~\'>out outa149' "~ ~~v' ~ Nf
Vb.ether some
~
t• - k~lliN
~
·bJ
~~~
.·I...
Q79lf»pll
1~ th'~~
'4l"f .•il•
W l'J· f""Q~,
~'
~Pwf
~. ·· !':4 ~~ :.:-:traula:tiontiP,An,taett.. ..1Lof1b;:Olu.._,••1: .td.bJtu,... .
9. _ Inaolent and vlld ••_. 'o ha tlalanoe4 . 96•1nst . lOT1ng .
WUangRa ..... ,qt;::: Jmt .a•:tn•tl b•iN .....,,• ...._ ... t . . . .t. .
10. Coneider Buripides• addition to the atol"'J', C1clo.£!, 11. ~Jl-
43 ,_··582r4. _
·
�12
OctJ'CJe\UI b.aO. tol~ !Wa that hie nam• i• M--., h• repl!•a, '' . .1•n4•,
Hc:iaan i• killing me br guil•tnot by toro~.·
no aan le
4o1~
'l'h•f anawer that it'
7ou violence, p•rhap• it 1• Zeua, ao prq to om
:tather, . Lor4 Po••idon; and then th•7 leav•.
04J•••ut later oon-
trlvea hi• eaoape tr• th• oave.
The uoilOlllio needa ot the C7olopa ue provided tor bJ .the soda.
Co.naequentl7 eocncaiopr•••ur•• do not pl"od th. ., aa pr1ait!v•
u• uauall7 pro44ed,
••n
into ~o~ing larger oa•untti•• tor th• liake .
ot mutual aid, .ooopera.tion and.
uoh~•· ·
Bttoau.aethe7 ·eenever
moved to tora • · l~ger 11001ety, th•J never 4•v•loP IJrt arte or
ora.tta be7on4 the JJinimal •kill• needed ttr a 11tl•pherd 1 a lit•.
live in oavea,
~ot
have no •hip•' .and
'fl167
houau, ·and, HOlller •f•Oitioall'J' -.nttona, they
no ••n
to
•ale• 9h1f~' •o.tmat;
the sea and viait the oitiea ot otb9• folk u
moat. ~ortantl7 b1 never rOl'llling oitl•••
th•J ~t oro••·
oth9r aen
201•!••
'°·
But
ce~ioti•••
p°'itloc.l
they n•ver .davelpp th• utaot .olvili••• cl!•oourae, the uts8 .or
cc.matm.l.oation. 1 ~
Th• C)rel(;pa !a toelecl b7 a man .aJdllet in th• . .
art· ot uaing wor4a ~ . !'lleii' laok of aldll; 01' . uit ·with V.Aa make•
it iapoaeil>le tor .th- to cooperate, . ,o a i 4 their teµov . n hi• .
i
time ot nee4.
Wot .on17
are
tha O)"olopa
tiTated, but deapit• th• t'aot
entire!.7 to
th• · aeda~
~hat
b~utal,llawleaa, tt~4
th•7 owe th•:l.r material p18!1t7
th•1 -ar• imlJioua. and, :lno14enta.11J. ·oonoo1ted.
A.a the Cyolepa•i!a7a _we "pat a• h••• ••.• to th•
t!'Ul.7 we are better
~'Y
uno'11-
tar
~leased,
goda, •lnce
than theJ• 11 (11. 2TS-76.)
11. One ot tM •oat ecmaon .etjaGJ.ocl•• 9t tl\t .JIOJI~ octlllllU?ij.•ation ·
traoee it b&e>k to ~oota . .aalq llUri.at a11&U, ·QM.;.11P1Pi1, • . fS.tJ•
wall. ·
�. 13
In hia GU"JU.ll Ideolog Marx give• •n all too bri•t gl1apa• at
hla . picture ot ~he tinal OODllllW'liat · aoeiet7 1 1'bere not the 01J11Pian.
goda, but machine technolog7 and oomau.nlat ·organization will
~ro•id•
.
-
a•vyman wit~ · all. hi• · •oonc:aio need.a t~Treb7 making poaaib~• ~h•
tinal treedoa, tl-••4oa t'rCllJ the diviaion ot labor~ or d1Yia~on· ot
.
tunotlon,
or
I
~lvia~Ol\
.
ot nature it••lt.
~ttr
It vlll be •poaaibl•
. . to do one thing toda7 and another tcaorrov, to hunt ill
th~
·
.m orning, ti•h in th• atternoont rear oattl• 1n the •Y!ln1ng, oriti.
011• atter dinner, juat aa I
•
ti•~ •• h•rd•••~or
1
.
..
11~•. w~tbout
•••r beo.Un• a hunter,
a.oritio.•12 . Boli.w•.;;Qll
th• oontrQ7,
p••••117• ·uMa 41-.•lpline o:r
eoonomlo neoeaa1t7 .and ~at .1ou· vlll ••t 1• qot a new :hl~ti'l•f ¥-
augs••t•: .Liberat·e .-11 aen troa the
.•au:il7 :t'ult1lled. bre-4 ot ·~· ·but a rao• ot CJo~of,• . In one ot th• ..
many plaoea 'Where he touoh•• on the relation between uonoaio n•c11a•
••
•
"' .
.l
1ity and the 4•velopaent o:t aan•a higher taoultiea, A.ri1tot~• •P•illr•
ot how .t h• polia, the politioal. o.-unlt7,
the
c~i ty
la
.
the
'
com.plat• ommmtt7,
·111 !oh, att•r . th• toll7 all4 the village, haa o•• to tho
'
point ot tull aelt-aut"tloiene,-: Be then aay• : "1nd~ed it baa
\•18' to• th• sake ot lite, ·b ut it
(12s2 b
Jo. >13
~
tor the 1ake of the
f,,• .~
~ood
lite.• ·
·
a••·· ' .
Deuta~ 13ao1011•t a.I.A.I. 1D D" ' Pr\\hacbritt~~,
p.
1, iitijj "'aaoh ·-· ,...
ueh·
lJ. Hom.er•• treataant in tba Cjalopa atar7 ot tht tll.at of
•h••"• on th• ona 9'Ult, ••••ua \ille• •f
aet.1 and! am ol
12. ble
.,.a..r, I9JJ,
•h•
the ait7, on tih• •-••• lbnll. be . oont~aatad •i·~ 1111.t Blb11••l
. a~4&Nnt et C._in u4. Abel • . Ot. •ea11sJ ellap. 4. ci. !aaao
tl,
1
· "Comaenta1'7 on the Bible," ~
v • ~•11.tio 1 Plail••
, ecla • .
· Ralph Lerna.: uid Null•ia _,.1,
•
·· ,
& •
•. ao•'1,
"".O...
· potnte ot 'Yi_,, V• ·t9 _,. t~ S~ riatJ, !£;:": , ·
A - 6 ti. D, .
781 I - 78l A. CB tae la•taP- ••• L•• ••aut4 , L~ll•l&,I' AISJ.12'
~f, "Mod.•r~, Ba1111• ,.,,11., 1968. PP• l.,.~.
. .
�III
Tho•• .,.rk1 ·ot Ariatotl• oall•d logical reoeived that name
beoauae th•y ar•, in general, 4evote4 to th• underatan41.na, th•
di•o1pllne,. ali4.. .taaa ~••tton -ot logo•.14. In th~ tl••t ohapter .
ot
Op
· Int•rpretttlog
: Ariatotle ·upl&!m that;. l) •.itt911 vorda are .
•111bol• ot ••1oecl or apoken vor4•, 2) . apo.ken word• are aJllbola an4
aigna ot exp·e Flqoea,
OJI
pa11lon.1, . ot th• ltoul, . that _1•
peroept~;.i?IU)•
thought• and aenaationa, an4 )} the.experiea.oeaoot the aoul are
liken••••• ot thlqa • . '!'he vor4 .1Jmbol . oc:mea trm .two Greek worcla
. .uiing to throw or to put together.
put together b7 •••
SJllbola are alwa71 made, or
The 1°1rat. thtq .Arlatotl•
not••
about vrittea
and apoken •Jmbola ·11 that they U• not the••• tor · all aen, '6hereaa
the
upe•~•no•• ·~ . h•
t
tor all.
aoul . and the thlngil
~heaa•lvu
are tM · ....
Ve nee4 onl.7 to think ot what h &
ppem ••el"J till• w• uiaAei--
•tand •C!ll»thlngwittan or apolcen 1li a
-~eip
language .
Th~t
• ouncla r•t•rring to· the aaae thil\I• titter trca tribe to tribe or
nation to nation polnta to th• taot tut the 1oun4a Ao not ot th•- .
o ~lvea
aign1f'7, or r•.t•r to, the 9.ZPerl•no•• ancl thins•. theJ' are • t 1D11
ot, that 11. the7 ar• not aignitiout, or aeaningtul, b7 nature,
th•7 are aignitloantb7 &1r!8••nt, b7 OC111Paot, 1>'1 convention.
'
Oon•
iu
ft•t..ln ..t. . .1. l'll••-tiM&it, tMIR• ··. ·~· -u.U. ..... '·I t!.).-.·
, ....
·
.
f:Jt-.. .ttiui..W•dlJ' ••••l-.9t1...•he li.Uio·
teria and the
~ ~ Altuab1~ ~l!t
.
:·
1
.
·:
~-
•. ·.
·~
·
~t~· u4 4••a•t baok iilto . $~ Platon1o ea-y-. ar•. t• l>• ._.,
Mt. ..
. :.
l
afloonoa
•@••••ting ·t• •ll•a1-t.1''f • • •· ,ef; ·-~• ·91MfR&: tM· ..~•1'1'1 · W '·U4M'·• ·
.. .
by . ~an• or . the Cat!S!1'1~1• . On .
1..i~
.
... ~~·(Cl lllf.
~
ietlc 3tK~ ona~i.i\4
cloa to tiu. . l!•tj.g • . - ~
·
.,.
P. BOgg•••, .
ara i ..and · •
etQric 1 tu., Ca'ta,•v.'fit.t.., l' Pbzt!B- .
!•1•, Vol. xv, 110. 1, 1970, pp. 86-90.
al•o ThOlnaa AQ.uinia,::sem'iire:q on the Poaterior Anal ztioa o.t Al'itcotle, Magi Boolca, Albm7,
1970'; orevord, pp. ·1-3.
·
, itm1•!-JiiJ' .· ·
!
••=:: ., - .,,Prw. ·.·.:tm:.
'
!l'ofiio• .
·S••.
�1$
trarivtee, · th• .xi:»•rienoea ot the soul, th• peroeptiona, though.ta
and sensationa are .the aale tor all md do not depend upon human
agreement tor th•ir ·aeanlng; · the7 reter to Whitt · they signitJ' b'f
tha.aelvea,not tbro\18h th• ••41at1on o:t anTth1n8 else; thtt7 ar•
.
.
1~
a1gsd:t1oant, or ••anlngt\11, b7 nature • . .
Let uw anal7•• the
ap~k•n a~ol
material ot th• •Jabol i• yoioed
aore olo••lf.
aoun~, . whioh ia
.
b7 au.
The medium or
produoed natuiaall7
.
Th• peeuliu . o-'tination, o'l'ganisa~ion and ·to'.1"lat1oa o:t
·the · voioed aound.• ·ao ·
a•
.
~
'
to aignifJ' tbt• 'xpe:tiaoe, ·:.tald118 ·th,a• ~
particular aQUDd.a to •1pitf · that , patloular experience, · th• :tom!ng . ·
ot th.• aaterial of th• •Jmbol depend• . upon human inatitution, vp':;,n
oonvent~on.
"°''
· .Other 1oun4a 'ould. clo aa : v,1~, but o~qe the aoun48 tor
a pu-tioular oonoeptiqn
beo~a
.'aett1•4 it
ar• •sr••d
onoe th• deciaio.ri i•
a a1atak• to ua• tho•• aounda. another wq, to .
point to acil!llething el••• . Unli~•
.
.
"'oana
ot th• aiok. ao?'•ma ot
t.n-o• .~ laUght••, •P••oh ·aoa4. at-.U• th•~ aign1t1oat1on through
·
.
. .
.
.
'
..
'
' ·' .r. '
. ..
: :-
. ::
ct &l•totlli
·'ftMau
t!·tS. II, •.pp. 23-29. ·.; ftt•9~•t!jtp· it h~• An4 ~~t·~~~~··•.
Ol'.Jetu• . liQICI
; ·eM!llS?.·bl
iaon
'!he vor4 ·~~ol •• ua•4
~
t~A
41'7~
7.i«r~e'Urr,-
tett with it• ult!Jaa-• reraren~ and•ratood aa naturall7 ~1v•n ahoUld
be diatinguiahe4 · t'r• th• "od•rJ> aatheaatiof.1 •1l'~ol lob Ot\o m•~1! .
.
.
i• 4~t•Jlllin•4 P•lll&11i17 by •ho•e •ul•• or aetbo4 governing th• •
olgenerating 1ntell1gen ce ~ a elf and th• a7at91Jatiq 00'1-t~ o-r •J11L Qi.t1l thin 'llldoh U7 PU'tiollial' •Jllbol 00011Pa. ISH Jacob Klein, ~1'
Hath!!!atioal ThorJJ¥4~ t~lGi! ot~~·~t-• M.i.T.
iap.,Clia\)t'D' 9.1
• ;i
T ,W, ,lia • 12, · A and 8, pp. l !
J178, 192·211. · Por Vieta 'l'h• lett•r •tsn deaip~t•• the ~tent~OJV' l
obj•ot ot a
iate~\ion• ••• , n ...17 ot a concept Which it••li
· direotl,- inte!lCla another Cl'9no•ft and. no.t •
1l~J b•W•" 'l'h4t
ret•Jtent
th• lett•• alil'f o 'the •Jllbol in ita merel'j"JIB'••ible
· 4•'b•nalnat-en•11•, · ia aooord•4 a oert•in ,i~ep~clenoe vb.lop J>•~t .. ·
i • to be the ·aub j•o• et 'ca1ou.lat1on.al' dperation•." The•• aJmbol:to
·t:oaatlon• t.J!•, t~---• itq.th th• &14 af... 1l1la'. w••1n•t!•n bf : tbt :tr:;:""1~ol.
goaora•1D8 int•13 tgenoe aa .. dir.aet.1 7 .. .Ppr•henaibl• .b eingi "whose merelJ
~otential - ob3aottvit7. l• . nderat.ood..aa · an llOt'q41 ob.j~o.tivltJ. "· ~•ip, .
u
lbl4. 174-75, . 20f-08J; . Th• .Val' 1• open•d .. tor a spbol-g•n•ratin_s. ln~ . ,
'titrigeno• which in a ·~·~ 'Preacrib•• to natv• ita .Q>o~•~J,e/ l,va t.
in order to 41aoo•er lava Which voul.4 never be . given" to th• h1D1.ttn
"
under• tanding by nature 1 ta •lt •. ·
o'
••••eacl
;e' .
Pr••••
t;sn
�16
The illpulae to f'Ol'9l
hu,.p 1?l4·tit\.•tlon,
anJ
to •hue 8peeoh
ari••• natui-aUy among aen wherever the7 a.r• tound to
~Jmbola
exi~ t.
'l'h111
natural illpul•• to 4•v•lop thWl J.hat.ru.a't:ali't t.n that allow tor the
COllalUDio.at1Qn and.
ahu~~
ia perhapa the moat
~•ing
ot thougbte and t••l1Dga, et experlenoe,
4•~1•iv•
ot thoao ph•n01aen4L that :point to man• e;
We have returned to
b7 nature a aooial an4 pol1t1oal animal.
th• th•• w'lth 11b.loh •• began.
'11111• natural impul•• coupled with .
th• deair• -tor mutual uncleratanding• &lil()ng other thing•,
poi~•
to
th• enda or tUnotiona ot the 11peeoh 1)11bol: living togethe:P, l•arning ·togethe:P an4 -.utual under•tanding.
In aua, tbr•• ot the tour
oaua•• aooounti.ng tor th• 1119bol are natural, th•7 ue th• matvial
oauae, vooal aoundJ the ettioient cau••• the iapulae; and th• ttnal
Th• to....i, er organ-
oau1e, th• and, . living and leal"nlng to1•ther.
ising, oauaa whioh give• each •Jabol 1ta 41•tillotiv•
a·ign ia conventional.
c~aoter
a.a a
To generalize: aan i a req,uir•d b7 natur•, b7
h1a natur• a.a a thoughtful, apeald.ng an4 poli tloal an1lnal to · tol'a
oonventiona, th• ao•t iaportant ot v:hi.ob are -tho•• conventiona
tha• 4••lgnate 081't-lu 4etin1t• oClfbUiatto•• 1i •o1Pl4• •• r•r»e1911.ta·ttv• or a1p1titant
-.r
~•i-t•1n
4•tln1t• aot;iou ot th• atn4.
u.tur• 1• ao _oODit1t"t•a u to
r•q~• th•
t•~
kin4 ot Qal:y.•1•
it• tulttll»ept. · Th•
·~
Huaan
to.--.tto11 ·ot •oa•a11ou ·
poiii~ina
to t}J.e ua4
t• -the ooopeJ:1"atio11 ·at na~ve and •DllYWlltotL' a~pt b• aae4 •to 01. .1.f )' ·
.Vi1totl•'• view ot t~• · J?P\ll• ot the po;\it.lo.t.l. o~lt7, 1.t••li'.
HatuJ-• proYid•• th.• a.;.terialt the •••• 11atuall7 Utteienti•t•cl in .
their oapa.o1t1ea to .ta.ltill the1r o• . ~4 eao)i
alao provide• th• •tt1o1•iit 0&\18•,
·vtth1n th•
m~;
to•
otb•»-~" n••d1;
pol~tioal
au4 th• ttnal o•ua•; tht g&od
natna•
ud •ooi~l 11QlJJ.1·t ~:
l~t•,
the lit•
•Q~o:rding
to natur•• 'l'h• toraal 0&1Ml8, howevel', tbe lava and SOV0Dlll81lt-1, inati ...
�tuttan._
whi•,._
17
~ailg••
organise and o:r:d,•r t h• •en towarda th• •4
1.1"•
.aupp11e4 by ut, · th• l•si•lato:P 1 • art, and convention. · Thia, h0wever,
•• au.l'
earli•r ' diaouaaion qt 41atrlbutiv• ' juatio• •howa,
4•.., enough • .· Po• law• ue aa4• by and
U G
4o•• not go
»•tlactiona of\legialator1 .
lele, OP 'llhat kliul .er aen, ue to b• l•gi•latta•• ant\ gOT•~nc~• 1• ·
4•t..-in•~
b7 tha ..... lund.. .antal OIMler
o~ dtaurlbuti~•
B•o• flk• aabigultr ot
l)elltJ', or r•.s.....
1hap•1 th• ap1n101U1, laalt•t• and
••~nta
11
juat loe, th•
leg1elatoi-". to-. h• who
-.
wioh the OIHl•r ot
•••per
•.PAD4a 1• a l•ai•lator in a
••n••· The
aort tun4•111Dtal. . t1oa •t th• polltleall o• a entt.,,, •o th• extent that
Alotl"ibutive
ju•~le•
ba•·•
.
'
.
it
4•t.S.Uit• f"9 aa• 11 not all.. .• 4 ••1•17 ~7 otr•uaat~oea, t 1
4erlvat1v• hi• av.oh a l•ai1latiY• ut, aa a.rt vllloh it aight h~ said
11 111.S .alatiYe prtau-111 over loso!.16
Let ua try to b• aor• preoiae a.bou.t th• oha:aoter ot tho11e .ex•
peiencee or pa11ion1 ot th• 1oul•. wbioh · aooording to th• pa••-.•
have been analysing. are lik•n••••• and thereb,. natural aigna . o·t
Wo
are .t alking ab cut what V• ar• aotualizing. what
wo underata.ncl .. ancl do not ••rely h•a.r,
. expertanc••
or the
wh.~;1..t
we
·~- ,. .
· t~
und-~atan4; . when .
ac:aeone .1s •"7in8• The ..
•oul; J.r111totl• ••,.., f):r e the . . . . tor .a ll • . It v e
are oo:rreot .in · the ueumption . that un4erl1ea moat ot our pral\tioa1 · .
0
d 1&cour••· that When •• talk to eaoh other we are .talking about, or
•Ul•
intending to talk abo11t. th•
thing1, there muat be something
a.bout thing• whioh can be the same tor all men, that 1•. according t o
.
.
.
--~'Xr&~.---0P-o~n-.~1~a-er, tor ~~)G What oone.titutea the unity
'. .
~·in Plato' 1 Re l:tlio, '
b d. We are ignoring
illitinotion between o 01 · and !lthoa. S•• Le.urenoe Bern11,
415
ot tho
her" tbe
.
Ariatotl•' "
e . , •4. Joa•p),l ~Cl>• ey • Baa ic Bocka,
l~9'.h pp~ 77 ... 7
• •
on· pp~ 8!) ..86; note l. above; Mont ~1J qui•l
·~ \ 1 §!Pt1t !1U: -lo1!, ~1vr• XXIX. ehap. XIX; and Abraham Lincoln,
Pragmenl on tlie Con1tttu.tion and th9 Union,'' 1860 or 1861• 1:n
l•oted Work•• Baal•r ed •• Rutsera Univer11ity . Presa. 1953, vol. I 1 · ·
PQ •tic•, " in
a
11
t
301..
. pp. n>B-i9.
I
'
.
�18
~l•totla,
,_•1• 1ntelltgibl•
_._. point to
~·
charaot•~·
What c:rur
wor4•
•llllifV
ot
th• liken••••• e.r aotualiaatlona 4.n ua
~
iiitol-
J.iltlbl• chq1.<e:riatlo1 or things. · To. put ,i t in another 11a1r !.t ·
th~•
ia s•Uln• Jm«*l•ds• ot thillg• 1n th...•lv••i or it v• u• tso ·
avold talld.q abou.t Miat •• know ot unlau>wable
~inp in ~h~~lv••,
aoocw41ng to A.11totl•, thiqa -.et lut.1'1.Y• s.ntelltgibl• ohuaotulatt,.Ja :
.
•ioh laiitJ+icibl• •Q'ao!b•Pf..•tlc• or
ia_.4
41h•ir llkena••••
o- b• aow.s.1-
al.Ute bJ all w1J. ..1tunotlontng hwaan int•ll•otia. 1 7 9'• -blte111&1.;;;
bl•, -beoe.v.•• it
•I
.
t ..
•iC\11,
••I• tl'Ul.v
the ....
in r\l:·•t·•t... ·hca•-*1• .•oi.nt
11 th• ao1• ~- .. :aoat a~.t.1• ttklq aooea1tble to
Jn•t• b•lDC•· ,., tM•
!l•UOll
11t11tu.lllM•»•tu4im.a ot th• thing•
l~Pi-tb~l-:bt - ~:w..aas~- idtlH. the hmllia e--.m!tJ a oo :uniom more
1nt'1mate than t~at e>t .any othel' ant.aal..18 :H•• til~ on• ••U.wle
I
ll?V•l, Ol" 4caeat1o
tor it• ett•qt
l,lpOD
tragedy, not to
unt;1o~
4•Nt1o
~••4J 1
th•t eaeentialit " P fta.J'tnttt that
int!maoy oan ·onl7 ooa• ti-ca •utual \U14tf•tqcU.J1$11.
1•11••
t1)•·4ter;,••t
�
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Rational animal - political animal: nature and convention in human speech and politics
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1970-05
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Typescript of a lecture delivered in May 1970 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Friday night lecture
Tutors
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SPECUIATIONS ON LIBERAL AND ILLIBERAL POLITICS
BY
Laurence Berns
A revised version of a lecture delivered at
St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland
May 24, 1968
Now he [Socrates] was not eager for his companions to
become able speakers, able men of affairs and able contrivers,
but before these things he considered it to be necessary for
them to acquire moderation. For he believed that those who
are capable of these things without being moderate are both
more unjust and more able to work harm. First, indeed, he
tried to make his companions more moderate about gods.
Xenophon, Memorabilia, IV. 3.
�Speculations on Liberal and Illiberal Politics*
by Laurence Berns**
We live during a time of vast and rapidly moving social, political
and economic changes.
This most obvious fact seems to shape the back-
ground and foreground of almost all academic political discussion today.
To enable us to become well-informed about this most complex of societies
new techniques of sununarizing, condensing, tabulating and distributing
information have been developed.
Corresponding habits of rapid reading and
machine-like memorization, reading with a minimum of reflective thought,
seem to be appropriate for the imbibing of much of this material.
These changes, changes in the conditions of political and social
life, are, for the most part, consequences of progress in the medical and
technological sciences.
They confront us with apparently unprecedented
practical problems, increasingly complicated interdependence, relative
affluence and overpopulation, the control of nuclear weapons, to mention
only a few.
causes.
However, a distinction may be drawn between conditions and
The conditions delimit the range of alternatives possible for
human action.
The primary causes decide which alternatives are chosen.
They constitute what is called human nature.
It is in no way evident that
human nature, in the decisive respects, has changed as have the external
conditions of political and social life.
Among the causes which account for human behaviour are reasons, and
Bcise<l on a le(;CW..:: delivered at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland,
May 24, 1968.
** Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland; Ph.D.,The University of
Chicago, 1957.
-t
�even those causes which are not reasons, like appetites, passions, and
desires, are rarely unmixed with reasons.
Reasons can be right or·wrong,
more or less right or wrong, true and false, etc.
Human behaviour cannot
be understood adequately without understanding the adequacy or inadequacy
of the cognitions guiding, or accompanying, the behaviour, the prejudices,
or opinions, false or true, or the knowledge guiding the behaviour.
An
adequate social science then, one capable of distinguishing between knowlege, opinion, and prejudice, would have to be a philosophic social science.
The study of human nature, of the persistent causes of human behaviour, has more to do with meditation and reflection than it has with
technique and technology.
One learns about it from those, regardless of
when they lived, or live, who are most of all masters of reflection and
meditation.
It may well be that, along with misguided scientism, the
habits of study and thought, formed in pursuit of solutions to our most
urgent problems tend to make the reflections of those writers from whom
illumination is most needed less and less accessible.
sobriety is easily lost.
Freedom without
This attempt to articulate certain sobering re-
flections, that once were much more the common property of educated men
than they are today, is undertaken with some sense of urgency.
Such re-
flections could never be brought to light by any technique cir manipulatory
skill, however sophisticated.
The aim of this paper is to arrive at an adequate notion of what it
means
to
be liberal.
It is divided into five, sometimes overlapping parts:
1. Classical Liberalism, 2. Historicist Liberalism, 3. The Radicality of
Classical Liberalism, 4. The Conservatism of Classical Liberalism,
Liberalism.
s.
American
�3
CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
By classical liberalism we do not refer to the doctrines associated
with Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, laissez-faire economics and what
historians frequently call individualism.
liberal as it is used in classical Greek.
1
We refer rather to the word
The liberal, the
e~E.U IJ{fU) $
(eleutherios), belulvwa like a free man in contradistinction to a slave • .
But true slavishness is baseness, being enslaved by the baser parts of one's
nature.
The liberal man is liberated from control by the baser side of his
nature: he is free from the love of money, free from domination by bodily
desires and from domination by fear.
He is free from vulgarity.
Freedom
from, however, is not enough, and one of the Greek words for vulgarity points
to what the liberal man has been liberated for:
that word is
'
\
C(1t£'f" I<. «.1. <./ ci(
(apeirokalia), literally, lack of experience with nobility, with beauty,
lack of experience with things noble. The liberal man does what he does for
the sake of the noble.
a devotee of the Muses.
He is a cultivated man, a liberally educated man,
2
1. On the grounds of modern, as distinct from classical, liberalism, see Laurence
Berns, "Thomas Hobbes", in History of Political Philosophy, eds. Leo Strauss
and Joseph Cropsey,Rand McNally, 1963,pp.359-63. Cf. ibid.,Warren Winiarski,
"Niccolo Machiavelli",pp.273-75; Stanley Rosen, "Benedict Spinoza", p.417;
Robert A. Goldwin, "John Locke" ,pp.453-64; and esp. Leo Strauss, Natural
Right and History,u. of Chicago, 1953,pp.181-2.
2. Cf. Plato, Republic,403 C; Xenophon, Memorabilia,bk.4,ch.5; Oeconomicus,
1,17-23; Aristotle, !!.• Ethics,1099 a 11-20; Leo Strauss, Liberalism Ancient
and Modern,Basic Books, 1968, chs. 1 and 2.
�4
What has all this to do with politics?
The cultivated men, for
Aristotle at least, are not what one would call ae$thetes, they form a
definite political class.
of. virtue.
They are not non-partisan, they ai:e partisans
They are united not by
common social origins or common eco-
nornic situation, but by their common goal, the love and pursuit of excellence,
of virtue.
They look forward to a political order that encourages and
fosters this love and this pursuit.
HISTORICIST LIBERALISM
This characterization might be accepted by many who call themselves
liberals today, but only as partial descriptions of themselves.
For the word
as it is most often used today points not so much, or so directly, to the
noble and the base, and therefore implicitly to the good and the bad, as it
does to another set of distinctions.
to conservative, or reactionary.
Liberal is, of course, generally opposed
We frequently speak of men and proposals as
progressive or reactionary, assuming automatically that to try to go back to
some older way or older idea is bad and to move towards the new is good, or
that "forward looking" is good and "backward looking" bad.
The conservative
is thought of as incapable of appreciating changed conditions and the need for
corresponding political, social and economic changes.
It is as if the distinction
between progressive and reactionary were to replace the distinction between
good and bad.
But the term progress, of course, implies not only change, but
change for the better, the term reaction, as it is used in politics, usually
means change for the worse.
These terms often suggest that the issue of good-
ness or badness has been prejudged or is trivial, the decisive consideration
is the attitude towards change.
The new distinctions are time-
~T hi~tory-
�5
oriented.
The power of the historicist assumptions underlying them, at
least in the .intellectual community, can hardly be exaggerated.
almost all of our discourse about practical politics.
them is usually taken as a sign of lack of cultivation.
They pervade
Not to respond to
The inadequacy of
an approach that identifies rightness with change and wrongness with opposition
to change would seem to be obvious as soon as it is made explicit.
Its
persistence, however, is a sign that perhaps some more serious concern or
issue underlies it, or is reflected in it.
that more serious issue later.
We shall address ourselves to
3
The classical liberal, if not every reasonable man, wants to conserve
what is good and to eliminate what is bad, to promote change for the better
and to prevent change for the worse.
He will be conservative, progressive,
and even reactionary (in the sense of going back to an older policy), according
to what is called for by the circumstances.
From this perspective the simple
opposition between liberal and conservative makes little sense.
To take another approach to this problem, Book Five of Aristotle's
Politics is frequently called the book on revolutions.
But somehow the word
revolution is too fancy for what Aristotle describes.
The word rebellion, the
word used in the Constitution of the United States, is probably closer to
Aristotle's meaning.
Rebellion is old-fashioned, common-sensical and personal.
Revolution is more scientific, impersonal necessity is suggested.
The term is
a scientific term in mathematics, physics, and astronomy: a sphere is generated
by tj_ie revolution of a semi-circle about its diameter; Copernicus writes about
the revolutions of the celestial spheres, the revolutions of inanimate bodies.
3. See below, p.20.
�6
The word rebel is usually associated with the image of a man who strikes out
against the government, the word revolutionary with an intellectual fighting
for an elaborately articulated cause.
Aristotle in Book Five was, one might
say, concerned primarily with rebellions, those political controversies and
conflicts of beliefs and opinions, those conflicts about justice, which arise,
so to speak, naturally between political men, that is, from the consideration
of political and personal issues alone without any explicit or direct intervention of theory or science.
When appeal to higher authority is made in non-
philosophical, non-theoretical, political life, it is usually to the gods or
God generally accepted by the religious conununity of the country.
Aristotle
articulates political arguments in a political spirit, and, as far as I know,
only in his Politics introduces oaths to Zeus into his arguments.
4
The notion
4. 1281 a 17 and 1281 b 19. Cf. Abraham Lincoln, To the Voters of the Seventh
Congressional District, July 31, 1846.
Fellow Citizens:
A charge having got into circulation in some of the neighborhoods
of this District, in substance that I am an open scoffer at Christianity,
I have by the advice of some friends concluded to notice the subject in
this form. That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true;
but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never
spoken with intentional disrepect of religion in general or of any
denomination of Christians in particular. It is true that in early life
I was inclined to believe in what I understand ts called the "Doctrine
ef Necessity"-- that is, that the human mind is impelled to action, or
held in rest by some power,over·which the mind itself has no control;
and I have sometimes (with one, two or three, but never publicly) tried
to maintaift this opinion in argument-- the habit of arguing thus however,
I have, entirely left off for IN:>re than five years-- And I add here, I
have always understood this same opinion to be held by several of the
Christian denominations. The foregoing, is the whole truth, briefly
stated, in relation to myself, upon this subject.
I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office,
whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at religion.--Leaving
the higher matter of eternal consquences between him and his Maker, I
still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and
injure the IN:>rals, of the community in which he may live.--If, then, I
was guilty of such conduct, I should blame no man who should condemn me
for it; but I do blame those, whoever they may be, who falsely put such a
�7
of revolution is usually tied in, not with popular religion, but with
what has come to be called ideology.
Ideologies have been called, not
inappropriately, secular political religions.
In the post-Kantian
development the distinction between progressive and reactionary usually
plays a role, because the ultimate appeal of these ideologies is to
.
a theory, or an alleged science, of history.
Revolution rather than
rebellion seems more appropriate to a modern technological society, a
scientific society, an enlightened society.
The movement called Enlightenment could be considered as the attempt
to replace revealed religion by popularized philosophy.
The two most
outstanding characteristics of ideologies, at the risk of further oversimplification, are: 1) as regards their theoretical foundations, history
replaces nature as the standard of right and wrong and good and
2) popularized philosophy replaces revealed religion.
bad~
and
One way to under-
stand the origins, if not the rationale, of our IOC>dern theories of history
might be to see them as attempts to surIOC>unt the difficulties consequent
upon the radical separation by Kant of thought about freedom from thought
about nature, of the IOC>ral realm from the natural.
Theoretical history
aims, so to speak, at bringing the two realms back together again and at
relating them within a doctrine of the whole of human life.
5
charge in circulation against me.
Cf. also Winston s. Churchill, letter to Lady Randolph, 14 January 1897,
in Winston~ Churchill, by Randolph s. Churchill, Companion Volume.!_,~~'
1899-1900, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1967, pp. 724-25
5. "ldee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbuergerlicher Absic1rt.•
"Kants Werke, Akademie - Textausgabe, B. viii, pp. 15-32. "Idea for a
Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View." in I<ant, 2E_ History,
ed. Lewis Beck, Library of Liberal Arts, pp. 11-26
�8
The more general problem behind all this would seem to be the difficulty
for a science of human nature based on modern mathematical natural science
to account for morality and science.
6
A passage from Kant's "Conjectural Beginning of Human History" may
serve to illustrate the spirit of the Enlightenment.
Kant presents his
account in that work in the form of a commentary on the book of Genesis,
chapters two to six.
at every point
to
He invites his reader to consult the Biblical text
see whether the way that philosophy takes coincides
with that of Holy Writ.
Towards the middle of the piece he speaks about
how man became aware of how nature has raised him above community with
animals.
"The first time he ever said to the sheep, 'nature has given
you the skin you wear for my use, not for yours'; the first time he ever
took that skin and put it upon himself (3:21) - that time he became aware
of the way in which his nature privileged and raised him above all animals."
He refers to, but does not quote, Genesis 3:21, which reads, "Unto Adam
and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them."
What the Bible attributes to the action of God, Kant's philosophic conjectures about history have man do for himself.
Ideology is supposed to incorporate Enlightenment within itself.
Enlightenment looks forward to a vast expansiop of man's power to control
his own destiny, a vast expansion of human ambition.
relation between ideology and ambition.
Let us consider the
The Chorus in Oedipus declares,
"I pray that god may never abolish the eager ambition (the rivalry), that
keeps the city noble."
6.
Ambition is a subtle passion:
it can drive a
"Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte';ibid., pp. 107-23
cit., pp. 53-68.
Sophoclei;-necrrpus Tyrannus, 11. 880-81.
Trans.,~
7.
7
�9
hardy soul like Macbeth
to
raging tyranny and, on the other hand, as
Sophocles's Chorus says, keep a city noble.
The craving for glory,
for honor, is a selfish passion, yet a passion that attains its objects
most readily through public service.
A public man might think that he
loves the people because they are loveable, but he also might think
that he loves them because they have the power to bestow what he really
loves more, fame, honor, or glory.
Ideology and the philosophy of
history tend to focus the attention of the educable away from the analysis
of the lives and the souls of individual men.
Nations, social,
political, or economic classes, "cultures," societies, trends and
movements become the individuals concentrated on.
Such concentration
makes it easier for political men to disguise their own personal ambition from themselves.
How much demagoguery and political fanaticism
might be prevented, if the politically aspiring, or their educators,
were once again to be educated by those classical authors who made it
their business to try to train political men to appreciate the subtlety
of their own ambition, to train them to master their master passion?
8
It might be instructive in this connection to compare Jack Cade,
the rebel, as Shakespeare presents him in the second part of Henry the
Sixth, with the revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler.
Cade,
one might say, is the demagogue according to nature, Lenin and Hitler
ideological demagogues.
Cade is stubborn, courageous, enduring and clever.
Secretly set on by the Duke of York, with pretensions to the royal title
of Lord Mortimer, whom he resembles, he leads his Kentish rebels into
the heart of London and almost wins the city.
He seems most of all to
want the title Lord, and is ready to grant a Lordship to the first man
8. Cf. Xenophon, Meioorabilia, bk. 3, chs. 6 and 7; bk. 4, chs. 2 and 3;
bk. 1, ch. 2.
�10
who addresses him as Your Lordship.
9
He promises his followers that
"all things shall be in conmen," money will be abolished, the price of
bread will be lowered by two-thirds, and that he will destroy their
enemies, that is all scholars, lawyers, courtiers and gentlemen.
10
In
this connection it is interesting to note that the late Senator Joseph
McCarthy was relatively successful so long as he confined his attacks
to government officials, lawyers and academics.
He began to lose his
following and to consolidate his opposition when he became so reckless
as to extend his attacks to the military and to the clergy.
Cade has
no way of fulfilling the first promises, but enemies, or material for
erunity, is always available.
Henry the Sixth's Treasurer, Lord Say,
for executing policies he did not initiate or even approve, has become
a particular object of popular hatred.
Besides, Cade charges,
Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in
erecting a grammar school: and whereas, before, our forefathers
had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused
printing to be used, and, contrary to the King his crown and dignity,
thou hast built a paper mill. It will be proven to thy face that
thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb
and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.
Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before
them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou
hast put them in prison; and because they could not read, thou
hast hanged them; when, indeed, only for that cause they have
been most worthy to live.
Say denies the specific charges and goes on:
Justice with favor have I always done;
Pray'rs and tears have noved me, gifts could never.
When have I aught exacted at your hands
But to maintain the King, the realm, and you?
Large gifts have I bestowed on learned clerks,
Because my book preferred me to the King;
And, seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to Heaven,
Unless you be possessed with devilish spirits,
You cannot but forbear to murder me.
This tongue hath parleyed unto foreign kings
For your behoof.
9. Henry the
Sixth,~~'
10. Op. cit., 4.4.39.
4.7.4-5
�11
Cade replies, "Tut, when struckst thou one blow in the field?"
He orders him to be beheaded.
Say speaks again:
Tell me wherein have I off ended most?
Have I affected wealth or honor?
Speak.
Are my chests filled with extorted gold?
Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?
Whom have I injured that ye seek my death?
These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,
This breast from harboring foul deceitful thoughts.
Oh, let me live!" (11)
Cade is Ioc>ved by these words, but bridles the remorse that he, but not
apparently his followers, feels at Say's words; and sensible that for
.
.
.
most men the most potent mark of authority is t h e power o f execution, 12
has Say put to death.
However, shortly thereafter, confronted by the
force of the old and clever Baron Clifford who wins away his followers
by granting them pardons, invoking the name of their hero, Henry the Fifth,
and appealing to their patriotic hatred of the French, Cade is forced
to flee for his own life; not, however, before he observes, "Was ever
feather so lightly blown to and fro as this multitude?"
Where the
scientific ideologist sees masses moved by necessary and scientifically
determinable reactions to objective deprivations, Jack Cade sees a flighty
multitude, ready
to
follow the man most skillful at arousing and shaping
their expectations, at transforming their notions and feelings about what
is tolerable and intolerable, just and unjust. He knows that the same men
in the same conditions may be led to endure, or may be led to rebel -
and sometimes by being made to expect by right what no one can ever provide
them.
His impressive final scene, the scene of his death, begins with the
line, "Fie on ambitions."
11. 4.7.32-46, 69-82, 101-08.
12. Consider the implications for the question
of capital punishment
�12
For all his villainy, Cade can still feel remorse and he is aware
of his own ambition:
he wants to lord it over other men.
His counter-
part, the ideological demagogue, learns from a science, or pseudo-science,
of history to identify the
ultima~e
good with the practical and necessary
success, the "historical" goals of his revolution.
I quote from Lenin,
"The great world-wide historic service of Marx and Engels lies in the
fact that they proved by scientific analysis the inevitability of the
downfall of capitalism and its transition to communism under which there
will be no more exploitation of man by man."
13
This seems to be some kind
of corruption of what in Kant's religious philosophy and speculations on
history is called rational faith, i.e., what, in the absence of knowledge,
we are obliged by reason to believe, in order to strengthen our capacity
to act in accordance with the moral law.
It is not too difficult for a
man to be misled by a doctrine, which successfully propagated would place
him in a position of highest authority.
The ideological demagogue consci-
entiously disciplines himself to stifle and discount any remorse or scruple
that might impede success.
Since for him moralities are all products of
history, whatever scruples he might feel can be dismissed as discardable
vestiges from a discredited past.
ance.
He identifies his opposition with ignor-
He learns, apparently, to forget about himself.
ambition from himself.
He disguises his
He seems to combine worst parts of
intellectual,
demagogue, and religious fanatic.
Men like Cade and men like Lenin and Hitler, share in common the
natural qualities of the talented and dangerous demagogue.
What distinguishes
the ideological demagogues, we suggest, is the fanatic intellectuality they
add to the character.
13.
2!!.!:!!!. Theory
Lenin was the author of a philosophic book like
of Marxism, International Publishers, New York, (1948).
(cont. on foilowing page)
�13
Materialism and Emperio-Criticisrn.
On Contradiction.
Mao Tse-Tung is the author of
Hitler could say, "It's against my own inclinations
that I devote myself to politics....
philosophy.
I'd have chosen the arts or
1114
New communications technology and the tastelessness of the news
industry have made it all too easy for too many to be seduced and carried
away by their desires for fame and notoriety.
The craving for distinction, however, takes on many forms.
Between
mere exhibitionism and the craving to be distinguished for ex- ellence alone,
c
but certainly closer to the latter, is the hero.
There is much in modern
life, not to speak of any life, antithetical to heroism.
Aspirations for
some form of heroic nobility would seem to be behind much of the political
and moral rebellion of our times.
Some, alarmed by what corrupted and
perverted heroism can lead to, recormnend the elimination of heroic
ation from the world altogether.
~spir-
If heroic aspiration, expressed in some
form or another, is ineradicably rooted in human nature, and if nature can
be fulfilled, corrupted, or perverted, but not eliminated, the only course
left would seem to be to direct one's efforts towards the cultivation of
taste for, and understanding of, authentic heroism. Merely debunking is
hardly sufficient:
again the balance of classical liberalism shows itself
in its ability to articulate together both the nobility and limits of the
Cf. Karl Loewith, Heidegger, Denker in duerft1ger Zeit, Goettingen. 1960.
chs. 2 and 4; Stanley Rosen, "Philosophy and Ideology: Reflections on
Heidegger," Social Research, Summer, 1968. The common ground, from our
point of view, of these doctrines can be seen in Hegel's remark: 11 For WorldHistory moves itself on a higher ground than that on which morality has its
proper station •••• " "Denn die Weltgeschichte bewegt sich auf einem hoehern
Boden, als der ist, auf dem die Moralitaet ihre eigentuemliche Staette hat, ••• "
Vorlesungen ueber die Philosophie der Geschichte, Einleitung.
14. Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941-1944, Signet Books, p. 252
�14
hero.
There may be no better way to begin this refinement of taste
than by studying Shakespeare and The Iliad and The Odyssey and by
trying to understand the differences between Coriolanus, Brutus, Henry
v,
and Prospero; between Achilles, Agamemnon_ and Odysseus.
THE RADICALITY OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his letter to fellow clergymen
from the Birminghan Jail, refers to Thomas Aquinas's "T.reatise on Law, 1115
in order to justify his advocacy of disobedience for segregation laws.
An unjust law, Thomas cites Augustine, seems to be no law at all.
Every
human law is binding as law only in so far as it is derived from the natural
law, the law of reason.
To the extent to which it deviates from the
law it is a perversion of law.
n~tural
The right to rebellion enunciated by Thomas
is based on the distinction between human law and natural law which is in
turn an interpretation of Aristotle's distinction between natural justice,
'
'
(' I
or natural right, TO fUtrlt<OV olK.d..lOl
or conventional justice,
(to physikon dikaion) , and legal
TO TOi'ot l K ~ V l/i<f!f..toi '(to
noI!Ukon dikaion).
16
The
highest law, higher than any law promulgated by a political legislator,
is the law of living reason.
In Question 96, article 4, Thomas qualifies
the right to rebellion, as the Declaration of Independence does, by pointing
out that the possession of a. right does not automatically license the possessor
to exercise the right.
Whether a right ought to be exercised or not depends
upon the given circumstances of the situation.
If it is likely that the
evils attendant upon the exercise of a right would outweigh evils justly
complained of, for the sake of avoiding the greater evil the just man yields
his right.
In the exercise of his rights too, man is responsible for the
15. Summa Theologica, I-II Q. 95, A. 2
16. ~· Ethics,
s. 7,
1134 b 18 ,.. U35 a 15
�15
foreseeable consequences of his actions.
The right to rebellion as
found in Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, the Declaration of Independence,
Lincoln and others serves as a reminder that no government of men is as
important as are the moral principles of good government.
The beautiful
balance of Thoma.s's position can be seen in a passage where, pointing
out that rebellion is always a serious matter for conscience, he quotes
the Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans:
"All human power is from God;
Therefore, he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God."
But in the middle of his quote st. Thomas adds the decisive liberal
qualification, "in matters that are within its scope."
The quote then
with Thoma.s's addition reads, "All human power is from God:
Therefore
he that resisteth the power, 'in matters that are within its scope,'
resisteth the ordinance of God.' ;,l 7
Why reasonable radicali ty must be
accompanied by reasonable conservatism can be seen by considering the
fact that he who speculates about the principles justifying all government
is in that very act speculating about principles which could justify the
alteration or abolition of any government that does not measure up to
those principles.
THE CONSERVATISM OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
Why is government, why are human laws, laws which compel obedience
through fear of punishment, thought to be necessary?
Why is the natural
law, which appeals to reason alone, not sufficient?
Federalist fifty-one
notes, "what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on
human nature?
If men were angels no government would be necessary.
If
17. Q. 96, A. 4, ad 1. Cf. John Calvin, Commentary ~ the Epistle ~ the
Romans, ch. 13, secs. 1-4; Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk. 4,
ch. 2o, esp. secs. 16ff. Cf. John Locke, ~Paraphrase and Notes ~ the
Epistles of St. Paul •••• Cf. note p on Romans, 13:1, with the end of
oaragraph 2 of Locke's introduction to this section, and cp. the latter
�16
angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
Men who are primarily devoted to learning and to teaching, concentrating on the strengthening and development of their rational powers, are
prone to exaggerate the part reason plays in the lives of most men, men
not so concentrated and so dedicated.
Although it leads to some squandering
of forces, as a practical rule of thumb in the profession of learning and
teaching, if one is likely to err, it is better to err on the side of overestimating rational capacities.
In politics, however, this generous, and
in that sense liberal, tendency can lead to consequences far worse than
mere ineffectiveness.
Those who expect too much from reason are bound to
be frustrated; then, like disappointed lovers, overcome by a despair that
can easily turn to contempt and hate, they are liable to begin to reject
reasonable procedures altogether, to turn to pressure, intimidation, dire c t
action and force, thus depriving political life of that limited but saving
'b
.
part that reason can contri ute to it. 18
Although it is certainly not universally true, and though it does
depend upon the books, it still might be said that in general readers of
books are more rational than those who do not read books.
Thus, to make
reason more effective and to correct their readers' characteristic error
the great tradition of classical writers taught the limits of reason.
Herman Melville, comnenting on More's Utopia and Plato's Republic, wrote
with the tables of contents of his Two Treatises on Government.
18. Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 89 C ff. Cf. in this order Turgenev's novels
Fathers and ~and Virgin Soil, and Dostoevsky's Possessed, for
an account of how Russia's political intellectuals turned from
populism to terrorism.
�17
a small poem entitled,
~
Reasonable Constitution.
What though Reason forged your scheme?
'Twas Reason dreamed the Utopia's dream:
'Tis ·dream to think that Reason can
19
Govern the reasoning creature man.
Plato and Aristotle, I believe, would not disapprove of that poem.
Aristotle's Metaphysics begins with the assertion: "All men by nature desire
to know."
This passage is frequently misunderstood.
He never said that
for IOC>St men the desire to know dominates the other desires.
ones for whom this is so are rather rare.
Those blessed
In the preface to the Politics,
the last chapter of the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues that while all men
do desire to know, IOC>st men desire other things more.
The presence and
the power of those desires make political or human law necessary.
We might, following Thomas and Aristotle, divide the purpose of
human law, or government, into maximal and minimal purposes.
The maximal
purpose is to furnish man with the training, or discipline, (and perhaps the
conditions), which he requires for the perfection of virtue, for excellence,
that is, education.
And because they are most inexperienced with it, most
in need of it, and most capable of acquiring it, this discipline, or education,
is primarily education of the young.
For those whom Aristotle calls naturally
free or liberal, that is with good and uncorrupted natural dispositions, words,
arguments and discourses, especially parental admonitions, can provide the
ethical part of this education.
But most men, living as they do by passion,
prone to vice, are not easily moved by words.
20
The minimal purpose of govern-
ment is to restrain these men from evil by force and fear of punishment, to
restrain them from harming themselves, and especially from harming others, from
19. The Selected Poems of Herman Melville, ed. Hennig Cohen, Anchor Books, 1964,
pp. 169 and 257.
20. Aristotle, N. Ethics, 1179 b 5-18.
�18
disturbing the peace of others.
peace.
The minimal purpose of government is domestic
Thomas also refers to a purpose intermediate between virtue and peace,
which is coordinated with a type of character intermediate .to the types
mentioned before: this would be the purpose of educating those who have been
habituated by force and fear of punishment, to do willingly what before they
21
.
d i.d f rom f ear, an d thus to b ecome virtuous.
Human law, or government, if it
is to be enlightened, does keep the end of the virtuous in view.
But law
must be adjusted to the capacities of those for whom the law is intended.
There are limits on what one can reasonably expect from the law in the way
of moral improvement.
Being framed for the illiberal majority, the law,
according to Thomas, should not forbid all those vices from which the liberal
can abstain.
The illiberal majority should not be burdened with precepts
too far beyond what they can be expected
to
live up to.
For, as they violate
them, they are likely to come to despise them and law in general.
Thus,
from contempt they are likely to break out into transgressions worse than
those they began with.
Thomas quotes Proverbs (30:33): "He that too vehem-
ently blows his nose brings out blood."
The law should forbid only those
Jl'Ore grievous vices from which it is possible for the majority to abstain.
It can promote, but it cannot prescribe that men be virtuous, that is, that
they not only act virtuously, but do so willingly, habitually, and for virtue's
sake.
22
When the conditions presupposed by laws have changed, the laws may or
21. Swmna Theologica, I-II, Q.92, A.2,ad 4; Q.95, A.l.
22. Aristotle, N. Ethics,1105 a 26- 1105 b 1.
�19
may not thereby be rendered obsolete.
They might still be applicable, in
whole or in part, to the new conditions; if not, they ought to be changed.
As the need for new legislation to adapt to rapidly changing conditions grows,
understanding the complexity of the problem of change becomes increasingly
important.
The conservatism of classical liberalism comes to a focus in what
it has to say about change in laws, the subject of Question 97 of Thoma.s's
Treatise on Law.
We quote from article 2:
Human law is rightly changed in so far as such change is
conducive to the common interest. But to a certain extent
change of law itself is detrimental to the common good. For
custom has great force in the observance of laws, in as much
as what is done contrary to common custom, even if it should
be in itself light, seems to be grave. Thus when a law is
changed the constraining force of law is diminished, in so
far as custom is destroyed.
Consequently, Thomas goes on, human laws should not be changed unless the
good attained by the change outweighs the harm done in this respect.
The
first objection goes as follows:
It seems that human law ought always to be changed whenever something better occurs. For human laws are devised by human reason
as are the other arts. But in the other arts that which was held
at first, is changed, if something better occurs. Therefore the
same ought also to be done in human laws.
Tho mas answers:
Rules of art derive their efficacy from reason alone, and
therefore whenever any improvement occurs, that which was held
before ought to be changed. But laws derive very great force
from custom as the Phi,losopher says in Book II of the Politics,
and therefore they ought not to be readily changed.
In the passage referred to Aristotle points out that the strength of law with
regard to compliance, depends upon the compliance becoming habitual, and, he
notes, it takes some time to form habits.
23. 1268 b 23 - 1269 a 28.
23
Unlike what goes on in the other
�20
arts and in the sciences, what reason alone would dictate is not simply
applicable in political matters.
Reason, even wisdom, must compromise
with and thereby be diluted by the requirements of compliance and consent,
that is, by habit, prejudice, and custom.
It is unreasonable not to make
due concessions to irrationality in political affairs.
What seems then, to underly the common opposition between liberal
and conservative is a more fundamental difference of opinion concerning
the relative strengths of rational and irrational powers in most men, in
practical terms, concerning how much rationality is to be expected from
most men.
The distinction between conservative and what probably should be
called progressive would seem to be more adequate: both make serious claims to
be called liberal.
This disparity between what is appropriate for the sciences and the arts,
and what is appropriate for social and political life is treated more dialectically in Plato's Republic
and Aristotle's Politics.
if not the fundamental theme of both books.
It is a fundamental,
Arguments for aristocracy and
kingship, the rule of living reason, in Plato and Aristotle are accompanied
.
24
b y arguments b y ana 1 ogy f rom th e arts an d sciences.
The rank orders of
the regimes in both books could be understood as being based on the degree
to which the peoples of the respective regimes are capable or not of receiving
more artistic or more scientific political forms, the degree to which they are
capable of being governed in a liberal manner, the degree to which they are
capable of conforming their lives to the rule of their most reasonable fellows.
The idea of the rule of living reason functions as a paradigm, as a standard of
improvement for politics.
24.
It moves us to continue to search for governors who,
E.g., Aristotle, Politics, 1273 b 10-12, where flute playing is paired
with shoemaking. The former addresses itself to the soul, especially the
passions, the latter protects the body.
�21
as The Federalist (number fifty-seven) puts it, "possess most wisdom to
discern, and most virtue to pursue, the coilUIIOn good."
It reminds us that
institutions ought ultimately to be judged not by technical standards, but
by the kind of human beings they encourage and tend to produce and by the
kind they discourage and tend to eliminate, that is, that ethics is the
architechtonic part of social and political science.
The idea of the rule
of living reason gratifies reasonable hopes by clarifying and articulating
fully their ultimate goals.
At the same time, however, it presupposes con-
ditions which are so impossible, or so rare, as to preclude it as a practical
political possibility.
possibility.)
(This would not automatically preclude it as a personal
By clarifying how rare, or impossible, the pre-conditions for
the perfect political order are, writers like Plato and Aristotle save idealism
from fanaticism, they teach men to moderate and to civilize their hopes.
They
prepare men to accept the implications of the distinctions between what is best
in itself, that is, what is best in the best possible circumstances, what is
best in circumstances that most generally prevail, and what is best relative
to any particular set of given circumstances.
The chief political alternatives open to Americans and Western Europeans
would seem to be the rule of reasonable law or some form of despotism, benevolent or unbenevolent.
also.
This seemed to be the case to Herman Melville in 1863
In July, 1863, riots protesting the draft broke out in New York City.
The rioters turned to attacking Negroes and burned a Negro church and an orphanage.
Melville reflected on these events, and more, in a remarkable poem called
The House Top - A Night Piece - :
�22
(July, 1863)
No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air
And binds the brain-a dense oppression, such
As tawny tigers feel in matted shades,
Vexing their blood and making apt for ravage.
Beneath the stars the roofy desert spreads
Vacant as Libya. All is hushed near by.
Yet fitfully from far breaks a mixed surf
Of muffled sound, the Atheist roar of riot.
Yonder, where parching Sirius set in drought,
Balefully glares red Arson-there-and there •
••• All civil charms
And priestly spells which late held hearts in aweFear-bound, subjected to a better sway
Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve,
And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature.
Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead,
And ponderous drag that shakes the wall.
Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll
Of black artillery; he comes, though late;
In code corroborating Calvin's creed
And cynic tyrannies of honest kings;
He comes, nor parlies; and the Town, redeemed,
Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds
The grimy slur on the Republic's faith implied,
Which holds that Man is naturally good,
25
And-more-is Nature's Roman, never to be scourged.
The rule of law, it must be said, cannot by itself produce nobility of soul,
but it may go far towards producing the best possible conditions for the
cultivation of nobility of soul.
Most informed citizens in the English-speaking world pay lip-service
to
the blessings of the rule of law.
But those who would most directly and
severely feel the loss of liberty its weakening would entail are those whose
very calling presupposes freedom of speech, those for whom learning, study,
teaching and serious conversation are habitual and regular occupations. How
ironic it is then-- we hope it is not just--that the spirit of Draco should
be receiving some of its loudest invitations today from institutions that are
25.
2E..!.
cit., above, n. 19, p. 24.
Cf. Acts of the Apostles, 22: 24 and 25
�23
avowedly institutions of higher learning.
We cannot avoid considering
the implications of Melville's words, "Wise Draco comes":
suffer an unwise Draco, or to deserve a wise?
Is it 'WOrse to
It is altogether possible to
suffer both conditions.
The irony referred to, however, may not be something only peculiar to
our times.
It would seem that now, in the beginning, and always, science
and philosophy come into the world with the awareness that a distinction
can be made between nature and convention, or between the reasonable and
the conventional.
Wherever there are philosophers (a class which can include
erring philosophers) there seem to arise imitators of philosophers, men who
are aware of the distinction between nature and convention, but who never
sufficiently reflect on the reasons for the conventions.
Some would say that
such men, sometimes called sophists, sometimes intellectuals, are more attracted by the honors of philosophers than by their true objects, or that they
somehow confound political ambition with philosophic ambition, but whatever
their motives, the problem is that they abuse the instruments of philosophy,
they abuse the distinction between nature and convention, so as to undermine
all conventions, so as to undermine ordinary decency.
One permanent task of
Socratic philosophy then would seem to be to defend ordinary pre-philosophic
practical wisdom from sophistical attack;
that is, to prepare, if necessary,
a theoretical defence of ordinary decency against sophistical science. To
avoid misunderstanding, it should be said that such polemical activity does
not mean that one ceases to -U-y to understand or to learn from those one
attacks.
26.
We need only consider the Socrates of Plato and Xenophon.
26
Cf. Note 4, above, and Leo Strauss, On Tyranny, The Free Press of Glencoe,
1963, esp. p. 199
�24
AMERICAN LIBERALISM
"It has been frequently remarked," writes Hamilton in the opening
paragraph of '?he Federalist,
that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this
country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important
question, whether societies of men are really capable or not
of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or
whether they are forever destined to depend for their political
constitutions on accident and force.27
It is hard to conceive of a better solution to the problem of political
stability and change than the American constitutional system.
The Constitution
provides a point of veneration and the fixed and stable framework within which
the various departments of government are granted broad and flexible powers
to deal energetically with the problems arising from changing conditions. The
reasonability of the constitution itself is attested to by its ample recognition
of and reliance upon the indecorous, but never failing, springs of human selfWe recur to Federalist, number fifty-one:
ishness.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor
internal controls on government would be necessary.
In framing a government which is to be administered
by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this:
you must enable the government to control the governed;
and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control
on the government; but experience has taught mankind the
necessity of auxiliary precautions.
Those auxiliary precautions are the check and balance system and separation of
powers.
Finding the right balance between the enabling powers of government
and restrictions on governmental power is the permanent problem of American
government.
If one focuses not on the needs of liberal learning, but on the ordinary
concerns of most men, it might be said without too much oversimplification that
the most prevalent and persistent forms of injustice are bullying and cheating.
27.
Footnote on the next page
�25
The English-speaking peoples by means of the rule of law seem to have
concentrated on preventing men from bullying one another.
Like our Conunun-
ist rivals, we have also been greatly concerned with preventing cheating,
but have taken the precaution to deal with this problem in such a way as to
avoid concentrating too much power in the hands of our governmental protectors,
so as to avoid putting our protectors themselves in a position to bully us.
The reasoning behind this choice seems to be that, although the two are often
connected, injury to dignity is worse than injury to material well-being.
In addition, he who is in a position to bully is usually in a position to cheat
as well, whereas the converse is not true.
What the right balance between enabling powers and restrictions on
government is depends upon the given conditions of material life.
Along with
the introduction of large-scale technology, a new system of administration and
ownership of peoperty developed in the West, devised to coordinate the resources
of large groups of men in a manner appropriate to new technological possibilities.
We refer to the rise of the depersonalized, that is ethically irres-
ponsible, ownership of joint-stock companies, organized for profit and with
limited liability.
28
The inequities engendered by this system might be traced,
at least in part, to the fact that the system was developed under the guidance
of a philosophy, or social science, that either minimized or denied the significance of ethics for political, social, and economic science.
However this
may be, the principle seems to be generally accepted now that the inequities
resulting from the growth of large-scale non-governmental corporate and
27.
Cf. George Anastaplo, Book Review, Levy: Legacy of Suppression-Freedom
of Speech and Press in Early American History, 39 New York University
Law Review 735 (1964), esp. p. 741; Laurence Berns, "Two Old Conservatives
Discuss the Anastaplo Case," 54 Cornell Law Review 920, July, 1969.
28. Cf. R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society,
ch. 5.
�26
institutional power can be effectively remedied only by a
enlargement of goverrunental powers of regulation.
corres~nding
In addition, the licen-
sing of _
government corporations and agencies has been expanded in order to
perform necessary public services that privately owned enterprises could not
be relied upon to supply.
The American system is peculiarly well adapted to solving the problems
brought on by new conditions without sacrificing, or at least with a minimum
1oss o f , l 1'b erty. 29
New ways are continually being found to combine justice
and liberty, public responsibility and private initiative.
By the skillful
use of tax laws an amazing proliferation of private welfare and cultural
agencies has been induced, performing needed social services without concentrating power in the hands of goverrunent.
Large corporations under threat
of increasing regulation and taxes, and guided by an increasing awareness of
the insufficiency of an unmitigated profit motive, are tending to follow more
public-spirited policies and even to take on a semi-public character.
Within
government itself the institution of specialized relatively independent corporations and authorities, in addition to the regular constitutional separation
of powers both within and between Federal, State and local governments, all
enable us to address ourselves to new conditions without that concentration
of power in the central government that less sophisticated structures of
government cannot avoid.
The principle behind the American Union and the Constitution of the United
States, in Lincoln's words, "entwining itself more closely about the human heart,"
is the Declaration of Independence's assertion of "Liberty to all."
This prin-
ciple in Lincoln's mind is inextricably connected with the Declaration's assertion
that "all men are created equal."
30
The great and no longer tolerable failing
Cf. De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. I, ch. 5, last section~
vol. 2, bk. 2, ch. 7
30. "Fragment: The Constitution and the Union" 1860 or 1861, Collected Works
29.
of Abraham Lincoln, Roy Basler, ed.
Rutgers
u.
Press, vol. lV, PP• 168-6 9 •
�27
of American political life, the failure to guarantee Negro citizens equal
rights of citizenship, is not, according to Lincoln, a failure of American
principles; it is rather a failure of men to act in accordance with those
principles.
Lincoln commented on that statement in his speech on .the
Dred Scott decision:
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to
include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men
equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were
equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social
capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what
respects they did consider all men created equal--equal in
"certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they meant.
They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were
then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were
about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had
no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare
the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast
as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard
maxim for free society, which could be familiar to all, and
revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly spreading
and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and
value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The
assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and
it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future
use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving
itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might
seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of
despoti~m.
They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed
tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair
land and commence their vocatio~ they should find left for them
1
at least one hard nut to crack.
The difference in nature (the Declaration speaks of the "Laws of Nature")
that these natural rights are based upon, rights which all men share, is the
difference between rational and irrational animals, between men, animals
capable of thoughtful speech, and beasts, animals incapable of thoughtful
speech.
This difference both for a classical liberal like Aristotle and
the Founding Fathers is elementary and fundamental.
31.
fo~
Aristotle goes on to
Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857, emphasis in original.
f
�28
divide men in terms of the different ways and degrees that they possess
this capacity, but the differences of ways and degrees can never be as
significant as the difference between animals lacking the capacity
entirely and those having it in any degree whatever.
Part of what Aristotle and the Declaration of Independence mean was
spelled out by Kant in the work referred to before, where he uses the book
of Genesis to speculate about the various stages man might have gone through
32
.
.
.
in h. progress t owar d s un d erstand.
is
ing h. uniqueness among t h e anima 1 s.
is
Kant minimizes the importance of eating from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil.
fig-leaf.
For him the epoch-making event was the institution of the
He interprets it as follows:
this removal of the object of
inclination from the view of the senses reflects man's first awareness of
a certain degree of mastery of reason over impulse;
that he is a moral creature.
this was his first hint
His partner's similar action, this implicit
refusal, forces man, moved by sensual desire, to become aware of the moral
qualities of the objects of his desire, the rational and moral qualities of
his fellow human beings.
Thus he becomes able to be moved not only by
sensual, but also- by more inward spiritual attractions; he becomes able to
move from animal desire to love, from the desire of possessive enjoyment to
the simple appreciation of beauty.
Through self-restraint and refusal men
come to deserve and to recognize each other as worthy of the dignities
befitting free men.
St. Jorrn•s College, Aunapolis, Maryland
May 24, 1968
32.
~cit.,
above, n. 6.
�
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Speculations on liberal and illiberal politics
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ON THE RELATION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION*
Laurence Berns
St. John's College
Annapolis
The problem from which these reflections begin is fairly
straightforward:
Although philosophy came into the world by
separating itself off from religion, in modern times, it seems to
be trying to incorporate within itself what,
in my opinion,
properly belongs to religion. The representatives of moder~
philosophy I have in mind are chiefly Nietzsche and
Heidegger.
In order to understand better how and why this change came about
I will sketch out a very general history of the relation between
philosophy and religion,
for ancient, medieval and
modern
philosophy.
(It is,
incidentally, clear from this that I am
speaking of what some call Western Philosophy.)
First, a preliminary distinction: The title of this paper
is not
"On the Relation between Philosophy and Theology,"
because there are traditionally two kinds of theology, of
discourse about God, natural theology, discourse about God or
gods based on natural reason and naturally acquired evidence, and
revealed theology, theology based on special and supernatural
divine revelation. The two kinds of theology are not always kept
separate, as the famous saying of Heraclitus illustrates:
"The
only wise thing is one, it 9oes not wish and it does wish to be
called by the name of Zeus."
An illustration might be ' useful. The Declaration
of
Independence of the United States asserts that the laws of nature
and of Nature's God entitle all men to certain natural rights,
among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What
is the basis in nature of these natural rights? The traditional
and correct answer, I believe, is the natural superiority of the
rational animal, man, to non-rational animals, beasts. But that
may be only half the story. We notice that God is referred to in
the Declaration at least four times in the following order, once
as legislator of the laws of nature, once as Creator 3 , again as
Supreme Judge of the World and finally as the executor of Divine
Providence. In the divine Governor of the world legislative,
executive and judicial powers are united. The Founders of the
United States, like intelligent men of all times, disagreed about
many things, but if there is anything they all seemed to agree
about it is the necessity to separate the powers of government.
Humanly speaking, the uniting of legislative, · executive and
judicial powers in the same hands, they declared, is the very
definition of tyranny. Only a divine being with supreme wisdom
and goodness, with no truth-obscuring and excessively selfregarding passions could rightly possess such powers. The natural
1
�theology of the Declaration is then an extrapolation from the
idea of good government to the idea of perfect government, and
the perfect governor. No human being can measure up to such a
standard. No human being is sufficiently godlike to be entrusted .
with such despotic power over other human beings. The natural
rights of the Declaration then stem from human superiority with
relation to the beasts and human defect with relation to ·God. All
men are equal in that they are neither beasts nor gods. Does such
a God exist? That might require faith to believe. But the natural
theology of the Declaration, the idea of such a God, clarifies
what it is meant to clarify whether one conceives of such a God
as existing or not. By its reference to the Creator and His
Providence, however, the Declaration brings both traditions
together,
it combines its natural theology with the revealed
theology of the Biblical tradition. 4
I
THE SEPARATION OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY FROM RELIGION--THE INCORPORATION OF
RELIGION INTO MODERN PHILOSOPHY
The lovers of myth, Aristotle says, like the philosophers,
wonder about the first things, the things whose characters and
actions govern all the rest. The first philosophers distinguished
themselves from the lovers of myth by no longer speaking of the
first things as gods, but as nature. Science and philosophy come
into She world, Aristotle suggests, with the discovery of
nature . There were and still are people who have no distinct
idea of nature. The words natur5 and natural do not occur in the
Hebrew Bible or in the Gospels . The prephilosophic equivalents
of the word nature seem to be the words way or custom. Before the
discovery of nature men spoke about the gods ordering and
commanding things to go in their customary ways. The way or
custom of fire is to go up and burn, for the earth to bring forth
plants, for human beings to speak, for one tribe to bury its
dead, for another to burn its dead. At some point a curious and
thoughtful person must have noticed that some ways are always the
same no matter what anyone does about them, and others vary from
time to time, and still others would vary from time to time more
if men did not make them happen the same way. Such a person
begins to become aware of the distinctions between the necessary
and the accidental or contingent, the necessary and the customary
and the necessary and the artificial. The ways that vary from
place to place, from city to city, from tribe to tribe, must have
been most striking at first because they most contradict "our
way". Herodotus tells how horror-struck Greeks and Indians were
on learning of each other's diverse burial customs.
(III. 38)
These divergencies extend to differences about the nature of the
gods themselves.
The
suspicion
begins
2
to arise that
the
ways
that
are
�everywhere the same are primary, permanent and fundamental and
those that differ from town to town and from tribe to tribe
are secondary, transient and derivative. The man-made things owe .
their existence to forethought, the ways which are everywhere the
same seem to occur by themselves automatically inside the things
characterized by them. Way or custom splits up in70 nature, on
the one hand, and convention or law, on the other . That human
beings can speak is natural, that this tribe speaks
its
particular language, that tribe its particular language, is
conventional. Impersonal nature replaces divine ordination. The
good life is no longer determined by divine law but by the quest
for what is right by nature. In Plato's Republic the torch race
in honor of the goddess, which they were supposed to watch,
is
forgotten in favor of the discussion in quest of the life that is
good according to nature. Philosophy and science come into the
world by separating themselves from religion.
To illustrate the other pole of our initial problem,
the
incorporation of religion into philosophy, we turn now to the man
whom many regard as the greatest philosophic thinker of recent
times, Martin Heidegger. For Heidegger, philosophy, or what he
would rather call Thinking, cannot be academic or isolated from
the spirit of society, from the spirit of one's own times,
from
history. The deepest sense of what things are, he argues, depends
on History, and History, in German Geschichte, he connects
with
the word Geschick, that which has been sent. The sender, this
mysterious ground of existence, or ground of the relation between
being and human thought, of human fate (Schicksal), he sometimes
calls gods, sometimes god.
The great danger of our time, Heidegger argues, is that we
are so overwhelmed by the power of scientific, mathematical,
technological thinking that we have begun to think of human
beings as just one more product of scientific laws to be
serviced, used and conveniently disposed of. In contrast to the
focus on the depersonalized, the dehumanized, the cybernetic, he
argues that the deepest truths about the world reveal themselves
to thought and to thinkers that are caring, committed, concerned
with what they regard as "mine" and ours, with home and homeland.
Even the standard for human conduct that he erects as a
replacement for ethical virtue, authenticity , reflects this
emphasis on the personal and particular. The German
word
Eigentlichkeit has no direct English equivalent, it means "one'sownness". In working out what amounts to his replacement for
ethics
the
notions
of conscience,
anxiety,
guilt
and
"fallenness" play central roles.
That our particularity, our individuality, like that of the
fallen sparrow, should have ultimate significance makes sense,
it seems, if we and our world are the creations of a loving,
caring omnipotent God. Heidegger, an extraordinarily learned and
thoughtful heir of the philosophic tradition has incorporated
3
�Christian religious ideas and sentiments into his thinking
without articulating the theological presuppositions that could
establish their plausibility. Through a sketch of the history of
the relation between philosophy and religion I hope to show that
in so
doing Heidegger is fulfilling one of the
deepest
tendencies of modern philosophy.
In fairness to Heidegger, however, it should be said that
he emphatically rejects the account of the origin of philosophy
out of religion and myth as a Platonic-Aristotelian prejudice.
"The fall of thinking into the sciences, on the one hand, ang
faith, on the other, is the evil, fateful sending of Being."
Religious mythos and philosophic logos "became separated and
opposed only there where neither mythes nor logos could maintain
their original essential presence. This happened already with
Plato . " He denies that logos could destroy mythes. "Nothing
religious is ever destroyed by logic; it is destroyed only by the
god's withdrawing himself." 9
THE
DISTINCTIONS
BETWEEN
II
ANCIENT,
MEDIEVAL
AND
MODERN PHILOSOPHY
For our sketch of the history of the relation between
philosophy and religion we distinguish three positions, ancient,
medieval and modern in terms of what each takes to be the
ultimate
source of meaningfulness in the
world:
ancient
philosophy
as nature-centered, or
physiocentric;
medieval
philosophy as God-centered, or theocentric and modern philosophy
as man(human)-centered, or anthropocentric. I do not imply that
each is only valid for its time. They arose at different times
and each late.r position presupposed the existence of the earlier
positions,
but they are accounted for here as
permanent
alternatives.
how
To
illustrate these differences we consider
representatives of each position deal with a fairly common
phenomenon, the appearance of purposiveness or end-directed
activity in nature.
The primary prescientif ic or prephilosophic meaning of the
Greek word for nature, phys1s, is growth, which includes that
into which a thing grows, the end or term of growth, the state in
which the thing is most capable of doing the work, or, as we say,
the function, characteristic of that thing. End-directed activity
is most characteristic of living things. The acorn becomes
intelligible as a possible oak. The structure of the eye becomes
intelligible with a view to its function of seeing. Aristotle
speaks of such an end as the cause "for the sake of which," or in
the later latinate form, ·final cause. (In this discussion of
ancient philosophy I will concentrate on Platonic-Aristotelian
philosophy, the most influential ancient philosophy.) Aristotle
4
�defines nature as a principle or cause of motion and rest in that
to which it belongs primarily and not by accident. The end of
natural growth is a potentiality inherent in the living thing .
from the beginning, in its constitution, so to speak, in its very
matter. He frequently compares natural end-directed activity to
the
end-directed
activity of human making.
The
crucial
differences are that in artifacts the final form of the work of
art exists primarily in the mind of the artisan, both the end and
the formative action hay5 their source in the artisan, external
to the thing produced . The unapprehended ends of natural
activities like respiration, metabolism, animal instinct, etc.,
do not require an external mind intending them as purposes. They
are simply inherent in natural things as potentialities.
For Thomas Aquinas as representative of the theocentric
view there is no end or final cause that is not intended as such
by some intelligence, as the artist intends the completed work of
art. If the being in which the end is being actualized does not
have the intelligence to apprehend it, it is apprehended by
the
intelligence of another, namely the intelligence of God. We quote
from his discussion of natural instinct:
"the sensitive appetite of dumb animals, and likewise the
natural appetite of insensible things result from
the
apprehension of an intellect, just as the appetite of the
intellectual nature ... called the will. But there is
a
difference,
in that the will is moved by an apprehension of
the intellect in the same subject; whereas the movement of
the natural appetite results from the apprehension of the
separate Intellect, Who is the Author of Nature; as does also
the sensitive appetite of dumb animals who act from a certain
natural instinct .... in the actions of irrational animals and
of other natural things wci obs~rve a procedure which is
similar to ... the actions of art."
According to Immanuel Kant as representative of the modern
anthropocentric view the necessary and universal laws which
constitute objective knowledge of nature are not found in the
things themselves, but, in his language, they are prescribed to
nature by the human understanding. When we come across phenomena
like the phenomena of living organized beings for which the laws
of mechanical cause and effect do not seem adequate, the
reflective judgment of the investigator should supply
the
phenomena with purposive laws that make sense of them ~ if some
intelligent cause, a God, had produced them . Like Thomas, Kant
argues that ends in nature only make sense when they are thought
of as intended by some intelligence, namely God. Teleology, he
argues, finds its consummation in theology. But this God cannot
be assumed to have objective reality. We produce and supply the
idea of such a being to ourselves in or~2r to satisfy the
subjective needs of our cognitive faculties.
The
ultimate
source
of the
5
appearance
of
end-directed
�activity fin irrational nature for the ancients is the
nature of things in themselves, for the medievals the
God, for the moderns the human understanding itself.
inherent
mind of
III
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
The Platonic-Aristotelian, or Socratic, way of seeking the
primary, permanent and fundamental things that are nature (among
other things, by thinking through the implications of human
speech) culminates in a doctrine that the truly fundamental is
the intelligible. For Plato it seems to be the eternal ideas, or
forms, or species; for Aristotle the thinking, or
active
intellection that is the life or energy constitutive of those
forms or ideas, or as he sometimes calls them, the universals. If
there is to be genuine knowledge, or even true opinion, of things
in themselves, these intelligibles must be able to exist at one
and the same time both in the things they characterize and in the
mind kn~!ing them, in the things as enmattered, in the mind as
thought.
Corresponding to the intelligibility in things, then,
is the power in all rational beings to apprehend it, the power
called nous, intellectual intuition.
There is another way to put this: for the classical
philosophers the intelligible is the divine, and the concern for
the truly divine is philosophy. The self-sufficiency of the
intelligible is the standard for both theoretical and practical
life; in this respect there is a harmony between
theory and
practice. But the intelligible is manifested in universal or
general principles, or as we often say, in general laws, and
every practical action is a particular action, an action of one's
own. It is true that every human action is more or less permeated
by the intelligible, by unde-~standing, but it is always a
particular action mixed with thI accidental and the contingent,
the inherently unintelligible. 4 According to this philosophy
then, it is impossible for any particular or contingent event to
be absolutely sacred. There seems to be a tension in our souls
between the love of the good recognized by intelligence and the
love of one's own that guides our spirited part. It is the
natural favoritism of parents for their own children and its
conflict with pure justice that leads to the unnatural family
arrangements of Plato's Republic.
Since both poles, the love of one's own stemming from our
particularity and the love of the good stemming from our
intelligence are rooted in human nature, the tension can assume
tragic proportions. We have no choice about the genetic make-up
with which we are endowed, the family and country in which we are
born. Yet to be bereft of pride of ancestry is barely tolerable,
a deficiency which~ furthermore, usually deprives its sufferers
6
�of sufficient energy to pursue the goods that intelligence might
discern. As individuals also, with regard to those basic goals,
virtue and knowledge, it is clear that virtue is not virtue,
knowledge is not knowledge, until it becomes one's own. Both
poles are ineradicable or equally primordial. On the highest
level, according to what Socrates says in the Symposium, the love
of one's own and the love of the good are reconciled, the true
object of love is "to have the good be one's own forever." (206a)
But for most of us most of the time the words of Plato's
Athenian Stranger seem appropriate:
"In truth the cause of every failure comes to each person
each time through excessive love of oneself. For the one who
loves is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges the
just and the good and the noble things badly, believing that
he is 1 ~ound always to honor what is his own before the
truth."
This consequence of our particular needs, this tendency
to sacrifice the truth to the love of one's own, points
to moderation as a key virtue in moral and political life, even
the moderation of our highest hopes.
The sublime Alenu prayer sung at the close of almost every
Jewish religious service calls out:
"We therefore hope in thee, O Lord our God, that we may
speedily behold the glory of thy might, when the abominations
will be removed from the earth
when the world will be
perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty, and all the
children of flesh will call upon thy name and all the wicked
of the earth will be turned to thee."
Compare this with Socrates in the Theaetetus answering an
enthusiastic Theodorus: "But it is not possible for evils to be
done away with, Theodorus, for it is necessary that there always
be something contrary to the good." The moderate Socrates,
however, does not silence the voice of his heart; he goes on to
add that of course evils cannot be established among gods,
just
that necessity forces the evils "to haunt mortal nature and this
region
here." Flight from these evils, he says,
partial
assimilation t9 the divine as far as possible in justice,
holiness and intelligence, may 1 ~e possible for some individuals
but not for society as a whole.·
That moderation is the virtue of the philosopher's action,
but not his thoughts is exhibited by this statement of the 10th
century Arabic philosopher Alfarabi on the relation of classical
philosophy to religion.
"There are two ways of making a thing comprehensible: first
by causing its essence to be perceived by the intellect, and
second by causing it to be imagined through the similitude
that imitates it. Assent, too, is brought about by one of two
7
�methods, either the method of ... demonstration or the method
of persuasion .... when one acquires knowledge of the beings
or receives instruction in them, if he perceives their ideas
... with his intellect, and his assent ... is by means of ...
demonstration,
then the science that
comprises
these
cognitions is philosophy .... if they are known by imagining
them through similitudes that imitate them, and assent to
what is imagined ... is caused by persuasive methods then the
ancients call what comprises these cognitions religion
Therefore,
according to the ancients, religion is
an
imitation of philosophy .... Religion sets forth images [of
the ultimate principles] by ... similitudes ... taken from
corporeal principles and imi~ates them by their likenesses
among political offices ... "
Further, to
enable us to overcome the passions bred
by radical selfishness and the love of one's own, counteracting
law-abiding passions must be bred by the sanctification of norms,
in order to enable us to live decently in society with a modicum
of freedom. Such sanctifications require divinities that can
address us passionately, individually and collectively, here and
now. Classical philosophy never considered itself able to become
a substitute for public religion.
If Aristotle's treatment of religion is t~ 8 be found
anywhere,
I believe it is most of all in his Poetics , and in
scattered remarks in the Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric and the
Metaphysics.
For Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, it is much
clearer: religion is classified in the Summa Theologica as a part
of the moral virtue of justice, religion is the worship which is
properly due and paid to God.
IV
MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Medieval philosophy is characterized by the attempt to
reconcile classical philosophy with revealed or
scriptural
religion, with the religions of the Bible and the Koran. For the
most influential medieval philosophers the natural world, as far
as natural reason unaided by supernatural revelation could
comprehend it, was to be understood through the philosophy of
Aristotle. The fundamental presupposition for medieval philosophy
is belief in the truth of the revealed word and in the God that
is its supernatural source. This assumption entails important
modifications of and deviations from Aristotelian doctrine.
Aristotle evidently held that the visible universe is eternal, at
least,
in
agreement with Plato,
that
its
intelligible
underpinnings, the forms, are eternal.
All philosophers seem to have accepted what has been called
8
�the principle of causality, namely, that nothing comes into being
out of nothing. The positive consequence of the principle is not:
Everything comes into being out of something. It , is rather that:
Everything that comes into being comes into being out of
something. Those "somethings out of which" have either themselves
come into being or have not come into being, that is, are
unchanging. The task for scientific and - philosophic knowledge
then is to discover the permanent or unchanging somethings, or
principles, underlying change. As Thomas Aquinas says, "that the
world did not always exis! 9 is held by faith alone, and cannot be
proved by demonstration."
The Bible tells us that in the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth. If the ultimate principles are unchanging
or eternal, philosophy tells us, there was no ultimate beginning.
To meet the challenge of ancient philosophy, religious or
scriptural philosophers declare that Almighty God super~aturally,
miraculously, created everything out of nothing. The Platonic and
Aristotelian forms are thoughts in the divine mind in accordance
with which He creates the laws of nature. Unlike any human
artisan He is not bound by the limitations of his materials, for
all material limits also are grounded in his will. There is no
eternal order independent of divine will, no source of principles
for human guidance apart from that will. If the God of the Bible
is omnipotent, He is also omniscient. Not the least action of the
least of his creatures escapes his notice.
In practice He is a caring God, a just and loving God.
There is no necessary conflict between the love of one's own and
the good, if the love of one's own is sanctified by the ultimate
principle of the universe. Particularity is not disparaged: the
ultimate principle of the universe reveals itself in personal
address to particular men, particular families and nations, on
particular
occasions. If their souls are
immortal,
each
individual is of everlasting importance. One can be fully at home
in the world when the world is one's Father's house.
On the other hand, one might say that the gulf between man
and the God of the Bible is unbridgeable. In the Hebrew Bible the
mutuality of the Covenant and the gift of the Law bridge the
gulf. In Christianity the gulf itself, one is tempted to say,
is
overcome by the mystery of God's becoming a particular man, by
the very
notion that full divinity can exist in a particular
man. The pain of the moral gulf between man and God is relieved
by Jesus's assumption of the world's sin, for all those who are
justified by believing in that sacrifice.
Morality for the Bible as a whole takes on heightened
importance when error and perversion become sin, an ungrateful
personal affront to the loving all-powerful source of all
goodness. In explaining why divine law was needed in addition to
natural and human law Thomas Aquinas says that because "of the
9
�uncertainty of human judgment ... on contingent and particular
matters
that man may know without doubt what he ought to do
and what he ought to avoid, it was necessary for man to be
direc~ d
by a law given by God, for ... such a law cannot
err." 0
This, however, is moderated by the arguments
of
philosophers like Thomas that the great bulk of morality is given
to men through the natural law, the law of reason. Virtues are
habits that perfect natural powers in a world so designed as to
allow reason to discover the ends implicit in most of nature.
Something
like
classical moderation,
the
moderating
of
unreasonable expectations, is also preserved in the medieval
distinction between this world and the kingdom of heaven, the
world to come, the "other" world.
How can classical and medieval philosophy deal with each
other's fundamental assumptions? Thomas's harmonizing formula is
that revelation goes beyond, but cannot contradict, reason.
Because revelation is superior, philosophy is the handmaid of
theology.
That
is not acceptable to
Alfarabi's
ancient
philosopher:
religion
is an imitation of
and
therefore
subordinate
to
philosophy. The possibility
of
Creation,
Revelation and miracles seem to rest on the assumption that God
is omnipotent and his will is unfathomable. Can reason refute
that assumption? Is it self-contradictory? Can revelation refute
reason? Can they even agree about what would constitute a
refutation, what would constitute evidence? A rational proof
demands suspension of belief, or doubt, until all the evidence is
in. Revelation claims that its truth requires faith in the
revealed and revealing God in order to be accepted and to be
understood. From the point of view of rational philosophy, faith
or belief is simply insufficient knowledge. Each can refute the
other only by begging the question in dispute, presupposing its
own canons for understanding. It appears that they are mutually
irrefutable.
Faith, Thomas Aquinas tells us, is an act of the intellect
wherein the intellect is moved to assent, not by the clarity and
evidence of the intellect's proper 2 ~bject, but by the command of
the will, the practical faculty.
This subordination of the
theoretical to the practical faculty is another fundamental
difference between ancient and medieval philosophy.
v
MODERN PHILOSOPHY
The mutual irrefutability of philosophy and revelation, Leo
Strauss has suggested, has created a tension that is perhaps the
secret of the vitality of ~estern Civilization, a civilization
that will not allow the mind to silence the voice of the heart,
nor the heart to drown out the voice of the mind. This tension
must trouble philosophy more than faith. If faith in the
10
�omnipotent God of Creation, Revelation and miracles cannot be
refuted, does philosophy itself rest on indemonstrable premise~
just a different kind of faith, or at best, disputable opinion? 2
To
free itself from this unresolvable
tension
and
uncertainty, Strauss suggests, a new kind of philosophy, modern
philosophy, comes into the world, rejecting both the idea of
nature of classical philosophy and the omnipotent God of medieval
philosophy -a new philosophy with a new basis, that is, man: the
ultimate source of meaning for humanity's understanding of the
world is the human understanding itself.
"If one wished to refute Orthodoxy, no other way remained
than to attempt to demonstrate that the world and life are
fully
understandable
without
the
assumption
of
an
unfathomable God. That means that the refutation of Orthodoxy
depended on the success of a system. Man had to prove himself
theoretically and practically the lord of the world and the
lord of his life. The world he created had to make the world
that was merely 'given' to him disappe~3· Then Orthodoxy was
more than refuted, it was 'outlived.'"
In the introduction to his Logic, Kant says that the basic
questions determining the basic divisions of philosophy,
"What
can I know?" (Nature), "What ought I to do?"
(Morality),
"What
may I hope?" (Religion), could all be referred to
the single
question, "What is man?"
The classical understanding of nature is opposed by the
modern idea of the conquest of nature and its practical goal, in
Descartes' words, of making men "the masters and possessors of
nature." The classical and medieval standard for morality,
virtue, seen as natural fulfillments of natural powers,
is
replaced by freedom, or more precisely, autonomy. And last in our
sketch of modern thought, the idea of history as a determinate
process rather than a certain kind of study, becomes a secular
substitute for Divine Providence.
a.
N~~ure, Bacon declares, cannot be conquered except by being
obeyed.
The nature to be conquered must be different from the
nature to be obeyed. The nature to be conquered is nature as it
presents itself to ordinary prescientific experience with its
apparent purposivity and unpredictability due to chance. The
nature to be obeyed, through which the conquest is to take place,
is the nature to be discovered by methodical experimentation
keyed to (following Galileo and Descartes) mathematical laws.
Final causes are to be excluded from physics. To prepare the way
for the new science the classical reliance on, or "idolization"
of, natural experience and natural speech is to be refuted by a
critique or refutation of the natural human understanding. This
critique culminates in Kant's assumption that there
is no
intellectual intuition that permits us to gain access to the
11
�nature of things in themselves. There is no
natural harmony
between the natural human understanding and the natural world.
Nature is not a kind mother, she must be tortured by methodical
experimentation and forced to reveal her secrets. Furthermore,
the ideas of chance or fortune and the subordination of art to
nature must be rejected as breeding a "premature despair in
human enterprises." The Aristotelian notion of unstable matter,
pure potency, underlying the notion of fortune is altogether to
be rejected. Matter is to be understood as acting in accordance
with fixed and unwavering laws. Above all, Bacon
insisted in
opposition to medieval philosophy, physics must be separated from
theology in order to avoid fabulous philosophy and
heretical
religion. With Bacon clearing the way, Descartes'
"I think"
becomes the exemplar of finding a beginning for thought that in
no way depends upon anything outside of man.
b.
The
new philosophy was obliged to find a new moral
standard that would be compatible with a
non-teleological
physics. Th~$ standard, again, is freedom, autonomy, selflegislation.
Rousseau was the first to define freedom as selflegislation, but it is already implicit in Hobbes's theory of
sovereignty and the social contract. According to Hobbes, we must
obey the sovereign because each of us through the social contract
has agreed to allow his will to represent each of our wills. His
legislation,
because of the social contract, is,
legally
considered, our own self-legislation. He is our representative.
Hobbes also formulated the more fundamental principle underlying
this conception: there is "no Obligati~g on any man, which
ariseth not from some Act of his own."
This is all made even more . explicit in Rousseau's doctrine
of the general will. Freedom in society consists in uniting
oneself with all the rest under the general will that declares
the law, while at the same time remaining free in so far as one
has contributed to the making of that law. The process that makes
the will general also makes it moral. Being compelled to express
one's will in such form that it can become a general law, so
that it can coincide with the wills of all the others, moralizes
the will. If I generalize my desire not to pay taxes in a law
that no one ought to pay taxes, I am compelled to see that then
the police, public schools, courts, and so on, would disappear,
and the irrationality of my original desire becomes manifest.
The idea is fully developed as a moral principle in Kant's
doctrine of the categorical imperative: So act that the maxim of
your action can become a universal law. The truly free or moral
person, according to Kant, bows only to the moral will or
practical reason within him or her self, and not to any standard
imposed from without, either by nature or by God.
12
�Hegel extends the notion of freedom as self-legislation
beyond
politics and morality to make it a
logical
and
metaphysical principle. The life of the concept, the life of that
Spirit or Mind that forms and informs the human mind, human
History and the objects of human knowledge -the mind of Godproceeds in accordance with the principle of freedom,
selflegislation. Hegel begins his "Doctrine of the Concept" with
these words: . "The Concept is the principle of freedom, the power
of substance self-realized." And later:
"
the concept is the genuine first; and things are what
they are through the action of the concept dwelling in them
and revealing itself in them. In our religious consciousness
this comes forth in such a way that we say God created the
world out of nothing, or, in other words,
the world and
finite things have issued from the fullness of the divine
thoughts
and divine decrees. Thus religion
recognizes
thought, more exactly the concept, to be the infinite form,
or the free creative activity which can realize itself
without the help of a matter that exists outside it." 27
At the same time modern ethical and especially political
thought is said to be characterized by a certain Realism
associated with the name of Machiavelli. Classical and medieval
political thought, they argue, failed because it aimed too high.
Because they based their political doctrines on exalted notions
of virtue and societies devoted to the formation of virtue, they
made themselves ineffective. As Bacon put it, their discourses
are beautiful like the stars, which give little light because
they are so high. Effectiveness can be secured by lowering one's
goals, by accepting and exploiting those lower motives that move
most men most of the time: pleasure, comfort, acquisitiveness,
and especially that all powerful negative motive fear, fear for
the loss of one's ~~fe and fear for the possible loss of what one
already possesses.
c.
We turn next briefly to that secular substitute for divine
providence, History, the meeting place of modern morality with
modern realism. One of the first signposts on the way to the idea
was Machiavelli's observation that the conflicts between nobles
and plebians in Rome, the vicious civil strife universally
deplored by the philosophers, actually led to the greater good of
Rome as a whole. Adam Smith extends the notion: private vice,
public benefit, to the economic sphere. Merchants intending only
their own gain increase the annual income and well-being of
society as a whole;
led by an invisible hand they promote
beneficial ends which are no part of their intentions.
Kant calls for a history that will show how the antagonism
of men in society, their ambition, lust for power and greed cause
them to develop their talents and, consequently, their moral
13
�discrimination so as to prepare them for citi29nship in the
perfectly free and moral societies of the future.
Hegel, as it
were, takes up Kant's call, finding Kantian freedom and reason,
linked up with his own doctrine of logical opposites, operative
everywhere in History, making Smith's invisible hand visible as
the self-unfolding of the human spirit and Spirit in general.
This self-unfolding culminates in the self-consciousness that all
spiritual goods are produced not by any external source, but by
Spirit itself. The idea . of History and the modern idea of freedom
seem to be inextricably linked, history allegedly showing that
man's freedom is basically limited only by the ideas of those
limits that human consciousness has imposed on itself; man's
freedom is limited by his earlier use of that inchoate freedom,
and ~ot 3 By his nature or by the whole order of nature and
creation.
VI
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
If to want to be fully at home in the world is a religious
motive, perfectly appropriate for a world governed by
an
omnipotent, beneficent and loving God, then perhaps we can
speak of a religious motive permeating modern philosophy from its
beginning, even in its anti-theological stances. If this is
correct, one can say that this motive begins to become explicit
with the formal acceptance of philosophy of religion as an
accepted branch of philosophy.
The modern scientific conception of nature, according to
Kant, is incapable of supplying ethical and political standards.
Morality is traced to a source independent of nature, namely,
practical reason. The realm of nature and the realm of freedom or
morality, according to Kant, do not contradict one another, but
like parallel lines simply do not meet. This thorough-going
separation becomes a special problem for Kantian philosophy. How
can natural man and moral man coexist in one and the same man?
How can the two realms be brought together in systematic unity?
Kant experimented with a philosophy of history, but finally
settled on a philosophy of religion. The Critique of Pure Reason
established, according to Kant, that we have no knowledge,
positive or negative, concerning the existence of God. Religion
within the limits of reason alone establishes what in the absence
of knowledge we are obliged to believe in order to strengthen our
capacities to obey the moral law. Religion is unambiguously
subordinated to morality, moral reason:
"pure moral legislation, through which the will of God is
primordially engraved in our hearts,
is not only
the
unavoidable condition of · all true religion whatsoever, but is
also that which really constitutes such religion."
True religion, he argues, "is a purely rational affair." 31
14
�His
position
is brought out
dramatically
by
his
interpretation of what he calls the myth of Abraham's sacrifice:
Abraham should have replied to this supposedly divine voice that
even if your voice rings down from heaven, if you order me to
kill my good 3 ~on, contrary to the moral law, you cannot be the
voice of God.
Some might regard this as superficially rational;
but would
the story of Abraham's sacrifice have had the
influence it has had if Abraham had indeed sacrificed Isaac?
Hegel's thought aims at absolute comprehensiveness. It aims
not
only
at comprehending and superseding
all
previous
philosophies and theories, but also the truth not only about but
within practical life and reality
as a whole. It's allcomprehensiveness
will allow it to supersede
all
finite
standpoints. One most impor3~nt part of that reality is religious
life and religious thought.
The incorporation of religion into
philosophy reaches its culmination in Hegel. "Culture has," he
declares:
"raised this latest era so far above the ancient antithesis
of reason and faith, of philosophy and positive religion,
that this opposition of faith and knowledge has acquired
quite a different sense and has now been transferred into the
field of philosophy itself. In earlier times philosophy was
said to be the handmaid of faith. Ideas and expressions of
this sort have vanished and giilosophy has irresistibly
affirmed its absolute autonomy."
Kant too, he argues, tried to accomplish this synthesis, but his
notion of reason was too narrow. Alongside
the
narrowly
intellectual and rational "religion has its sublime aspect as
feeling,
the love filled with eternal longing ... it yearns for
eternal ~5auty and bliss ... it seeks ... the Absolute and the
eternal."
Hegel's philosophy must encompass the full range of
religious experience. For Kant, Jesus was a representation of
"the Idea of Humanity in its full moral perfection." For Hegel,
Jesus was the epoch-making revelation that the universal divine
Spirit, God, that permeates and enlivens the universe dwells in
and comes to full self-consciousness in man, in the human spirit.
This consciousness goes through stages,the highest of which is
the conceptual. "Every philosophy sets forth nothing else but the
construction of highest bliss as Idea." "The sins of him who
lies against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, a~g the lie
against the Spirit is that he is not a universal .... "
The expected transformation of human life,
including
political life, Hegel's rational kingdom of heaven on earth,
according to his schedule, is long overdue. Kierkegaard, revolted
by Hegelian rationalism, turned to revelation as intrinsically
irrational. Nietzsche continued the modern project of finding the
source of meaning in, rather than outside of, man, however no
longer as reason, but as will. Heidegger urges us to be resolute
without clarifying what the ends of that resolution are to be.
15
�The classical and medieval dependence of morality on nature and
natural law is replaced by an exaltation of human "creativity"
coupled with despair of finding a rational source of ends to
guide that creativity.
However, even if modern thought should have proved an
inadequate candidate for articulating the meaning of human life,
there is one area in which its success seems indubitable. I refer
to the natural sciences. The question for those who lean toward
the classical or medieval alternatives is: Can modern natural
science be integrated into those allegedly more comprehensive
frameworks?
One indication, certainly no proof,
of
this
possibility is Werner Heisenberg's turning to Aristotle's concept
of potency and Plato's Timaeyf when he tries to make philosophic
sense out of quantum theory.
The unanswered questions raised by this broad survey might
seem overwhelming, but it does seem to be clear that we are faced
by three fundamental alternatives, and that the attempt to
dispense with or transcend the ancient and medieval alternatives
is highly questionable. If, as Heidegger says, questioning is the
piety of thoughtfulness, the piety of thoughtfulness requires
that we do justice both to philosophy open to the claims of faith
and to faith open to the claims of philosophy.
NOTES
*A revised version of a lecture delivered at St. John's
October 28, 1988.
College,
1. Heidegger has been discussed in greater detail with a brief
discussion of the relation of modern scientific philosophy
(Husserl) to religion in my "The Prescientific World
and
Historicism: Some Reflections on Strauss, Heidegger and Husserl,"
forthcoming in The Humanistic Legacy of Leo Strauss, ed. Alan
Udoff, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989).
2. Diels, 32.
3. The reference to God as Creator follows closely on the
reference to "the laws of nature and of nature's God", suggesting
that the Creation is carried on in accordance with those natural
laws.
4. Cf. Harry V . .Jaffa, "What is Equality? The Declaration
Independence Revisited," The Conditions of Freedom: Essays
16
of
in
�Political Philosophy, (Baltimore: The 3ohns Hopkins University
Press, 1975), 149-160; and George Anastaplo, "The Declaration of
Independence," St. Louis University Law Journal (Spring, 1965),
390.
5. Metaphysics, 981b 27-29, 982b 11-983a 11, 983b 7-984a 2, 1014b
16-1015a 19, 1074b 1-14, 1091a 29-1091b 20.
6. In Homer the word nature occurs only once, in the Odyssey. (X.
303) The first and only man to use the word is Odysseus who had
seen the cities and learned the minds of many men, who had
learned how men's thoughts differ from place to place and from
tribe to tribe. He uses the divinely given gift of natural
knowledge to defeat the baneful magic of a goddess.
7. Aristotle,
Physics,
II; Leo Strauss, Natural Right and
History,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1953), 78-97;
3ohn Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, (London: Adam and Charles
Black, 1892), Introduction.
8.
Holzwege,
(Ff. am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1950), 325.
9. Was Heisst Denken?,
(Ttibingen: Max Niemeyer, 1954}, 6-7.
10. Nicomachean Ethics, 1140a 1-23; Metaphysics, 1032a 12 ff.
11. Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 40, A.3. Cf. also Q. 1, A.2.
12. Kritik der Urteilskraft, Einleitung. IV, ## 75 and 76.
13. Plato, Meno, 72c 6-d 1.
14. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1027a 14, 1036a 9.
15.
La~'ls,
731e-732a.
16. Theaetetus, 176a-b.
17. Alfarabi, Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, translated and
edited by Muhsin Mahdi, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969),
Part I, sec. 55. Cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1252b 24-27.
18. Laurence Berns, "Aristotle's Poetics", Ancients and Moderns:
Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo
Strauss,
ed. 3oseph Cropsey, (New York: Basic Books, 1964), 7478, and 81.
(The last section, p.
82, should be
marked
"Epilogue".}
19. Aristotle,
De caelo, 298b
Theologica, I, Q. 46, A.2.
20. Ibid., I-II, Q. 91, A.4.
17
14-25;
Thomas
Aquinas,
Summa
�21.
Ibid., II-II, Q. 1, AA.4 and 5; Q. 2, AA.1, 2 and 9; Q. 4,
AA.1 and 8. The will, in turn, is moved by hope and charity: hope
of attaining the ultimate happiness of a supernatural vision of
God, and charity (friendship for God) in the desire to honor God
by the acceptance of his authority. Ibid. Q. 2, A.3, A.9 ad 2,
A.10; Q. 4, AA.3 and 7; Q. 23, AA.1 and 6.
22. Leo Strauss, "Progress or Return? The Contemporary Crisis in
Western Civilization," Modern Judaism I,
(Baltimore:
Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1981), 17~45; "The Mutual Influence of
Theology and Philosophy", The Independent Journal of Philosophy,
ed. George Elliott Tucker,
(Vienna:
1979), 111-118.
(Those
lectures [in 1952] provided a most important impetus
and
inspiration for these reflections.) Aristotle,Topics,
lOOa 30100b 23 and especially lOla 36-lOlb 4.
23. Leo Strauss, Philosophie und Gesetz: Beitrage zum Verstandnis
Maimunis
und Seiner Vorlaufer,
(Berlin:
Schocken,
1935),
Einleitung, and especially 21; translation by Fred Baumann,
Philosophy and Law: Essays toward the Understanding of Maimonides
and his Predecessors,
(Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication
Society,
1987), Introduction and especially 13;
Spinoza's
Critique of Religion, (New York: Schocken, 1965), Preface to the
English Translation, 28-31; History of Political Philosophy, eds.
Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1987), 296 and 297. Note that on 297 Strauss does not say
modern political philosophy.
24.
Novum
"conquered"
Part VI.
Organum,
I, aphorism 3
(Spedding
mistranslates
as "commanded".); Descartes, Discourse on Method,
25. Cf. Sophocles, Antigone, l. 821.
26. Leviathan, chap. 21.
27.
Enzyklopadie, I, ## 160 and 163; translation by W.
The Logic of Hegel, (Oxford: 1892), ## 160 and 163.
Wallace,
28. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History,
178-183; Laurence
Berns,
"Aristotle and the Moderns on Freedom and Equality",
The
Crisis of Liberal Democracy: A Straussian Perspective, eds.
Kenneth L. Deutsch and Walter Soffer, (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987),
Corrected Edition, 148-151.
29.
Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltburgerlicher
Absicht, Idea of a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent
30. Leo Strauss, "Progress or Return?", n. 22, above, 32-33.
31. DJe RelJgion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft,
Akademie-Textausgabe, VI,
104; Religion within the Limits of
18
�Reason Alone, translation by T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson,
(New
York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), 95; Der Streit der Fakultaten,
Akademie-Textausgabe, VII, 67; The Conflict of the Faculties,
translation by Mary J. Gregor, (dual language), (New York: Abaris
Books, 1979), 123.
32.
Ibid., note, 63 (German); 115 (English). Cf. Emil L.
Fackenheim, Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy,
(New York: Schocken, 1980), chap. 2, "Abraham and the Kantians:
Moral Duties and Divine Commandments."
33. Cf. Emil L. Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension
Thought, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), 15-23.
in
Hegel's
34.
Glauben und Wissen,
(Jenaer Schriften),
(Ff. am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1970), beginning; Faith and Knowledge, translation by
Walter Cerf and H. S. Harris, (Albany: SUNY Press, 1977), 55.
35. Ibid., 290-291 (German); 58 (English).
36. Der Streit der Fakultaten, 39; The Conflict of the Faculties,
67; Glauben und Wissen, 292; Faith and Knowledge, 59; Vorlesungen
uber die Geschichte der Philosophie, (Ff. am Main: Suhrkamp,
1971), I, 95; The History of Philosophy, Introduction.
37. "Planck's Discovery and the Philosophical Problems of Atomic
Physics,"
Lecture, Sept. 4,
1958,
On Modern Physics,
W.
Heisenberg, M. Born, E. Schrodinger, and P. Auger,
(New York:
Collier Books, 1962).
19
�
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On the relation between philosophy and religion
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