Interpretation

A JOURNAL
_l

OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Number 3 Job: Translation

Spring
251
287

1997

Volume 24
The Book

Robert D. Sacks Paul A. Cantor

of

and

Commentary
and

'A Soldier

and

Afeard": Macbeth

The

Gospelling
319
339
Todd R. Flanders

of

Scotland
Robinson Crusoe

Rousseau's Adventure

with

Colin D. Pearce

Prescott's Conquests: Anthropophagy, Auto-da-Fe and Eternal Return

Discussion

363

Harry

V. Jaffa

The Speech That Changed the World

Book Reviews

371 377

Alex

Harvey Morrisey

The End of Science, The

by

John Horgan

Will

Tragedy and Comedy of Life: Plato's Philebus, by Seth Benardete

Interpreta
Editor-in-Chief

Hilail Gildin, Dept.

Leonard

of

Philosophy, Queens College

Executive Editor General Editors

Grey

Seth G. Benardete Charles E. Butterworth Hilail Gildin Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Howard B. White (d. 1974)
Christopher Bruell loseph Cropsey Ernest L. Fortin lohn Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. laffa David Lowenthal Muhsin Mahdi Harvey C. Mansfield Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) Ellis Sandoz Leo Strauss (d. 1973) Kenneth W. Thompson Terence E. Marshall

Consulting

Editors

International Editors

Heinrich Meier

Editors

Wayne Ambler Maurice Auerbach Fred Baumann Michael Blaustein Amy Bonnette Patrick Coby Thomas S. Engeman Edward J. Erler Maureen Feder-Marcus Pamela K. Jensen Ken Masugi Will Morrisey Susan Orr Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin Susan Shell Bradford P. Wilson Michael Zuckert Catherine Zuckert
Lucia B. Prochnow Subscription
rates per volume (3 issues): individuals $29 libraries and all other institutions $48 students (four-year limit) $18

Manuscript Editor

Subscriptions

Single

copies available.
outside

Postage

U.S.: Canada $4.50 extra; $5.40 extra by surface mail (8 weeks or longer) or $11.00 by air. Payments: in U.S. dollars and payable by a financial institution located within the U.S.A. (or the U.S. Postal Service).
elsewhere

The Journal Welcomes Manuscripts

in

in

Political Philosophy

as

Well

as

Those

Theology, Literature,

and

Jurisprudence.

follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 13th ed. or manuals based on it; double-space their manuscripts, including notes; place references in the text, in endnotes or follow current journal style in printing references. Words from languages not rooted in Latin should be transliterated to English. To ensure impartial judgment of their manuscripts, contributors should omit mention of their
contributors should
other work; put, on the title page
with

only, their name, any affiliation

desired,

address

postal/zip

code

in full,

and telephone.

Contributors using

computers should,

if

possible, provide a character count of the entire manuscript. Please send three
clear

copies, which will not be returned.

Composition by Eastern Composition, Inc., Binghamton, N.Y. 13904 U.S.A. Printed and bound by Wickersham Printing Co., Lancaster, PA 17603 U.S.A.
Inquiries:

(Ms.) Joan Walsh, Assistant to the Editor interpretation, Queens College, Flushing, N.Y. 11367-1597, U.S.A. (718)997-5542 Fax (718) 997-5565
interpretation_journal@qc.edu

E Mail:

Interpretation
<Jrrino Spring
1 QQ7 1997
-m-*-

Vrlnm* 9_

Volume 24

MnmKor Number ^ 3

Robert D. Sacks
Paul A. Cantor

The Book

of

Job: Translation

and

Commentary
and

251

"A Soldier

and

Afeard": Macbeth

The 287

Gospelling
Todd R. Flanders Colin D. Pearce

of

Scotland
with

Rousseau's Adventure

Robinson Crusoe

319

Prescott's Conquests: Anthropophagy, Auto-da-Fe and Eternal Return Discussion

339

Harry

V. Jaffa

The Speech That Changed the World Book Reviews

363

Alex Will

Harvey Morrisey

The End of Science,

The

by

John Horgan
of Life: Plato's Philebus,

371

Tragedy and Comedy by Seth Benardete

377

Copyright 1997

interpretation

ISSN 0020-9635

Interpretation
Editor-in-Chief Executive Editor General Editors
Hilail Gildin, Dept.
of

Philosophy, Queens College

Leonard

Grey

Seth G. Benardete Charles E. Butterworth Hilail Gildin Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Howard B. White (d. 1974) Christopher Bruell Joseph Cropsey Ernest L. Fortin John Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. Jaffa David Lowenthal Muhsin Mahdi Harvey C. Mansfield Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) Ellis Sandoz Leo Strauss (d. 1973) Kenneth W. Thompson Terence E. Marshall
Heinrich Meier

Consulting

Editors

International Editors Editors

Wayne Ambler Maurice Auerbach Fred Baumann Michael Blaustein Amy Bonnette Patrick Coby Thomas S. Engeman Edward J. Erler Maureen Feder-Marcus Pamela K. Jensen Ken Masugi Will Morrisey Susan Orr Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin Susan Shell Bradford P. Wilson Catherine Zuckert
Michael Zuckert

Manuscript Editor

Lucia B. Prochnow

Subscriptions

Subscription rates per volume (3 issues): individuals $29 libraries and all other institutions $48 students (four-year limit) $18 Single
copies available.
outside

Postage
or

elsewhere

U.S.: Canada $4.50 extra; $5.40 extra by surface mail (8 longer) or $11.00 by air.

weeks

Payments: in U.S. dollars and payable by a financial institution located within the U.S.A. (or the U.S. Postal Service).

The Journal Welcomes Manuscripts

in

in

Political Philosophy

as

Well

as

Those

Theology, Literature,

and

Jurisprudence.

follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 13th ed. or manuals based on it; double-space their manuscripts, including notes; place references in the text, in endnotes or follow current journal style in printing references. Words from languages not rooted in Latin should be transliterated to English. To ensure impartial judgment of their manuscripts, contributors should omit mention of their
contributors should
other work; with

put,

on

postal/zip
copies,

code

the title page only, their name, any affiliation desired, address in full, and telephone. Contributors using computers should, if

possible, provide a character count of the entire manuscript. Please send three
clear which will not

be

returned.

Composition Printed
and

by

Eastern

Composition, Inc.,

Binghamton, N.Y. 13904 U.S.A.

bound

by

Wickersham

Printing Co.,

Lancaster, PA 17603 U.S.A.

Inquiries:

(Ms.) Joan Walsh, Assistant to the Editor interpretation, Queens College, Flushing, N.Y 1 1367-1597, U.SA (718)997-5542 Fax (718) 997-5565
interpretation_journal@qc.edu

E Mail:

The Book
Translation

of
and

Job

Commentary

Robert D. Sacks
St. John's College, Santa Fe

CHAPTER ELEVEN

1 Then Zophar the Naamathite

words never right?

answered and
man with

said, 2 "Will this

lip1

multitude of

be

answered?

Must the

the quick

always

be in the

3 Do

you think that this

lence? Do

you

'My

tenets are

claptrap of really believe you can mock spotless. I am pure in Thy

and
sided,2

yours should
without

bring

all men to si

would open

His lips

discernment is many your for

perversions3

4 You say being 5 Oh, if only God Himself speak to you, 6 tell you the secrets of wisdom: for and you must know that God will bear some of
rebuked?
sight.'

you. of

7 The deepest things

utmost

God,

can you

find them

out?

Would

you

discover the do? is its

things of The Almighty?

8 It is higher than heaven

what can you

deeper than the Pit

sure and

what can you

sea.4

know? 9 Longer than the

should pass

earth

mea

broader than the

10 If He

by

and

separate5

or close see

up,

who can

turn him back?

11 He knows the
man will

worthless man.

Can he
when

wickedness and not ponder

it? 12 Hollow
('adam).

become thoughtful

the

wild ass gives

birth to is

a man
your

13 But, if
and

you

direct

heart

firmly
your

and spread out your

hands to Him 14
and

if,

when

there
your will

wickedness

in

hand,
bear

you remove

it,

let

no

injus

tice dwell in
think of

blemish. You

tent, 15 be firm

then shall you

and

your countenance will

high

above all

have

no

FEAR. 16 You be

forget

all toil and

it only

as water that

has flown by. 17 Life

will

will arise out of

the noonday

sun and soar as

the morning. 18 You

and

secure
will

because there

will

be hope.

You

will

burrow in
afraid.6

lie

at ease.

19 You

be in

repose and none shall

make you

Many

will seek your

favor. 20 But the hope is to

eyes of

the guilty

will

fail. For them,

all escape

is lost,

and their one

exhale the

spirit."

The first ten

chapters of the translation and will appear

Interpretation. The balance

commentary in future issues.

appeared

in Volume 24, Number 2

of

interpretation,

Spring 1997,

Vol. 24, No. 3

252

Interpretation

Comments 1. Literally, "a man of and clearly intended to be derogatory. 2. The force, and hence the deceptive force, of human speech is its ability to speak of a part, even a random part, as if it were an intelligible whole. Job's
arguments presuppose that there
lips,"

is

a surface and that

it is sufficiently

open

to

human

comprehension to serve as an adequate

such

foundation for human fails to

existence.

But there may be many

vital part of the whole.

surfaces,

not one of which

obscure some seem

The things

within our

ken,

while

they

to hold

together in a

beguiling

sort of

is beyond it, as to render all inglessness. The spotless, when

seem to

way, may be required to be so modified by what human judgment inadequate to the point of meanseen within a

larger

context

may

no

longer

be

so.
"iniquity,"

3. This word, which has traditionally been translated tends to be used in a rather specific way in the Torah, and it is not impossible that Zophar

has in

mind a and

distinction
"sin."

which the

Torah

makes

between 'awon
while

or

"perver from

sion,"

het

or

Het

means

"to

mark,"

miss the
"pervert."

'awon

comes

"to meaning "to "path," done to a or to "the

a root all

twist,"

distort"

or or

right,"

to a mind, and hence

It is something that can be implies an effect on

future

growth.

One

refers to an

act, the other to a way of being.

Consider:

Deu. 5:9

visiting the perversion,

of the

fathers
fourth

upon

the children and the

children's children, to the third and

generation.

Contrast this
Deu. 24:16

verse with

Fathers

shall not

be

put

to death for their children nor shall

each man shall

children not

be

put to

death for their fathers, but

die

for his

own sin.

From
the

Deuteronomy
of

24:16 it is

clear that no one can

be held

responsible

for
a

"sins"

his

or

her

own particular

parent, but

"perversion"

with

it is

different

matter.
a general which

In the Torah there is

those acts of the
whole of the nation:

tendency
a

to use the word

and

'awon

to refer to

fathers

have

lasting

devastating

effect on the
put

for example, black slavery in early America. Or, to

of

it

in

other

words, even an immigrant who has newly become a citizen of this

although

any crime his father may have committed, of us, inherited a debt to the Native American peoples, a debt which we shall never be able to pay in full. There is also another aspect to the question. The more one thinks about the
country,
problem of

he, like all others, is innocent has, by virtue of becoming part

perversion, the more complicated and almost

insoluble it becomes.

The Book of Job

The
sons

253

have

committed a great crime;

but in their tradition, it

How then to
Bible is
apportion

was no crime. whole of

They

have been twisted

I

by

their tradition, and the suffering falls on the

the community, guilty and

end the cycle?

innocent

alike.

blame? How to

sometimes think that the

being terribly
or

optimistic when

it implies that One

term

an answer can

be found in only three

four

generations. meant when

might want

to rethink what the ancients

house"

may have

they
the

spoke of

"a

curse on a
syndromes"

by

considering in
a

what the moderns mean

by

"family
should

with regard to alcoholism or child abuse.

It

be

noted that when seen

Deuteronomy
enough

clearly contends that good longer than bad ones; but it also implies that if the
to hold on to the bad ones for a

fuller context, the quotation from traditions, if well founded, tend to last
world
were

not

sticky

little while, the

good ones would never

have

a chance either. second aspect of the

This

problem,

however, is
innocent

not part of

the story to be

told in this note. Here we shall be speaking of the debt which, from the point of
view of

the

Torah,

we all

owe, guilty

or

of

any

sin or crime.

Although
evidence

we must still

leave

open

the question

of whether

there

is

sufficient

to claim that the author of the Book of Job was aware of that tradition,

the tenor of Zophar's argument is so close to the thoughts contained in the tradition that I thought it not amiss to include this note. The

feeling
a

that Zophar

is

portrayed as

being

aware of the tradition

is

enhanced

by

the fact that he

is the

only

one

in

the

dialogue to
see, is so

use the enigmatic phrase

critical

"to bear

perversion,"

which,

as we shall

for

the Torah.
"bear."

The "bear
a

reader cannot

but

notice the

ambiguity in the

word

man can

his shoulders, or another can "bear/lift that off those shoulders, that is, he may forgive him; but then he may have to "bear on his own shoulders. the
perversion"

perversion

on

perversion"

Let

us

begin

by looking
the

for

ourselves at a complete

list

of the passages

in

the Torah in

which

word occurs:

Gen.

4:13

My
The
...

perversion

is too

great

for

me to

bear.

Gen. 15:16 Gen. 19:15

the

perversion of the

Amorites is

not yet complete.

lest

you

[Lot] be

consumed on account of

the perversion of

Gen. 44:16

city [Sodom]. God has found be

slaves to

out the perversion of your servant.

Therefore

we

will

chalice was

my lord, found.
your

both

we and the one

in

whose

hand the

Exo. 20:5
the

I the Lord

God

am a

jealous God, visiting the

hate
me and

perversion of

fathers

upon the sons and

the son's son, to the third and the

fourth

[generation]
a

of those that

kindness to my Exo. 28:38 Exo. 28:43

thousand

[generations]

of those that

showing loving love me and

keep

commandments.

and
.

he [Aaron] shall bear the perversion of the lest they bear the perversion and die.

holy

things

254

Interpretation
The Lord
passed

Exo. 34:6

before him, truth,

and

proclaimed, "The
slow

Lord,

the

Lord, is
in

a merciful and gracious

God,

to anger, and abounding

loving kindness bearing perversion

means clear

and

keeping

steadfast

love for thousands,

who will

and transgression and sin,

but

by

no upon

[the guilty], visiting the

perversion of

the

fathers

the son and the son's son, to the third and the

fourth

[generation]."

Exo. 34:9

If I have found favor

pardon our perversion and our sins

[Moses]. Lev.
5:1 If
anyone sins

in that he hears he

a call to come

testify,
knew

and

he

was

a witness

because he had

either seen the affair or

about

it but

does Lev.
5:17

not speak up,

anyone sins

shall

bear his

perversion.

in that he does any one of all the things which the Lord commanded him not to do and is unaware, he is guilty and he shall bear his perversion. But he may bring a ram to the priest If
....

Lev.

7:18

If any it be

of the

flesh

of

the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten

on the third

credited to

day, he who offers it shall not be accepted, neither shall him; it shall be an abomination, and he who eats of
perversion. you not eat the sin of the

it
Lev. 10:17

shall

bear his did

Why

[offering] in
it
was given

the

holy

place

because

it is the holiest
the Lord?

holy

and

to

you

to bear the

perversion of the congregation to make atonement

for them before live

Lev. 16:21

And Aaron

shall place

his two hands

on the

head

of

the

goat

and confess over

and their sins

him

all the perversions of the children of

Israel

....

Lev. 17:16

If he [one

who eats what

dies
and

of

itself

or

is torn

by beasts]
shall

does

not wash them perversion.

[his clothes]

bathe his flesh, he

I
punished

bear his

Lev. 18:25
Lev. 19:8

The land became defiled Anyone bear his

who eats

and so

its

perversions.
shall

it [a

sacrifice

left till the third day] he

profaned the

perversion

because he has

holy
his

things of the

Lord,
Lev. 20:17 Lev. 20:19 A

and that soul shall man who

be

cut off
. . .

from his

people.

takes his sister

has

uncovered

sister's

nakedness; he shall bear his perversion.

You
of your

shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or

father's sister, for that is to

perversion.
a man eat of the

make naked one's near

kin; they

shall

bear their

Lev. 22: 14
the

And if

holy thing

unwittingly, then he shall put

fifth

part thereof unto

it,

and shall give

it

unto the priest with

the

holy
...

thing.

Lev. 25:15 Lev. 22:16 Lev. 26:38-42

and

Israel,
Or
their

which

they shall not profane the holy they offer unto the LORD;

things of the children of

suffer then to

holy

things:

You
shall

will

bear the iniquity of trespass, when they eat for I the LORD do sanctify them. be lost among the nations and the land of your enemies

devour

[eat]

you.

account of their perversion

Whoever among you is left will rot away in the land of their enemies. Yea, on

on

The Book of Job

account of the perversion of their

255

fathers they

shall rot

along
Num.

with them.
....

But if they
said to
.

confess their perversion

...

away I will

remember

5:10ff.

And the Lord

Moses.
. .

Say

to the people of

Israel, if any
his
wife

man's wife goes astray, priest and

then shall the man

bring

to the

bring

the offering required of

barley meal: he shall pour no oil upon of jealousy a cereal offering of remembrance, bringing
remembrance.

her, a tenth of an ephah of it, for it is a cereal offering

perversion to

Num.

5:29

This is the law in

case of
goes

jealousy,
astray

when a wife, though under

her husband's authority,

spirit of

and

jealousy
shall set

comes upon a man and

defiles herself, or when the he is jealous of his wife;

be free from
perversion

then

he

the woman before the Lord and the priest shall

all this

execute upon

her

law. The

man shall

but the Num. 14:18

woman shall

bear her

perversion.

And now I pray thee let the power of the Lord be great as thou hast promised, saying; "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and

faithfulness, keeping

steadfast

love for thousands,

who will

bearing

perversion

and transgression and sin,

but

by

no means clear the

and

guilty, visiting the perversion of the fathers upon the children

the children's children, to the third and the

fourth

generation."

Num. 14:19
Num. 14:34

Pardon the

perversion of this people

...

I have

pardoned

According
perversion.

to the number of

days in

which you spied out

the

land, forty days, for every day

Num. 15:31 If
upon

year, you shall bear your

a soul raises

his hand [and murders]

...

his

perversion

is

him.
said to

Num. 18:1

And the Lord

of your

Aaron,

you, and your sons, and the house

father

with

you, bear the perversion of the

holy

place,

and

you, and your sons with you,

bear the

perversion of your priesthood.

Num. 18:21ff.

To the Levites I have

inheritance,

given every tithe in Israel for an But the Levites shall do the service in the tent shall

of

meeting, and

they

bear their

perversion and

it

shall

be

a people

Deu.

5:9

throughout your generations; and among the Israel they shall have no inheritance. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the perversion of the father upon the children and the children's
perpetual statute

of

children

....

Deu. 19:15

single witness shall not raise

up

against

any

man

for any

perversion or

any

sin

...

The first time the

original

word

is

used

perversion,

was

Cain's

act of

in the Bible, fratricide.

or one might even

say the

Gen. 4:13

My

perversion

is too

great

for

me

to bear.

256

Interpretation
perversion was committed

The fact that the first city is indicative

communal matter.

by

the founder of the first

of

the notion that perversion, as distinguished from sin, is a

Now it
were all

must

be

remembered

that our
and

shepherds,

living

in tents,

fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob even Lot when he flees the hills for the

city thinks it is
to

flee to,

prepared

by saying, "Yonder city is near enough Even he knows that God has not yet it is only a little the way for the city, and that it is no place for a good man, but he is
right

to excuse himself

one."

and

overcome

by

fear.
and

For the Bible, the two, fratricide

this wise.
wall
mine"

the

founding
put

of

the city, fall together in

a

Cain, first a farmer, then a founder, from "the to distinguish "the

required that creation.

thine."

fence and then a city up This act of radical self-estab his ties to the
roams

lishment
of

he

cut

himself

off and obliterate all of

rest

God's

The

shepherd's

life,

on the other

hand, freely
as all

through

out

the whole without

no

laying

claim

to any particular part of the whole. It

is

at

home, but it has

farmers must, is an essentially political act. By setting up a part and making it into a whole, it denies the availability of the given whole, either for oneself, or another. Cain wishes to establish his own world in the fullest sense possible.
home. Cain's
act of

building

fence,

As
the

further

consequence of the problem of

development,
since

the Bible presents

arts, too, as

having

their origin

in Cain's perversion,

they

are seen as a

product of

the city.

Gen. 4:20-22

Adah bore Jabal; he

and

was

the

father

of

those who dwell in tents

have

cattle.

His brother's

name was

all those who

the

forger

of all was

play the lyre and pipe. instruments of bronze

Jubal; he was the father of Zillah bore Tubal-cain; he was

and

iron. The

sister of

Tubal-cain

Naamah.

Of course, many
years

one

day

there will

be the

holy

city

of

Jerusalem, but it
of

will

take

and

many books to

work out

the legitimization

the city. Al

recounting of that story would lead us too far out of our path, we shall in time be forced to reconsider the arts and how the perverse becomes transformed into the holy. (For a more extended account of this subject, see my
though the

commentary on Genesis.) Cain's act, because it is

at

the center

of

the illegitimate origins of communal

society, then becomes the nexus of

what

the Bible means

by

perversion.
with one

Since
that

the only way of populating such a self-made world is via

most

incest

is

like oneself,

lying
A

with a sister

is

also

called, has

not a

sin, but

a perversion.

Lev. 20:17

man who takes shall

his

sister

uncovered

his

sister's

nakedness; he

bear his

perversion.

The
of the

connection

between

perversion and sisters

is

underlined

by

the

fact that

ten other illicit unions mentioned in the passage in

Leviticus:

The Book of Job

Neighbor's
Father's
A
wife

257

20:10 20:11 20:12 20:13

20:14

wife

Daughter-in-law
male

Wife A

and

her

mother

A beast
woman

20:15

having
sister

her

sickness

20:18 20:19 20:20

20:21

Mother's
Uncle's

wife

Brother's

wife

the only other to

be specifically
You

called a perversion also concerns a sister.

Lev. 20:19

shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or of make naked one's near

your

father's sister, for that is to

perversion.

kin; they

shall

bear their

Except for Genesis 15:16,

which we will

have

occasion

to reflect

upon

later
and

in this note, his brothers.

the next time the word shows

up is in

connection with

Joseph

When Joseph feigned the

and was about to take

discovery

of the stolen chalice said:

in Benjamin's

bag

him prisoner, Judah

Gen. 44:16

God has found

will

out the perversion of your servant.

Therefore

we

be

slaves to

chalice was

my lord, found.

both

we and the one

in

whose

hand the

Clearly
years

enough,

when

Judah

spoke of the

perversion, he

was not

thinking

of

the stolen chalice, but of the

fratricide

which

had

almost

taken place so many

before.
And the 'Let
us go

Gen. 37:17

man

said,

"They
saw

have

gone

away, for I heard them say,

to

Dothan.'"

So Joseph him

went after

his brothers,

and

found

them at them

Dothan.

They

afar off, and

before he

came near to

they

conspired against

him to kill him.

us

They

said

to one another,

"Here

comes this

dreamer. Come now, let say become

kill him

and throw

him

into

one of the

pits; then we shall

that a wild
of

beast has devoured

him,

and we shall see what will

his

dreams."

Again, the text in 44:16 indicates a relation between fratricide and perversion. Yet, in Judah's words, we can also begin to see some way out. The brothers, not taking well to Joseph's rather imperious character, decided
to kill him. But Reuben was of a more affable character, and,
thought

being

the eldest,
of a bum-

it his

duty

to save Joseph's life. But Reuben

was

something

258

Interpretation
plan was

bier. His ful. He

to

have the brothers

the

put

Joseph in

pit,

thinking

to come

back later

and return

boy

to his

father. Judah, however,

only
a

was more thought

realized that the problem would

arise again, and that the

only

solution was to get the was to persuade the

boy

out of the country. sell

The only way that

was possible

brothers to

Joseph to

In

order

to explain to Jacob what

passing Ishmaelite caravan. had happened, the brothers took Joseph's

wild

splendid and

coat, dipped it in the blood of a

recognize"

animal, brought it home to

Jacob,

said, "Please to

this coat. Jacob looked at the coat and said,

Joseph."

"Indeed,
much

a wild animal

has

eaten

We

are

Jacob understood,
the

and what
was

kind
the

of a wild

only left to wonder how animal he was thinking of.

after what

Judah thought
could no

boy

probably safe, but

had happened, he

longer

share a

life

with

others and went off with a

friend, Hirah

the Adullamite.

sons of

Now, Judah had a daughter-in-law named Tamar, whose Judah, had died. Tamar felt it her duty to raise a
She
her
then threw off

two
seed

husbands, both
in memory
of widow's weeds

those sons, but Judah had denied her.

her

and,
and

dressing
Hirah

as a whore and

standing

at the

city gate,

she waited until

Judah

came along.

Judah

slept with

and promised

to send her a kid as

payment.

In pledge,

she

Judah

city Some time later, Judah heard that his daughter-in-law was about to have a child by harlotry and demanded that she be publicly burnt. But when Tamar
appeared, she
to
recognize"

returned with the

demanded his signet, his cord, kid, no whore was to be found

and

his

staff.

But

when

at the

gate.

produced

the signet and the cord and the staff, and said, "Please

these objects.
recognize"

Those words, "Please to he had heard them once before. Time suddenly became jumbled for Judah. Was it now, or was it then? Who was
speaking?

Jacob? What
was

Was Tamar speaking to him, or was it himself speaking to h;s father was it that he was to "recognize"? Was it the coat, or the staff, or
else?

it something
ready
alike.

and was

to return to
sin or

He had learned from her something about responsibility his brothers. For Judah, that return meant that per

version, unlike

guilt, was a

thing

to be shared among

brothers, guilty

and

innocent
This

sense of shared emerges

responsibility,

and

its

relation

to the concept

of perver

sion, only slowly from the text. Perhaps aspects of the problem can be seen in the following Lev. 5:1 If
anyone sins

one of verse:

the more tangible

in that he hears

a call to come

testify,

and

he

was a

witness

because he had

either seen the affair or

knew

about

it but does

not speak

up, he shall bear his perversion.

This is, perhaps, not the deepest sense of togetherness that Judah was feel ing, yet even here we can see how an otherwise innocent man might find him self responsible because of where and when and with whom he happened to be,
regardless of

how he had

acted at the time.

The Book of Job

There is

259
in

one other aspect of perversion that comes out of the same chapter

Leviticus.
Lev. 5:17
If Lord
shall

in that he does any one of all the things which the him not to do and is unaware, he is guilty and he bear his perversion. But he may bring a ram to the priest
anyone sins

commanded

....

and another

like it.
And if

Lev. 22:14-16

a man eat of a

holy thing

unknowingly

and so cause

them to bear the perversion and guilt

by

eating their

holy

things.

Here,
In
order
assume

perversion seems to

be

intimately
in

connected with

lack

of awareness.

to

make sense of

the passage, I
with a case

believe that the

which

reader

is

meant to

that the text

is

dealing

the actor was in no position

to be aware of his crime, and that his

lack

of awareness was not

due to any

insensitivity
Since he

on

his

part.

only knows about it by hearsay and, as it were, from the outside, he cannot feel any guilt or repentance in the normal sense of the word. He can, of course, feel a deep sense
was unaware of the sin at the time of the act and
of sorrow

because

of the

result, and

a need

to undo any wrong, but that is not

the same. He nevertheless still

feels

a strange

kind

of

guilt,

however, because
same

he

now

knows that he has benefitted from for

repentance

an unjust act.

At the

time,

since

there is no need
single act

in the

normal sense of the

word, there is no

he

can perform

to rid himself of a sense of guilt. This seems to be

one of the roots of what the

Bible

perceives as
. . .

the human need for ritual sacri

fice: "But he may bring a ram to the priest At the very least, this law must remind one

of the

fact that the been the

son

be
as

aware of the perversion of the

father,

which

he

nonetheless must

may not bear insofar

it has helped to determine the

has
sustained

shape of

his life

and

source of much

of what

him

since the

day

of

his birth.

To face
and

more

fully
to the

the question of the relationship between ritual sacrifice the passages that

perversion, let
proem

us reconsider

lead to this discussion.

man, God
says:

In the

laws

of actions

between

man and

Exo. 20:5

You

shall not

bow down to them

or serve

them; for I the Lord

your

God

am a

jealous God visiting the

me and

perversion of the

fathers

upon of

the sons and the son's son, to the third and the fourth
those that

[generation]

hate

doing loving
love

kindness to

a thousand
commandments.

[generations]

of those that

me and

keep

my

But,
greater

after

the affair of the golden calf, when

of this

Moses felt that he

needed a gave

understanding

God in

order

to continue as

leader,

God

him

a somewhat revised version:

260

Interpretation
The Lord is
passed

Exo. 34:6

before him,

and proclaimed,

"The Lord, the Lord,

abounding in

a merciful and gracious and

God,

slow to anger, and

loving

kindness

truth,

keeping

steadfast

love for thousands,

who will

bearing

perversion and transgression and

sin, but

by

no means clear

[the guilty], visiting the

son's

perversion of the

fathers

upon

the son and the

made

son, to the third and the

fourth

[generation]."

And Moses

haste to bow his head toward the earth,

and worshiped.

And he said,

"If

now go

thee, bear our

I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people; and
perversion and our

sin, and take us for

inheritance."

thy
I

And

he said, "Behold, I
"

make a covenant.

Before

all your people

will

do

marvels

What
gracious

we

have is
slow

ambiguous.

We have learned that God is "a

merciful and

God,

to anger, and abounding

in

loving
asked

kindness

and

truth,

keep
sin."

ing
But

steadfast on

love for thousands,

bearing

perversion and transgression and

the other

hand,

when

Moses actually
and of

God to "bear but

our perver

sion,"

God

"covenant,"

"marvels,"

spoke of a
perversion."

said not a word about

"bearing
sent to

our

Some time later, spy

out the

very

similar affair occurred.

After the

men that

Moses had

land

returned and told their

tales, fear

struck the people and

they
It

revolted.

should

be

noted

in passing that this

particular act of rebellion was also

called a perversion:

Num. 14:34

According to the number of days forty days, for every day a year, you

in

which you spied out the

land,

shall

bear

your perversion.

ing

The story of how this early act of perversion led to the necessity of conquer lands not originally intended to be part of the new nation, and the role these

extraterritorial

lands

played

hundreds

of years

later in the total destruction

of

the country at the

hands

of the

Assyrians

and the

told in my Genesis commentary. I mention the affair only

striking example of one sense of what it means was bome for twelve hundred years till one day it
of

Babylonians has already been because it is such a to bear a perversion. This one
was visited upon the children

the children. But we must return to our subject and consider the second
and

discussion between God It took After Moses

Moses.
was about to abandon of

place at the time as the

God

His

people and start over

again with

father

"a

nation greater and mightier

of such a

than

they."

having

argued the

impracticality

plan, Moses repeated God's

with

promise

back to Him in

a conversation much

like the first, but

very differ

ent results:

Num. 14:17

And now, I pray thee, let the power of the Lord be great as thou hast promised, saying, "The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in

The Book of Job

261

loving kindness, bearing perversion and transgression, but who will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the perversion of the fathers
upon the son and the son's

son, to the third and the fourth people, I pray thee,

and
now."

[generation]. Bear the

thou

perversion of this

according thy loving kindness, hast born this people, from Egypt even until Lord said, "I have borne, according to your
to the greatness of
'
word."

according as Then the

"

word'

"I have borne, according to your Things have changed, and what could not have happened then, now can happen. As we shall see, that change
centers on the

life,

and

ultimately the

Before

we consider those

death, of brother, Aaron. things, however, there is in the Bible one

same elements as

Moses'

other

account which

brings together the

the undetected,
or

the story of Aaron: jeal

ousy, perversion,

priest,

and

an of

consumed at the risk of pain

death, and, last

offering which must be all, forgiveness and the

possibility of returning to the fullness of normal life. Since the story lives on a more human level, it might be best to begin there:
Num. 5:11-31

And the lord

man's wife goes

said to

Moses.

Say

to the people of
against

lie

astray, unfaithfully her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she is undetected though she has defiled herself
with

and acts

Israel, if any him, if a man

and

there
and

is

no witness against spirit of

her,

since she was not taken

in the act;
of

if the

jealousy

comes upon

him,

and

he is jealous

his

wife who

upon

has defiled herself; or if the spirit of jealousy comes and he is jealous of his wife though she had not defiled him,
then shall the man
required of

herself;
the

bring

his

wife to the priest and

bring
meal: a

offering

shall pour no oil upon cereal

her, it, for it is

a tenth of an ephah of a cereal

barley
of

he

offering

jealousy,

offering

of

remembrance,

bringing

perversion to

remembrance.

The
the

priest shall

priest shall
some of

take the

bring her near and set her before the Lord, and holy water in an earthenware vessel, and
that

take

the

dust

is

on the

floor head

of

the tabernacle and put

it in

the water.

And the hair

priest shall set the woman

before the Lord

in her hands
of

and unbind the

of the woman's

and place

offering of remembrance which is a cereal offering jealousy. And in his hand, the priest shall have the water of
the
cereal

bitterness that brings the

an oath

curse.

Then the
with

priest shall make

her take

saying "If

no man

has lain

you, and if you have not

turned aside to uncleanliness, while you were under your

husband's authority, be free from this brings the

curse.

water of

bitterness

that

But if

you

have

gone

under your

husband's authority,

and

astray though you were if you have defiled yourself

with

and some man other than your

husband, has lain

you, [then

the

priest shall make

the

woman

take the oath of the curse and

say

262

Interpretation
to the woman]

"the Lord

make you an execration and an oath

among
your your

your people when the

Lord

makes your thigh

body

swell; may
Amen."

the water that

brings

the curse pass

fall away into

and

bowels

and make your thigh

fall

away."

And the

woman shall

say "Amen,
Then the
them off
woman

priest shall write

these curses
and

in he

book

and wash

into the

waters of
water

bitterness;
into her

shall make

the

drink the

that brings the curse and the water that

and cause of

brings the

curse shall enter

her bitter

pain.

And

the priest shall take the cereal

woman's and

offering

jealousy

out of the

hand

and shall wave the cereal

and the priest

bring

it to the altar;

offering before the Lord shall take a handful of the And he

cereal

offering, as its memorial portion, and burn it upon the altar, the
woman

and afterward shall make

drink

the water.

when

has

made

acted

her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and unfaithfully against her husband, the water that brings the her
and cause

curse shall enter

and

bitter pain,

and

her

body
not

shall swell
an

her thigh

shall

fall away,

and the woman shall

become

among the people. But if the woman has herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall
execration children.

defiled

conceive

This is the law in

case of goes

jealousy,
astray

when a wife, though under

her husband's authority,

the spirit of

and

jealousy

comes upon a man and

defiles herself, or when he is jealous of his

and the priest

wife; then he

shall set

the
all

woman

before the Lord

man shall

shall execute upon perversion

her

this

law. The bear her

be free from

but the

woman shall

perversion.

Here

we

have the

case of a man who suspects

his

wife and

is jealous

on

little

or perhaps no grounds at all. monster

But,

as we

know from Othello, the

court, there
a can

green-eyed

is hard to

shake.

In

a case of
proven.

law

at

be

a presumption of

innocence,

and guilt must

be

Within

family, however, for

the sake of

domestic peace, innocence must be proven. The Bible does not wish to defend that fact, but merely to deal with it. Guilt is often a very difficult thing to
establish, but it
or of a

is usually impossible to establish innocence. If the husband is in bad error, disposition, it would be easy to say, "That's his Unfortunately, however, it has become the wife's problem too. The measured and
austere trappings of grave come

problem."

danger. The

ritual

ceremony allow the wife to pass through her trials without is intended to be a way through which the husband can

to terms with his

jealousy,

so that peace can return to

family

life.
of

I believe that this law is intended to

the

give the reader some

understanding
a critical part

biblical

contention that a

formal

ritualistic act must

play

in

our attempt

to deal with perversion.

retell

Now is the time to

the story of the

of quotations

life from

and
our

the death

of

Aaron the God

Priest,
At

and

only

an odd

handful

list

will remain.

one point

in the

middle of their

first conversation, Moses had

said to

The Book of Job

Exo. 4:10

263

"Oh, my Lord, I
thou

am not a man of

speech, either heretofore or since

slow of speech and of

hast

spoken to

thy

servant; but I am

tongue."

We

cannot understand that at

him,

the more eloquent

and whatever

first. On the contrary, the more we get to know he seems. But God does seem to have understood some
made

thing,

it was, it

Him very

angry.

Exo. 4:11

Then the Lord

makes

said or

him dumb,

him, "Who has made man's mouth? Who deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?
to

Now therefore go,

you shall

and

will

be

with your mouth and teach you what

speak."

But Moses
Exo. 4:13

again

protests,
send, I pray, some other
against
person."

"Oh, my Lord,
the

Then the

anger of

LORD

was

kindled

Moses

and

he said, "Is there

well; and

not

your

brother,

the

Levite? I know that he

can speak

Aaron, behold, he

is coming
heart."

out to meet

you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his

of Aaron, and we might be a bit surprised to This anger "Aaron, your brother, the might lead us back to remember the first pair of brothers, and might even momentarily cause us to remember how their own father, Levi, once treated his newly adopted brothers, the men of Shechem; but these ominous feelings soon we

This is the first time

hear

hear him introduced in

Levite."

anger as

pass,

and when pair

the two
well.

The

did

first meet, the occasion is quite joyous. The slaves were freed, and slavery is a terrible thing.
even

What they did

pieces

was

right,

still to

be

picked up. suffered all

minded of the

harm in

marvelous, but after it was over there were many Even before they escaped Egypt, they were re by the innocent among the guilty on the other side.
commanded not to

Such is the fall from

norm

countries, but Israel had been

let it

memory.

Exo. 13:15

For
all the

when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord slew first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and

the first-born of cattle. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males
that

first

open

the womb; but all the first-born of my sons I redeem.

After the escape, they came to a water hole at Marah, but the water was bitter and the people complained. God didn't make much of a fuss though. He

just He
see

showed

Moses
and

tree,

and

Moses

seemed

to know
was

threw

it in

the water turned sweet.

God

instinctively what to do. hoping the people would

springs

how foolish they had been when they came to twelve the bend at Elim. There had been no need for the miracle.

just

around

264

Interpretation
was the affair of the manna and after people showed

Then there
water.

that more

complaints about

On that day, the

that

they

were

incapable

of

trusting
said

to to

the given course of things, but would need miracles, and so the Lord

Moses,
Exo. 17:5f.

Pass

on

before in

the people,
your

taking

with you some of the elders of

Israel;

and take

hand the

rod with which you struck the

you

and go.

Behold, I
may drink.

will stand

before

there on the

rock at

Nile, Horeb;
that the

and you shall strike the people

rock, and water shall come out of

it,

"Strike": After

second a
war

person,
with

imperative, singular; Amaleq, Jethro,

law is best. On the
in the

"Strike."

We

must remember that.

Moses'

argument quite similar

to the one found in Aristotle's

one

Moses that the

as

rule of

father-in-law, appeared. By an Politics, he convinced hand, no law can be so fashioned

affairs as well as

to be able to deal adequately with each of the infinite number of convoluted

course of one

cases which can arise

human

the wise man

can,

so

long

as

he may face them

by

one.

But

wise men are not always

great

available, and when

person.

they

are, the

work soon

becomes too

for any

one

ascended

Laws, then, are needed to guide others. So Moses made preparations, Mount Sinai, and received the Law. This was the law that Jethro had
Although it has
a

spoken of.

proem,

what we sometimes call the

Ten Com
a

mandments, the bulk of the law proper, Exodus

21-23, is essentially

law

governing the actions of men in their relations with other men. When Moses returned he told the words that he had heard to the people, and only after they had agreed to follow them, did he write them all down in the Book
of

the Covenant.

Exo. 24:7
of

Then he took the Book

the people; and
and we will

of the

Covenant,

and read

it in the

hearing

they

said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will

do,
Thus it
seems to

be

obedient."

have been important to Moses that these laws be be

committed to

accepted

before they ceremony

could

once

they had been

Moses
"All the

written

writing down.

and then read again aloud

in

a great

Exo. 24:3ff.

came and told the people all the words of the

Lord

and all

the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said,
words which the

Lord has

do."

spoken we will rose

And Moses

wrote all the words of the and

Lord. And he
of the

early in the morning,

sent

built

an altar at the

foot

mountain, and twelve pillars,

according

to the twelve tribes of

people of

Israel. And he

young lads from

of the

among the blood

Israel,

who offered

burnt

offerings and sacrificed

peace offerings of oxen to the and put

Lord. And Moses took half

it in the basin,

and

half

of the

blood he threw

against

The Book of Job

the altar.

265

Then he took the book

the people; and
and we will

of the

covenant,

and read

it in the
spoken

hearing
we will

of

they

said, "All that the Lord has

do,

be

obedient."

And Moses

took the

blood

and

threw it upon the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant
which the
words."

Lord has

made with you

in

accordance with all these

But

Moses'

sacrifice and

led to

a strange event

concerning two

of

Aaron's sons,

Nadab

Abihu.

Exo. 24:9ff.

Then Moses
elders of

and went

Aaron, Nadab,
up, and

and

Abihu,
God

and of

seventy

of the

Israel

they

saw the

Israel;

and there

was under

his feet

as

it

were a pavement of sapphire

stone, like the

on the chief

very heaven for

clearness.

And he did

not

lay

his hand

men of the people of

Israel; they beheld God,

and ate and

drank.

Moses'

ceremony,
awry.

which

had

nowhere

been commanded, had

somehow gone

Some

readers

may

sense

it in

verse

10,

others not until the end of verse

us

11, but

most of us

feel nothing

until

it hits

in the

middle of

the Book of
called

Numbers. God, however, saw the Moses back up to the mountain to Tablets
of

problem

at

once, and

immediately
laws

give

him

a second set of

called the

Stone.
saw most

What God

clearly in the

actions of

Nadab

and

Abihu,

and which

Moses failed to see,

point of

was a certain wildness

in the human

soul which no

law

governing the action between

view, this wildness
soul.

man and man could abolish.

From the biblical

and the

is

a strange melange of the

highest

lowest

there

is in the human
The idea We

It is the human

need to sacrifice.

First,

we remember that neither

was of

Cain,

nor

Abel,
It is

nor a

Noah

was asked

to give

a sacrifice.

human

origin.

wild

nest of

interwoven

contradictions.

wish

to become the whole

whole

to submerge ourselves into the the form

of the other. saw

by destroying the other; we wish by symbolically destroying ourselves in

to

We

give ourselves unto

When God

that wildness

God, and we bribe Him. in Nadab and Abihu, He quickly turned

Moses:

Exo. 24:12

The Lord
wait

said to

Moses, "Come up

to me on the mountain, and

there;

and

will give you

the TABLETS OF

STONE,
for their

with

the

law

and the commandment, which

I have

instruction."

written

The

next seven chapters give an account of the plan

for the

building
too

of

the
and

tabernacle and the

installation description

of

its

priests.

It

meets the needs of

Nadab

Abihu, but it is full

to
give a complete acacia

of number and order. of

The

passage

is

much

long

for

us

the gold and the silver, the scarlet and the

wood, or even the lampstand and the turban and the ephod,

but the

266

Interpretation
head
should

reader's

be full

of all

these splendors

when

he

thinks about the

things that we must

now

discuss.
a wonderful presentation of all the

Chapter Twenty-Eight is deur

proper

pomp

and gran

to the office of the High Priest.

Exo. 28:1 Iff.

"As

jeweler

engraves

signets,

so shall you engrave the two

stones with the names of the sons of

Israel;

you shall enclose

them

in

settings of gold

filigree

....

And

you shall set

in it four

rows of

stones.

row of

sardius, topaz, and carbuncle

shall

be the first row;

. . .

and the second row an

emerald,

sapphire, and a diamond

And

you shall make the robe of the ephod all of an

blue. It

shall

have

opening for the head, with a woven binding around the opening, like the opening in a garment, that it may not be torn. On its skirts you shall make pomegranates of blue and purple and
scarlet golden

in it

stuff, around its skirts, with bells of gold between them, a

bell

and a

pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate,

....

round about on the skirts of the robe

coat

And

you shall weave the

in

checker work of

fine linen,

and you shall make a turban of

. .

fine
.

linen,
In the

and you shall make a girdle embroidered with needlework

middle of all this

pageantry,

however,

we

are

told of Aaron's more

serious purpose.

Exo. 28:35ff.

"And it
shall

shall

be

upon

Aaron

when

he ministers,
place

and

its

sound

be heard he

when

he

goes

into

the

holy

before the Lord,

of a

and when pure

comes

out, lest he die. And you shall make a plate of

gold, and

engrave on

it, like

the

engraving
shall

signet,

'Holy

to

the

Lord.'

And

you shall

fasten it

on the turban

by

lace

of

blue; it

shall

be

on the and

front

of the turban. shall

It

be

upon

Aaron's

forehead,

Aaron

BEAR THE PERVERSION OF THE

Israel hallow
that
as their

HOLY THINGS

which the people of

holy

gifts; it shall always be upon his

accepted

forehead,

they may be

before the

Lord."

We

read

it, but

we

do

not yet understand.

The

rest of

the chapter seems to go well,

but

again the end gives us pause

Exo. 28:41

"And

you shall put them upon

Aaron

your

brother,

and upon

his

sons with

him,

and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate

them, that they may serve me as priests. And you shall make for them linen breeches to cover their naked flesh; from the loins to the thighs

they
altar

shall

reach; and
go

they

shall

be

upon

Aaron,

and upon

his sons,

when

they

into the tent be

of

meeting,

to minister in the
shall

holy

place; lest

they they BEAR PERVERSION

for him
and

or when

come near the

AND DIE. This

a perpetual statute

for his

descendants

him."

after

The Book of Job

Chapter Twenty-Nine deals
ter
with

267

the installation of
all

Aaron,
if

and

the next chap

describes the
for
a

perfume

that makes

things smell sweet. Then comes the

we put that

appointment of
off

Bezalel, but it
came

will make

things clearer

discussion

bit.
down from the mountain, God
gave

When Moses
of this

him

a written
of

form

law,

which

is

again

specifically

referred

to

as

the

Tablets
God.

Stone.

Exo. 31:18

Tablets

of

Stone,

written with the

finger

of

Meanwhile,
and said

the people,

despairing

Moses'

of

return,
of

asked

Aaron to

make

them a god. Aaron collected all their

rings

gold, fashioned them into a calf,

Exo. 32:4ff.

"These land
of

are your

gods, O

Israel,
saw

who

brought

you

up

out of the

Egypt!"

When Aaron

this, he built
"Tomorrow

an altar shall

Aaron
Lord."

made proclamation and said,

before it; and be a feast to the

to

God, showing Himself angry to Moses, threatened to consume them all, and start anew. He said to Moses, as He had once said to Abram, "I will make
nation."

Moses'

you a great made a promise

answer was a

slow,

reasonable

defense. God had

to the

fathers,

and

if He

were

to break that promise, no nation

in the

world could ever

trust Him again.

Exo. 32:9

And the LORD it is

a stiff-necked

said

to

Moses, "I have

seen this

people, and

behold,
I
will

people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath

may burn hot

make a great

against them and

nation."

I may consume them; but But Moses besought the LORD his
wrath

of you

God,

and

said, "O

LORD, why does thy

forth

burn hot
of

against

thy

people, whom

thou hast brought

with a

out of the

land

Egypt

with great power and

mighty hand? Remember Abraham, Isaac,

and

Israel, thy
didst say to
and all
and

servants, to whom thou didst swear

by

thine own self, and

them, T

multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants,
will shall

they
he

inherit it for

ever.'

"

And the LORD

repented of the evil which

thought to

do to his

people.

But Moses

perhaps
about?

it

was all

just

test,

and

if it

was a

test,

what was

God testing

Abraham,
let Moses

as

God had, in fact, offered Moses the chance to supplant his father Oedipus had once done to his father. If the point of the test was to

for himself that he was capable of rejecting the chance of sup father in order to save his people, he had done well. planting his But if it was a test of his sobriety and understanding, he had passed in
see

speech, only to

fail in

action.

When he faced the

actual situation of the

moment,

everything had

changed:

268

Interpretation
And
as soon as
Moses'

Exo. 32:19

he

came near the

dancing,
hands

anger

and

broke

them

camp and saw the calf and the burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his at the foot of the mountain.

Let

us

look

more

closely

at what

broke the tablet Stone

which

not the

book,

Moses actually did in verse 32:19. He but the tablet. This is, presumably, the Tablet of
to give Moses in Exodus 24:12 and
and which were still
which

God had

promised

He

had actually given him in Exodus 31:18 Exodus 32:15. This

means came

in his hand in

day

he

that according to the Book of Exodus the tablet Moses broke the down from the mountain did not contain what we today, and for

many days gone past, have called the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:2-17. Rather, it was the laws of the tabernacle, Exodus 25:1-31:18. Moses had
seen

through God's trick. The tabernacle was nothing more than

substitution

a glorified and none of

placating

for the
on

golden

calf, and he
was a

would

have

it. Even

the altar still

had homs

it. But Aaron

different

sort of

a man.

In his

own

bumbling
and

way, he had

seen

that room had to be made for the

irrational in his
out of

side of

the human soul, perhaps a side

own sons

Nadab
of

the Land

Egypt."

he had already seen come out "This is the Abihu; God, O Israel, that brought us What he did not see is that wildness could only be
the

tamed

by

the

precision of number and

intricacy

of art.

Moses'

irrational

reaction

to the irrational meant that while he was the best take onto himself the more dangerous position

of of

lawgivers, only Aaron

High Priest. In the discussion
of

could

Cain,
and

we

saw

that the

rise

of the arts was the

final

outgrowth of

his

act of perversion.

Later,
saw

poor,

simple

quired a

taste

for the arts,

he, too,
Ham

ended

up

as a

Noah accidentally ac farmer, a drunken farmer.

That
was

This led to that

so

night on which

his

antediluvian origins, and the sight

fascinated him that he

one of

could never come to trust the new covenant.

a

why

his

sons

built

tower,

and what explains the

line

Gen. 15:16

The

perversion of the

Amorites is
perverse

not yet complete.

But
the

all

that was

different

now.

The

had to become transformed into

order and

holy

so that wildness could

be

contained

by

by

number.

In

order

to meet the problem, Bezalel was appointed, and

God

gave the arts.

Exo. 31:3-4

"And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze.
. .

Now
within

we can

begin to

understand

why the danger

of

death

always

lurks
a

the walls of the

saw

Holy Tabernacle.
it
would not

Moses

that the new was so close to the old that

have

chance unless the old was

firmly

put out of the way.

The Book of Job

Exo. 32:25ff. And
when

269

Moses

saw that the people

had broken loose (for

Aaron had let them break loose, to their shame among their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, "Who is
on the

Lord's

side?

Come to

me."

And

all the sons of

Levi his side,

gathered themselves together to says the and go

him. And he
man

said to

them, 'Thus

Lord God

of

Israel, 'Put every

and

his

sword on

to and fro from gate to

gate throughout the man

camp, and slay

and

every man his brother, man his

every

his companion,

every

neighbor.'"

In this way, the

zeal purified.

sons of

Levi became the Levites,

not

and we remember

Hamor,

Moses knew that he did

Exo. 33:16
"For how
and
and

fully

understand these changes and

said,

shall

thy thy

people?

Is it

it be known that I have found favor in thy sight, I not in thy going with us, so that we are distinct, I
all the other people that are upon the said to you

people, from

face

of the

earth?"

And the Lord

will

spoken
you

do; for

Moses, "This very thing that you have have found favor in my sight, and I know
glory."

by

name."

Moses said, "I pray thee,

show me

thy
was

Moses had
slow

a good

bit to learn that day. He learned that God

merciful,
was

to anger, and many other

things, but the first thing he had

to

learn

to

accept the

Tablets

of

Stone.
said to

Exo. 34:1-7

Lord

Moses, "Cut

two tablets of stone

will write upon the tablets the words that were on the which you

like the first; and I first tablets,

morning to
of

broke. Be ready in the morning, and come up in the Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top the mountain. No man shall come up with you, and let no man be
mountain; let no flocks or herds feed before
cut two tablets of stone
mountain."

seen throughout all the

that

So Moses

like the first;

and

he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. And the Lord descended in the
proclaimed the name of the cloud and stood with passed

him there,

and

Lord. The Lord

before him,

and

proclaimed, "The

Lord,

the

Lord, is

a merciful and gracious

God,

slow to anger, and steadfast

abounding in loving kindness and truth, keeping love for thousands, bearing perversion and transgression and

sin, but

who will

by

no means clear
upon

[the guilty], visiting the

perversion of the and the

fathers

the son and the son's son, to the third

fourth

[generation]."

In the

remainder of

the

book, Moses demonstrates in

High Priest.

act that

he has

accepted
maker of

the Tablets of Stone

the

by instituting

them word for word, and

Aaron,

Golden

Calf,

emerges as

270
We
lies

Interpretation
cannot spend as much time on

the Book

of

Leviticus, but Chapter Ten

directly

in

our path.

Lev. 10:1-4

Now Nadab
and put

and

Abihu,

the sons of
on

fire in it,

and

laid incense

Aaron, each took his censer, it, and offered unholy fire
And fire
and

before the Lord, such as he had not forth from the presence of the Lord died before the Lord. Then Moses
Lord has said, T
will show myself

commanded them. and

came

devoured them,

they

said to

Aaron, "This is

what the

holy
be

among

those who are near

me, and before all the people

honored.'"

will

And Aaron held

his

peace.

Now
made was

we can all see what

God had The

seen all

too clearly back when the "pavement of

Moses
drink."

the

sapphire"

uncommanded sacrifice.

vision of

too wild, and it was not the that act which caused
of

It

was

right time to "behold God, and eat and God to call Moses back up to the mountain to
performed a sacrifice with

give

him the Tablets

Stone. Moses had

Israel"

"the young lads

from among the children of at a time when there were no proper priests, and now Aaron's sons are dead; but a promise is a promise, "And Aaron held his
peace."

The

rest of

the chapter reads as

follows:
Mishael
and

Lev. 10:4-20

And Moses
uncle of

called

Elzaphan,

the sons of Uzziel the

them, "Draw near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the So they drew near, and carried them in their coats out of the camp, as Moses had said. And

Aaron,

and said to

camp."

Moses

said to

Aaron

and to

Eleazar

and

Ithamar, his
do

sons, "Do not

let the hair lest

you

your

clothes, hang loose, die, and lest wrath come upon all the congregation; but brethren, the whole house of Israel, may bewail the burning
of your

heads

and

not rend your

which

the

Lord has kindled. And do lest

you

not go out

from the door

of

the

anointing And they did according to the word of Moses. And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying, "Drink no wine nor strong drink, you nor your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die; it shall be a statute for ever throughout your
you."

tent of meeting,
upon

die; for

the

oil of the

Lord is

generations.

You

are to

distinguish between the

unclean and the
all the statutes which

holy

and

the

common, and

between the
Israel

clean;

and you are to

teach the people of to them

the Lord has spoken

by

Moses.
said

And Moses
who were

to Aaron and to Eleazar and

Ithamar, his

sons

left, "Take

offerings

by

the cereal offering that remains of the fire to the Lord, and eat it unleavened beside the

altar,

for it is
your

most

sons'

holy; eat it in a holy place, because it is your due and due, from the offerings by fire to the Lord; for so I am
But the breast that is
waved and the thigh that

commanded.

is

The Book of Job

offered you shall eat

271
your

daughters

with you;

in any clean place, you and your sons and for they are given as your due and your
offered and the

sons'

due, from
shall

the sacrifices of the peace offerings of the people of

Israel. The thigh that is

breast that is

waved

they
with

bring

with the offerings

by

fire

of the

fat,

to wave for a wave

sons'

offering before the Lord, and it shall be yours, you, as a due for ever; as the Lord has
Now Moses
and

and your

commanded."

diligently

inquired

about

the goat of the sin offering,

behold, it was burned! And he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron who were left, saying, "Why have you
not eaten the sin

thing
the

most

holy

and

offering in the place of the sanctuary, since it is a has been given to you that you may bear the
was not

perversion of

the congregation, to make atonement for them before

Lord? Behold, its blood

brought into the inner

part of

the sanctuary.
as

commanded."

You certainly ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary, And Aaron said to Moses, "Behold, today they offering
and their

have

offered their sin

and yet such

burnt offering before the

sight of

Lord;
the

things as these have befallen me! If I had eaten

the sin

Lord?"

offering today, would it have been acceptable in the And when Moses heard that, he was content.

Moses disassociated Aaron mourning

world around

and

his

living

sons

from the dead

He

and

from the
he
to

them and inquired of their well-being.

was

Only

then did

diligently
Eleazar Moses

inquire

about the goat of the sin offering.

angry
and

and spoke

and

Ithamar, but Aaron knew

that fear might

that the question

taken

was addressed

to him.

was worried

have

hold

of

Aaron,

that he might
of

be unwilling to "eat the sin people. Aaron calmly said that because

offering"

and so of what

to "bear the

perversion"

the

had happened it

was not a good

content."

day

to

eat

the sin offering, and this time it was Moses who "was
sacrifice as

Thus,

to treat any

if it

were profane

is

a perversion.

Lev. 7:18

If any
the third
credited

of

the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten on

day, he who offers it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be to him; it shall be an abomination, and he who eats of it shall
perversion.

bear his

There is

one more tale

from the Book

of

Leviticus to be told. Chapter Six

teen,

six

full

chapters after

the one we have been

discussing

begins:

Lev. 16:1

The Lord
when

spoke to
near

Moses,

after the

death

of the two sons of

Aaron,

they drew

before the Lord

and

died.

This is

one of the ways

the author

has

of

indicating

relationship between

two apparently unrelated accounts.

272

Interpretation
account

This

begins

by

hood,
is to

of

his

need of the

again warning Aaron of the dangers linen breeches and the girdle, and of the

of

the priest

turban.

Aaron

sacrifice a

bull for himself.

"Then he
shall take the two

Lev. 16:7
the

goats, and set them before the Lord at

door

of the tent of

meeting; and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two

goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron
shall present sin

the goat on which the lot fell for the

goat on which the

Lord,

and offer

it

as a

offering; but the

lot fell for Azazel

shall

be

presented alive

before the Lord to

make atonement over

Azazel."

it,

that it may

be

sent

away into the

wilderness to

After

much

preparation,

we read

Lev. 16:20ff.

he has made an end of atoning for the holy place and meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat; and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and
when

"And

the tent of

confess over

him

all the perversions of the people of

Israel,

and all

their

transgressions,
of the

all their sins; and

he

shall put them upon the

head

goat, and send him away into the wilderness

by

the

hand

of a man who

is in

readiness.

The

goat shall

bear

all their

perversions upon

him to

a cut-off

land;

and

he

shall

let the

goat go

in

wilderness.'

the

Which The

goat goes out alone

into the

cut-off world

is just

a matter of chance. concern of

central

teaching

of the

ing

the problem of perversion

Torah concerning the Levites and hence is presented near the beginning of Book

Num

bers:
3:12-13
I

Behold, i have
The Levites
slew all

taken the Levites from among the people of Israel. be mine, for all the first-born are mine; on the day that the first-born of the land of Egypt, I consecrated for my own
shall
of men and of

all the

first-born in Israel, both

beasts, they

shall

be

mine.

am

the Lord.

We have already
Exo. 13:1 If.

seen a similar passage

in Exodus:
"What does this

And

when

in time to

come your son asks you,

mean?"

say to him, "By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord slew all the first-born in the
you shall

land

of

Egypt, both

the

first-born
Lord
of

of man and the

first-born
first

of cattle.

Therefore I

sacrifice to the

all the males that

open the

womb; but all the

first-born

my

sons

redeem."

But

now

the

Levites have been

substituted

for Israel,

and soon

it

will

Aaron.

be only

The Book of Job

Let
slowly.
us

273
quite

try

to understand the
of

passage

from Numbers

by

going through it

First

all, the word I have translated

common parlance

"first-bom"

literally
the

means

"the

chosen,"

but in

the word does

imply

first-bom. "The

chosen of the

simply necessarily the best fruits. But among men, there is always a struggle between the two meanings. In what sense can Levi be understood to be the first-bom? In fact, Reuben
means the
not was

field"

first fruits,

the

first-bom,

the chosen one.

Gen. 29:32

And Leah

conceived and

bore

son, and she called his name

Reuben.

Reuben had just been

first-bom."

called

"the

chosen one":

"the

people of

Reuben, Is

rael's

And

even well after

the present passage, Reuben will continue

to

be

called

"the

chosen one":

Num. 26:5

Reuben,

the

first-bom

of
of

family

of

the

Hanochites;

Israel; Pallu,

the sons of Reuben: of the

family

of the

Hanoch, Palluites;
the

the

Reuben himself was,

one might

say, a

jolly

bumbler. He

was

boy

that

found

and gave it to his playing in the fields mother (Genesis 30:4). But when Rachel died, and his father was out of town, he slept with Rachel's handmaid Bilhah. I suppose he thought that his father's

the mandrake

suppose while

connection as

to Bilhah had been severed and Bilhah

and

was

his inheritance. He was,

I say, incompetent

did

not understand such things.

Of the sons, he

was

the first to
a

try

to rescue Joseph. He planned to have the to return later and take the

brothers throw him in

Gen. 37:19-22

pit,

intending

boy

home.

And they

said one to another, and

Behold,

this

dreamer

cometh.

Come

now

therefore,

let

us

pit, and we will say, Some evil

shall see what will and

slay him, and cast him into some beast hath devoured him: and we
said, Let

become

of

his dreams. And Reuben heard it,

he delivered him

out of their

hands;
and

and
no

us not cast

kill

him. And Reuben into this

that
pit that

said unto

them, Shed

blood, but
no

him

is in the wilderness,
out of their

lay
to

hand

upon

him;

he

might

rid him

hands,

deliver him to his

father

again.

However,
worked.

as

his

much wiser

brother Judah saw, the

plan would not

have

The boys
plan of

were

too angry, and

they

would

have found

another occasion.

Judah's

getting the

boy

out of the

Reuben later
was

returned

to the pit and saw that

clothes.

country was much wiser. When it was empty, he thought the boy
never

dead

and rent

his

Apparently, he

knew

of

Judah's

alternative

plan.

When the brothers

remember what

were standing before Joseph in fear, he had happened to Joseph and to feel the guilt.

was

the

first to

274

Interpretation
And Reuben
the
answered

Gen. 42:22

lad? But

you would

them, "Did I not tell you not to sin against not listen. So now there comes a reckoning

for his

blood."

When he

returned

to

Canaan,

and the sons were

with

trying

to persuade

Jacob to

let them take the young

who

boy

Benjamin

them back to

Egypt, it

was

Reuben

said,

Gen. 42:37

Slay

my two

sons

if I do

not

bring

him back to

you.

Of course, that

would

But, Isaac,
were

as we said so

far

as

before, know,

Reuben
was

be the very last thing that Jacob would have wanted. was a decent fellow, but quite a bumbler, and
the only man chosen because he was a bumbler.
and

That leaves Simon. Now Simon After

Levi

were always

treated as a pair.

They

the two who attacked the men of Shechem after the affair with Dinah. It's

a rather

troubling

account.

a manner of

speaking, the

men of

Shechem

had become their brothers. When Hamor first described the

the situation seemed ideal.
union of the

two

houses to his

own people

Gen. 34:20ff.

So Hamor
let

and

his

son

Shechem

came

to the gate of their city

and spoke to the men of their with us;

city, saying, "These men are

and trade

friendly

them

dwell in the land for them; let

dwell be
with

land is large

enough

us

in it, for behold, the take their daughters in

marriage, and
will

let

us give them our

daughters.

Only
are

on this condition

the men agree to

male

us, to

become

one people: that

circumcised."

every

among

us

circumcised as

they

Yet,

when

he

added

the words

Gen. 34:23

"Will

not their

cattle, their property and all their beasts be

ours?

Only
Hamor
made

let

us agree with

them,

and

they

will

dwell

us."

with

it

clear

that any such union would

establishment of

the

just

and

holy

nation which

have effectively prevented the God had planned. Were the

or were

brothers then

defending

a sister and a great say.

promise,

they just

a pair of

fratricides? It's hard to

Jacob's

prognostication

is

somewhat strange.

Gen. 49:5ff.

Simon
swords.

and

Levi

are

brothers;

weapons of violence are their

into their council; O my spirit, be not joined to their company; for in their anger they slay men, and in their
come not wantonness

O my soul,

they hamstring
in Israel.

oxen.

fierce;

and their wrath,

for it is

cruel!

Cursed be their anger, for it is I will divide them in Jacob

and

scatter them

The Book of Job

When Jacob
the grave
calls them
"brothers,"

275

he clearly has in

mind their rashness and

injustices

which that

led to

after the marriage of

Dinah in Chapter

Thirty-five. And indeed, his

ways.

prediction was

realized, but in two very different

The Sons

of

Levi became the

priests.

But

since

they

were

distributed

throughout the

land, they

received no

territories of their own.

Num. 18:20

And the Lord

their

said

to

Aaron, "You

shall

have

no

inheritance in
am your

land,

neither shall you

portion and your

have any portion among them; I inheritance among the people of

Israel."

came

Simon's fate, on the other hand, from the tribe of Simon, and

was

total obscurity. No men of importance the men of that tribe settled within

most of

the

borders
of

of

Judah. Of the
all

sixteen cities which were granted to of were also

Simon in the
to the

Book

Joshua,

but five

listed among the

numbered

cities granted

tribe ofJudah (compare Joshua 19:1-9 with Joshua 15:20-62).

Before the

settlement of the

land, Simon

tribe with exceptions of Judah and Dan. At the end

59,300, more than any of the book, that number

had fallen to 22,200, less than any other tribe. By the end of the Book of Deuteronomy the tribe appears to have no independent existence whatsoever, hence it is the only tribe which does not Moses just before his death (Deuteronomy 33).
and even receive a

blessing from
left

Although it had been nearly

the most numerous tribe when the people

Egypt, by Thus,
went

the time

they

reached

the promised

land,

the tribe of Simon

had been
Israel."

completely
Simon
to

absorbed

by

Judah

and ceased was

to exist as an independent tribe.

and scattered

each and

in its Levi

own

way

"divided in Jacob

in

remind one so much of

the two goats. A lot was

drawn;

one

God,

and the other and

to

Azazel,

as

if it didn't

matter much which was

which.

The glory

the heinous character of their act left no other division

possible.

It
again

should also

be

noted that when

Joseph

chose a

hostage

at

random, the lot

fell

upon us

Simon.
more

Now let

look

closely

at

the terms of this debt.

Num. 3:12-13

Behold, I have
Israel. The Levites
the

taken the Levites

shall

from among the

all the
of the

people of are

be mine, for

first-born
of

mine; on

day

that

slew all

the first-bom

land

Egypt, I
of men

consecrated

for my

own all the shall

first-bom in Israel, both I

am the

and of

beasts, they

be

mine.

Lord.

First, it
incurred

must

be

noted

that Israel

itself

neither was

incurred the debt,

nor was

it

at their

direct
.

request.

Rather, it
was

incurred

by

the Lord on their

behalf. "... I Now let

us

slew.

But the debt

look

at

the conditions under

there, in front of them, nonetheless. which the debt was incurred:

276

Interpretation
as the people

Insofar

had

a request,

it

was:

Exo. 2:23-25

In the

course of those

many days the

their
came

king

of

Egypt died. And

and cried out

the people of

Israel

groaned under

bondage,

for

help,
with

and their

cry

under

bondage

up to God. And
covenant with

God heard

their groaning, and

God

remembered

his

Isaac,

and with

Jacob. And God

saw

the people of

Abraham, Israel, and

God knew their

condition.

It

would

be hard to think

of a more

just

or more reasonable request.

The

Lord began His reply

Exo. 3:7-9

by

saying:

I have

heard
and

my people who are in Egypt, and have because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, cry I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyp
seen

the affliction of

their

tians,
a

and to

land

bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites,
the

the

Hittites,

Amorites,

the

Perizzites,

the

Hivites,

and the come to

Jebusites.
me,
and

And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians

oppress them.

But His final

Exo. 4:21-23

words are:

When

you go

back to Egypt, I have

put

see that you

your

do before Pharaoh I
will

all

the miracles which

in

power; but

harden his say to

to let

heart,

so that

he

will not

let the

people go.

And

you shall

Pharaoh, Thus
to you,

says the

Lord, Israel is my first-born

son, and I say

"Let my son go that he may serve me"; if him go, behold, I will slay your first-bom son.

you refuse

The

conclusion seem

to

effects of the conditions of

be that for the Bible, man is responsible for the ill his own existence, even though he may have in no
which we

way participated in their coming to be. There were many other stories of Aaron

do

not

have time to tell.

the families

His

acts with the

fire

pans

the reader might want to put together for himself.

The two tales that

each

one must remember are

the time the heads

a

of

brought
story:

a rod to plant and

Aaron's became

Aaron's

the way

he

could make art appear to

when

was the time of the midst and quell

plague,

Aaron,
of

though not

That, too, is part of be nature. Then, too, there Moses, could run into their
tree.

it.
the

Now It

we must go to

desert

Zin.
all over again: and this time almost as
was the

was

moved.

exactly like the beginning Then it was the desert of Sin, The
in
all these years.

it

desert

if they hadn't of Zin. But

much

the story was the same.

changed

people revolted

for lack
said:

of water.

Not

had

Last time God had

The Book of Job

Exo. 17:6

277

Behold, I
drink.

will stand

before

you there on the rock at

Horeb;

and you

shall strike the

rock,

and water shall come out of

it,

that the people may

"Strike!"

second

person,

imperative,

"Strike!"

singular,

God

again

told Moses to take up the rod, but this time, he said:

Num. 20:8ff.

Take the rod,

and assemble the

congregation, you and Aaron

your

brother,

and speak

to the rock before their eyes to yield its water; so the rock for them; so you shall give

you shall

bring

water out of

drink to the

congregation and their cattle.

as

And Moses took the

and

rod

from before the Lord,

gathered the

he

commanded

him. And Moses

Aaron

assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, Hear now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his rod
twice;
and water came

forth abundantly,

and

the congregation

drank,

and their cattle.

"Speak": tive, The

second

person,

imperative,
that

plural; "Struck": third person, indica

singular. people

had their

water

day, but

the Lord said to Moses and Aaron:

Num. 20:12

Because land

you

did

not

believe in me, to sanctify

you shall not

me

in the

eyes of

the people of the

Israel,

therefore

bring

this assembly

into

which

I have

given them.

"You

shall not

bring":

second

person,

future,

plural.

Aaron

will

die for

what

Moses had done. We

can

finally

versation with what

full meaning of the end of God. Moses had said, "I am not a man of
understand

the

Moses'

first

con

speech,"

and this

is
It

he

meant.

Like

Billy Budd, Moses in

his that had him to
caused strike

anger

lost the him to

power of speech. smash

was that same old anger of

once caused

the Tablets of

Stone,

and now

it had

the rock. That was why God angrily

threw Aaron at him. "Is there not

Aaron,

your

brother,

the

Levite?"

They, too,
azar went

were

brothers, like
top
of

the first pair, and again one will

die because
and

of

the action of the other. But now things have changed.

Moses, Aaron,

Ele

up to the

Mount Horeb
stripped and

Num. 20:28

And Moses
Then Moses

Aaron

of

his garments,
on

and put them upon

Eleazar his son;

and

Aaron died there

came

the

top

of the mountain.

Eleazar

down from the

mountain.

And thus Aaron bore the

sure

perversion of the children of

Israel. I've

never

been

how Aaron died. I only know that his son Eleazar became High Priest, but whenever difficulties and bloodshed arose, he was silently replaced by his son
Phineas.

278

Interpretation
a perversion

If there is may
escape

lying

behind

civilization

it does

not mean

that one

by

returning to the
If he [one

prepolitical:

Lev. 17:16

who eats what and

dies

of

itself

or

is
he

torn
shall

by beasts] does
bear his

not

wash them
perversion.

[his clothes]

bathe his

flesh,

It is
can

also

for Israel to know that if

It has done

perversion

is

"faced"

not

and

dealt with, it

kill

a nation.

so once:

Lev. 18:25

The land became defiled

and so

punished

its

perversions.

and that

it

can

do

so again:

Lev. 26:38f.

You
shall

will

devour

be lost among the nations and the land of your enemies [eat] you. Whoever among you is left will rot away on in the land
of their enemies. shall rot
.

account of their perversion

Yea,

on

account of the perversion of their with them.

fathers they
.

away along
. . .

But if they

confess their perversion

will remember

Only
seems

two quotations

from

our

list remain,

and the reader

may

read

them as

best.
If him.

Num. 15:31

a soul raises

his hand [and murders]

...

his

perversion

is

upon

Deu. 19:15

single witness shall not raise

up

against

any

man

for any

perversion or

any

sin

...

The

question must still remain open as

to whether the author of Job

was

aware of

this tradition. However one reads

see?"

eyes of
means

flesh? Can You

see as men

in 10:4-6, "Have You "Can time mean to You what time

it, Job

says

to mortal man? Do Your years pass

by

as our

years, that You

probe

back

into my perversions and track down my 4. For Zophar, the incommensurability

sin?"

which

its

origins

in the fact that the

own

workings out of
view except

has been perplexing Job finds human justice take place in a

view

realm

far beyond its itself.

ken. No

God's

is large

enough

to

make sense of

enough

5. The problem, according to Zophar, is not merely one of having a large horizon. It is the myriad of little separate worlds, each of which might
claim a

suddenly come into contact with any other, or other. No world can perceive its effect on any
them

being

apart

other world until

from any God brings

together, and then it is too late. 6. This incommensurability is only apparent and is due to the limited charac ter of man's superficial view of his own world. But if man were to clean his

The Book of Job

own

279

heart

of all

injustice,

and

trust in

God,

all would

be well,

and man would

emerge as the center of all that

is

visible.

CHAPTER TWELVE

1 Then Job

learning
fall
a
joke2

will

short of

yours.'

2 "You are, indeed of the people and with you die, 3 but like you, I too have some understanding which does not Who is not capable of such things? 4 But now I have become
answered and said:

to my

friends,
for

one who would

'Call

on

God

and

have him

answer'

joke,

simple,

innocent joke! 5 For those

calamity.

who can

think at their ease there is

always scorn

But it's

out

there waiting for anyone whose foot

happens to for those 7 Just

slip.3

6 Oh, there is
God,4

peace enough

in the tents

of robbers and

who enrage ask

which

God Himself has

you;

placed

security in their hand.

the beasts and

they

will show

or the
will

tell you, 8 or have a chat

with

the earth and

it

teach you.

birds in the sky, they can Even the fish in

the sea can relate the tale for

was

the hand

of

9 Who among God that has done all

you.
this?5
soul6

all

these

does

not

know that it

10 In his hand is the

man. with

of

every

living thing
for

and

the breath of each

food?7

bodily

11 Does
the old or

not

the ear

try
of

words as

the palate tastes

12 Is

wisdom

does length

days

make

understanding?

13 With Him
and what

are wisdom and valor.

can never

His

are counsel and

understanding, 14

He tears down
ever reopened.

be

rebuilt.

He

closes

in

on

a man and

nothing is
soundness.

15 He
errs8

restrains

the waters and all is parched. He

sends them out again and the

land is

overturned.

16 With Him

are strength and

Both the

one who

and

the one who causes the error are His. 17

madness.

He

makes counselors
undoes

to go about ravaged; and judges He drives into

loins.9

18 He

the belt of kings and binds a strip about their

19 He
obliterates pours out

makes priests to go about

ravaged;

and subverts

the mighty.
elders.

20 He
21 He

the speech of the

trustworthy

and takes taste

from the

disgrace

upon noble men and

looses the

girdle of

the well armed.

22
He

He
out

unveils

deep

things from out of the

darkness; He leads
24 He

the Shadow of Death

destroys"

into the

light.10

23 He

makes nations great and

then He

them.

expands nations and there

He leaves
earth.

them.

obliterates
wander

the heart from the

heads like

of

the peoples of the

He

makes

them

through chaos with

makes them wander

no path. a

25

They

grope

in the darkness

without a

light. He

drunken

man.12

Comments
people, while Job is

1.
alone

They live in

a world which

they

share with a whole

yet each world

in his. Perhaps they understand that world as is only one and all must be heard.

well as

any that live in it,

280

Interpretation
laugh"

2. "a

3. While Job has

a certain with

kind

of respect

for Zophar's

wisdom of cannot

the ages,

that which comes only

the surface of
who

time, reflection,

and

belief, he

totally ignore

is

things, the immediate look of things as it reveals itself to anyone immediately involved. But the surface is all too easily forgotten, and its
be
escaped

uncomfortable remnants can point

by turning

them into a joke. At this

tance

in his thought, this notion of immediate involvement is of prime impor for Job. Without it things are merely the way they are said to be. 4. The meaning of the text is obscure.
the great Psalms like
God."

5. For Job, this is the unintended irony lying behind Nineteen, "The heavens are telling the glory of 6. The
"hearing" "breath,"

"wind,"

"spirit."

word can mean of

or

7. Although the Book

"seeing"

Job is

wrapped

around the contention

"knowledge,"

between
of

and
"taste"

for the true image

of

the

imagery

and of the

"palate"

is

of some

help

in

our attempt

to understand what

Job

means

by

knowing. The
Can

subject

first

came

up in:
does
the slime of an

Job 6:6

what

is tasteless be

eaten without salt or

egg

have any taste? My soul contagion in my daily bread.

white

refuses to touch them.

They

are

like

Taste is

what makes

knowledge

worth while.

The taste

of a world

is

what

makes that world pects of an act.

livable. Unlike seeing, taste includes the most important as object, its beauties and its uglinesses. Knowledge is not a passive itself to
us

It

presents

in

such a

way that

we cannot

but

react.
of

At this stage,

to know to

is

not

to comprehend the whole as an object outside

the

knower, but
both
under out

ingest

a part of the

object,

either

to make it part of oneself, or to spit it out.

palate

Job constantly standing

and were the same

plays with the

fact that the

is

an organ of

speech, as if the
thing.

knowing

coming in

and the speech

going

Job 12:20 Job 6:30

He
elders.

obliterates the speech of the

trustworthy
and yet

and takes taste

from the

There is

no

injustice

on

my tongue,

does

not

my

palate

know the taste

of ruination.

At

a certain point

in the text, Job

says:

Job 29:10.

The

voice of the nobles was

hushed,
and

and their tongue cleaved to

an eye

their palate,
and

for

an ear

had heard

it blessed me;

had
cried

seen

it approved, because I had

saved a poor man when

he

out,

and an orphan when there was no one else to

help

him.

But later, Elihu

says:

The Book of Job

Job 33:2

281
speak.

Behold, I

open

my lips,

and the tongue

in my

palate

begins to

From these two statements, it's hard to know exactly what is meant by the "palate." word The least one can say is that it is an organ of taste and of speech: that it is not the tongue itself, but something which, in some way or another,
can contain

the tongue.
says:

When Job
Job 31-30

Could I have
come to over to sin

rejoiced when
evil

hardship

struck at those that

hate

me or

life because

by
is

had found them, without giving my asking for his life with a curse.
not

palate

he

means that

his

speech

times say, but comes

merely on the tip of his tongue, from within and hence implies room inside,

as we some
out of which

the speech came, a world

accompanied sinfulness
moment at

if
he

you

like. He
or

means

that speech
would

by

pleasure or curse as

pain, anger
spoke an

delight. He
adds

is necessarily have tasted the

in his

it. This

to the notion that for the

on

least,

there

is, for Job,

immediate

interrelationship bordering
concerning

unity He

of an

object,

awareness of

it, human

speech

it,

and

human

reaction

to it.
that speech can only be

means

feeling

because it is

speech about a world.

8. The

word used

implies

wrong done inadvertently.

9. The kaleidoscopic
world about
"belt"

melange of order and

disarray

which

Job

sees

in the

him is wonderfully for

"bind"

captured

by

language

of the text.

The

word

for

is the

same as the word which we

also comes

Further,
undoes
loins."

the word

have been translating as from that same root, as if to

them

"discipline."

say:

"He

the discipline of

kings

and

disciplines

In

other

words,

civil

discipline has been

by forcibly

discipline

about their
a

replaced word

by

loincloth.
also

The

effect

is

enhanced

in Hebrew

by

the fact that the

for

"strip"

sounds as

if it

came

from the
a

same root:

"He

undoes

the discipline

of

kings

and

disciplines them
10.
Job 10:21f.

by

discipline

about their

loins."

Well, I

will

shadowy death shadowy death

be going soon, going to and I will not return; to

and without order

a a

land land

of

darkness light is

and

whose

light is

darkness,

A land

darkness."

whose

At this point, for Job, the taunting chaos underlaying chaos which we do not see. 11.
causes

we see

is only

a reminder of a

true

them to perish

12. The
ously, is
a

surface

world, to which Job

has
of

committed

himself to taking God's

world and

seri

crazy contradictory world, glory that lead

world

full

wisdom, valor, and madness; full

of roads to

nowhere.

But for

Job, it's

all

it is

through that

that we know Him. The world

is too orderly, too revelatory,

to be a chaos, and yet that is where

it

always

finds itself.

282

Interpretation

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

you

1 "All this my eye has seen; my ear has heard and understood. 2 Whatever know, I know, nor do I fall short of you. 3 I would speak with the Al
I
wish

mighty!

to argue with God. 4 But you are a bunch of worthless doctors

who plaster with

your part.

lies. 5 Who

can move you

to silence? It would be wisdom on

6 Hear my argument; listen to my quarrel. 7 Would you speak unjustly for God's sake? For His
treachery?

sake would you speak

words of

8 Would

you show when

Him favor

or argue

His

case

for him. 9
you

Will that be
you can

your ace

in the hole if

He

comes to examine you?

a mortal?

Do

think

deceive Him

as you can

deceive

10

Certainly

He Himself

would argue against you

you were to show

and to

Him

even a

His

preference not

be to terrify
ash,

let His fear fall

hidden favor, 11 will upon you? 12 Your

clay.'

aphorisms are proverbs of

your

bulwarks, bulwarks

of

For

for my sake. I will speak, let come upon me what may. 14 do I take my flesh between my teeth and my life in my hands? 15 It may be that He will slay me. I have no higher None the less I will defend my ways before Him. 16 That too has become for me salvation, 13 Be
silent now what reason
expectations.2

for the impious do have laid

not approach words.

Him.3

17 Listen, listen to my
out

With

your ears attend

to my declaration. 18 I

my

case and

I know I
as

shall

be

vindicated.

19 Who is he that face. 21 22 Then

would contend with me?

Now,

things are I can only remain silent and perish.

20 But do two things for

me and

shall no

longer be hid from

your me.

Remove Your hand from me,

summon me

and

let

not

Your terror frighten

up and I will reply, or let me speak and You shall give answer. 23 How many are my perversions and my sins? Let me know my transgres sion and my 24 Why do You hide your face from me and think of me as
vices.4

Your like

enemy?

25 Would You terrorize

me

like

driven leaf?

or put me

to

flight
up

a piece of

dry

straw, 26 that You write bitter things

youth?5

against me and

bring

the perversions of my

27 You

put

my feet in the

stocks.

You

scrutinize

my every wandering. You circumscribe the foundation under my feet, 28 and all becomes worn out like a rotten thing like a piece of clothing that the moths have
eaten.6

Comments
1. Job begins this
and

part of

his

argument with the assertion

that he has heard

as

fully
is

understood the

tradition. The implication here is that the tradition

such

not capable of

defending

itself. This leads to

a new

turn of things when

he says; "I would speak with the Almighty! I wish to argue with God." To uphold the tradition by denying the surface, or as Job thinks of

plastering

over

its

it, by
they

wounds with

lies,

that

is, by calling

things just

when

The Book of Job

seem not

283

to

foundation foundation
meet

of

be just, is ultimately destructive of the tradition itself. The tme the tradition must ultimately lie at ease with the surface, and any
and,

which must smooth over the surface

by implication,

cannot

terms, is a "bulwark of 2. This is the ketir (what is actually written). The geri (how the tradition says it is actually to be read) would give "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in
on

it

its

own

clay."

Him."

3. Again, Job is playing

been
a well-known phrase:

with

the psalmic

litterateur. There is

what must

have

My

strength and the music of the

Lord,

and

He has become for

me salvation.

which occurs

in Exodus 15:2, Isaiah 12:2,

and

Psalms 118:14. In Psalms 118:21

it is

also mindful of the phrase

Thank thee that thou hast

answered and thou

hast become for

me salvation.

Job, by

the way, was not the only to

biblical

character to

play

with

the line. Joab

once said

his brother Abishai:

are too

If

the

Syrians

strong for me, then thou

shalt

become for

me salvation.

Job has been for the

surface

caught

between the two

has

worlds.

The

surface and

human integral

care

have demanded
courage

what wisdom

has forbidden. As in the

own

case of part

Socrates, Job's
of

no existence

in its

right, but is
of

an

his grasp

of the

importance

of the question

in front

him. Job

must act

in

accordance with those

human concerns,
phrase

while

feeling

the

full

weight of wis

dom's

prohibition.

When quoting the

some new

"[it/he] has become for

too,"

salvation,"

me

he has

added the critical words

"That

as

if to

suggest that

kind

of

salvation, though searching it out

he may have glimpsed may be full of danger and

require great courage.

In light

of the

first

verses of

the chapter, we can see that

Job, like Socrates, implicitly piety. It may consist of our

Socrates'

suggests a need

to reconsider our notion of true

of

attempt

to understand the words

the

God, in
the

case, the Delphic

Oracle, by taking
that

them seriously, while

facing

claims of the surface.

We

must also remember

in

verse

9, Job had implied

piety.

that

it

was a

lack

of

courage

in Zophar that led him to his false

point

4. At this

Job

pauses

half in expectation, but receiving

no

reply, he

turns and goes on.

but for him it is

5. In this passage, Job, too, associates perversion with the long-distant past, a long-distant dead past. This was not the first time. Back in
said:

Chapter Ten he had

284

Interpretation
Have You
eyes of

Job 10:4

flesh? Can You

see as mortals see? years pass

Can time

mean

to You what time means to man?

that

Do Your

by

as our years,

back into my perversions and track down my sin? Somewhere in Your mind I am not guilty, and yet there is none to

You

probe

save

me

from Your hand.

Not

perversion

but the
writings

charge

of perversion a

is the true

source

of

human
man

suffering.

Told in

that

he is heir to
a

long-forgotten perversion,

is

denied
straw

a past on which

to build

firm foundation. He becomes the

piece of

dry

in every wind. Twice before Job had connected the

blowing

question of perversion with

the problem

of

being

watched:

Job 7:18

Yes,
spit.

and

will you

let

me

inspect him every morning and test him every minute. When be? You'll not even let me alone to swallow my own I have sinned,
what

Supposing
a

Watcher Of Man?

Why
even

have

you set me on course against you so that

have I done to you, Oh Thou Great I

can you not pardon
now

become

burden

to myself?

Why

transgressions or

dust. You

will

forgive my perversions? For seek for me, but I am not.

shall

my lie down in the

And

again

in Chapter Ten.
Your dealings
with me were

Job 10:12ff.

full

of

life

and

loving

care.

Your

guardianship watched over my spirit. But You treasured all these things in Your heart. I know what You have in mind; if I sin You'll
be watching and You'll not clear me from my perversion. Well if I have been guilty the grief is mine, but even when I am innocent I

have been
me and

so sated with reproach that no

feeling

of

honor is left in

see

only my feebleness.

and will soon

do

so again:

Job 14:16

Then You

no

longer

would

You

keep

track of my every step, or be on

the watch
and

for my

sin.

My

transgression would

be

sealed

up in

a pouch

would plaster over

my

perversions.

It is this

sense of

being

watched,
of

because

of what

he is, because
suffer

not because of anything he has done, but his inherited perversion, that has reduced Job

to nonbeing.

People do indeed
as some

for

the actions of past generations,

but to

regard that

form

of poetic or even

divine justice
required to

rather than a

horrible necessity is

to undermine that sense of

actions.

honor
look
at

right the
view of

effects of those ancient

6. Here his

we get a closer

Job's first He
can

the clash. He can

lay

out

case and

it

can

be

made solid.

demand to know the

exact nature of

The Book of Job

285

the charges laid up against him and their precise number. Such is the nature of all the evidence, but it is not clear that there is any way of presenting such
evidence
means of

in the

other court.

Like

Socrates,
piece of

human speech, but unless or sees, or knows will be worth the Cf. note to 7:21.

room can

can only speak or reply by be left for it, nothing that Job has, clothing that the moths have eaten.

Job

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1 Man up You
as a

('adam)
Your

is born

of

woman,

short-lived and

full

of rage.

2 He

sprouts

fresh bud

and withers.

He flits

by

as a shadow and cannot endure.

3 Can
to

open

eyes even

to

one such as
You?2

that,

and still come

along
the

with

him'

proceedings raised against

unclean

4 Who
he

can

bring

a clean

thing

out

of an

thing? Not

one!3

5 His time is fixed. You

which

keep

number of

his

months. gaze

You have
and

set

him limits

cannot overstep.
as a

6 Then
are

turn Your

from him
a

let him

be,

so

long

as

his days

hireling
itself
and

acceptable.4

7 For

tree there is hope. If it is

cut

down, it
old

never wanes.

8 When its
then
at

roots

become
10 But

in the land

the dust to

die, 9
a

the scent of water

and its sprouting its stump is left in it bursts into bloom and sends out renews

branches like
and

is

no

young more. A man

sea.

sapling.

when a man

(gebher) dies,
is he? 11 The is dried
up.

he

perishes

('adam)
river

expires,

and where

waters are

gone

from the

The

becomes

a wasteland and are no more

12 A

man

lies down
roused

and rises not.

Till the heavens

they

shall not wake nor

be

from their

slumber.5

13 Who
passes?

can move me a

You to hide

me

in the Pit

and conceal me

till

your anger

Set

fixed limit
again?

and remember me.

14 If

a man

(gebher) dies,
waited

will

he

come

back to life

All the days

of

my

service

I have

in

expec

tation for my release to come. 15 You

would

would call.
hands.6

would answer and no sin.

You

have love for the

of

work of or

Your
on

16 Then
for my

longer
17

would

You

keep

track

sion would

be

my every step, sealed up in a pouch has fallen

have
waters of worn

be

the

watch

My

transgres

and

You

would plaster over

perversions.7

18 A
place.8

mountain

and crumbled

away,

a rock

my dislodged from its

washed

19 The

the

stones

away

and

its torrents have

away the dust

overpowered

the land.
and

So, You have

resigned.
never

trashed9

all mortal

hope. 20 You have

and sent

man,

he has

You knew

mangled of

his face
were

him

off.

21 His
was

sons were

honored but he

it.

They

unaware.10

22 His

body surrounds him with

pain,

and

in disgrace, but he his spirit is eaten away.

Comments
1. Note the
change

to the third person. Job

will

defend

not

himself simply,

but

mankind

in his

own person.

286

Interpretation
not

2. Man is

the

best

of all conceivable creatures.

rage,"

woman, short-lived and full

of

yet

He is, in fact, "bom of that is the man whom Job has chosen

to defend. Is God willing to judge mankind in terms of the highest goals of which they are capable, or will He insist upon the highest simply? It is one

thing

to strive toward impossible goals

judged

by

them from without, and so

from within, but to feel constantly to ever be made to feel wanting is, for

Job,
of a

to render all those strivings meaningless.

must expect

3. Justice

from

man, or of a tree, would is thinking at this juncture might nature in its classical sense.

thing the highest possible; to demand more be unjust. One wonders if these thoughts that Job
each

not

be

part of what

led

men to the concept of

man's nature is limited, a way must be found for him to be. 5. The compelling mood of this passage lies in the capacity of a man with thoughts so laden with death to give such full articulation to a world bursting
with

4. If

life.
of the slumber of a wonderful

6. Thoughts

death have tired Job,

which the

and now

he is slowly There is

drifting

off

into

daydream in

two worlds begin to blur

over and merge

into

a single world.

All the
made

contradictions are gone.

calling and him. It is a

answering.

The hands that full

of room

Job

no

longer devour him, but love

cessation

wide world

for

man and

for God.

7. Job's daydream

culminates with an end

to the watching and the

of all charges of perversion.

and the din of the clashing thousandfold, and the surface world has been nothing left but the pain of the lost dream.

8. Job suddenly wakes,

a

worlds

has been

magnif

ied

washed away.

There is

9.

caused to perish
verse seems rather

10. This
stand

critical, though I have not been

can

able

to under

it

as

should wish.

The best I
and

do is to

point out that when

Job

suddenly

wakes

feeling
not

gruffly

awakened

the

problem

the clashing worlds, his fall from the dream, his first thoughts concern of perversion, but its inverse. The problem has shifted from an

from his dream

finds himself back in

by

overburdensome awareness of

the acts of the

father

on

the

part of

the son, to an

agonizing lack of awareness of the acts of the son have not been able to see the implications of the

on the part of the

father, but I

shift.

"A Soldier
Macbeth
and

and

Afeard":
of

the

Gospelling

Scotland

Paul A. Cantor

University

of Virginia

regard the

bad

conscience as the serious

illness that [men were] bound to

ever experienced

contract

under the stress of the most

fundamental

change which occurred when walls of

[they] [they] found [themselves] finally

change
. . .

that

enclosed within the

society
.
.

and of peace.
.

Suddenly

all their

instincts

were

disvalued

and

"suspended."

They

felt

unable to cope with the simplest

undertakings; in this

new world

they

no

longer

possessed their

former guides,

their regulating,

unconscious and

infallible drives: they

were reduced to
. . .

thinking, inferring,

reckoning, co-ordinating cause and effect

"consciousness."
...

they

were reduced to their

I believe there has

never

been

such a
not

feeling

of

misery

on

earth

and at the same time the old

instincts had
or

their usual

demands!

Only

it

was

hardly

suddenly ceased to make rarely possible to humor them: as a rule

the

they had

to seek new and, as it were, subterranean gratifications.

Friedrich Nietzsche, On

Genealogy

of Morals

but revealing moment occurs in Macbeth when the newly is king trying to convince some desperate men to murder Banquo for him. Claiming that in the past Banquo thwarted their advancement, Macbeth A
seldom noticed crowned challenges more

the

chosen murderers:

'Will

you

take this

injury lying

down?'

But

specifically his

challenge

takes the form of saying: 'Will

you

mm the

other cheek?':

Do
Your That
patience so predominant you can

you

find

in

your nature

let this

go?

Are

you so gospell'd,

To pray for this good man, and for his issue, Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave,
And
beggar'

yours

for

ever?
(III.i.85-90)1

In Macbeth's

remarkable use of

the word gospell'd

and

here,2

we can

hear the

noble

warrior's contempt

for Christian forbearance

The

the tame willingness to endure

injury

without responding.

murderers understand what

Macbeth is getting

interpretation,

Spring 1997,

Vol.

24, No. 3

288

Interpretation
manhood

at, and, realizing that their very

cordingly:

is

being

questioned,

they reply
murderers

ac

"We

liege"

are

men, my to
articulate

(III.i.90).
are

Macbeth alluding to:

goes on

the concept of manliness the

Ay, in

the catalogue ye go

for men,
curs,

As hounds

and greyhounds, mungrels, spaniels,

Shoughs,
All

water-rugs, and

demi-wolves
the
valued

are

dipt

by

the name of

dogs;

file

Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,

The house-keeper,

the

hunter, every

one,
nature

According

to the

gift which

bounteous

Hath in him clos'd; whereby he does Particular addition, from the bill That
writes

receive

them all alike; and so of men.

(III.i.91-100)
In its
sense that all

dogs

are not created

equal, this

speech embodies

the aristo

cratic or you
who

heroic

conception of manhood.

merely run-of-the-mill know how to stand up for themselves? The distinction Macbeth is making
captured

Macbeth is asking the murderers: Are human beings or are you real men, he-men, men

is best
run

in Homeric Greek, in the difference between the terms

an

aner and

anthropos.3

The Homeric hero is he-man, human beings (anthropoi) by virtue of his strength and courage. In Homer, the difference between the hero and the ordinary human being is often
aner, a
raised above

the ordinary

of

presented as

the difference between two kinds of animals,

like the

contrast

between

base dogs in Macbeth's speech, trast between tame and wild species drawn earlier in
noble and
"sparrows"

or even more

like the

con

the

"eagles"

talks of

versus sees a natural

or

"the

hare"

versus

play when a character lion" (I.ii.35). "the

hierarchy among human beings: some are noble and some are base and they are so by Taking the view that a noble man would scorn to receive an injury tamely, Macbeth tries to shame the potential murderers into doing his will. But he realizes that this notion of noble heroism
Macbeth
nature.4

may be
of

challenged

in Scotland. A
of

new gospel

is

abroad

in the land,
opposed

which

teaches a

Christian way

life,

a gospel of peace and

humility,

to the

way Shakespeare develops the tragedy of Macbeth out of this tension between the heroic warrior's ethic and the gospel truth. The story of Macbeth gave Shake speare a chance to portray a world in which Christianity has penetrated and indeed back
changed

life

of the warrior.

the

fabric

of

society, but in

which some characters still think nation was

nostalgically is too

weak a word

to the time before their

gospelled.
caught

Shakespeare

seems to

have been drawn to the

an old and a new.

situation of characters often

set-

between two

ways of

life,

In his tragedies, he

chose

locales that

allowed

him to portray the

clash of ethical

alternatives,

"A Soldier

Afeard"

and

289

ting his
life

action at a point of

intersection,

a place where two antithetical ways of

cross.

The Scotland

of

Macbeth is

such a

border land. It

seems to

lie

at

the

crossroads of two

different worlds, like Christianity. At the beginning

shattered

poised
of

between

warlike paganism and saint

the play, the peace of Scotland has been

by

attacks

by

more primitive

forces stemming from the

west and

the

north, from the Hebrides and

as

"kerns

gallowglasses"

and

barbaric
terms
said of

troops.5

To the

Norway (I.i.12, 31). These soldiers are referred to (Li. 13), archaic terms that suggest foreign and south of Scotland lies England, presented within the

the

play

as a more

fully

to have

scribed

king, Edward the Confessor, in profoundly Christian terms:

a saint as a

Christian land. In fact England is explicitly who is repeatedly de

To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
That

And sundry blessings hang about his throne speak him full of grace. (IV.iii. 155-59. See
also

III.vi.26-34.)

In the

symbolic

geography
and

of

the play, then, Scotland stands as it were midway than

between
than

Norway
situation

England, less barbaric

Norway

but less Christian

England.6

This
other

is

similar to the symbolic

tragedies. In

Othello, for

example, Cyprus

geography Shakespeare creates in stands as it were midway be barbarism

of

tween the Christian civilization of

man

Venice

and the pagan

within

the Otto

Empire,

a situation that reflects the

division

Othello's
the

soul.

An

even

closer parallel to the

speare's

geography

of

Macbeth

can

be found in Hamlet. Shake

on

Denmark

conveys the same sense of north of

lying

fringes
a

of

European

civilization.

To the

Denmark
and

lies,

again,

Norway,

land

of warlike of

characters such as single combat.

Fortinbras,
south
and

hence the

source of the

Homeric heroism
Christian

To the

lie the

centers of sophisticated geographic

civiliza

tion,

such as

Paris

Wittenberg. The
within

again reflect

divisions

the hero's soul.

divisions in the play once Hamlet is tragically divided be faced

with

tween

paganism and

Christianity, especially
similar, and

when

the

duty

of re

venge,

a task

to which the two ways of life dictate antithetical

perhaps even

responses.7

Macbeth fate. The

embodies a characters

stronger,

sense of

geography

as

find themselves
oldstyle pagan

poised

between the
of

poles of

Norway

and

England, between the

Christian ideals

heroism

the battlefield and the newer

represented characters

by

the saintly English king.

are on the whole presented as

The Scottish

in Macbeth

believing
sacri-

Christians. Christian
Macduff's
report of

expressions come

readily to their
when

lips,

as, for example, in

the

death

of

Duncan,

he

speaks of

how "Most

290

Interpretation
temple"

legious

murther

hath broke

ope

/ The Lord's

anointed

(II.iii.67-68).

Macbeth himself clearly

when she

shows

the influence of

Christianity,

as

his

wife notes

is wondering

whether

he really is up

to the challenge of

becoming

king:

It is too full

Yet do I fear thy nature, milk of human kindness

o'

th*

To
Art

catch the nearest way. not without ambition,

should attend

Thou but

wouldst

be great,

without

The illness That

it. What

thou wouldst

highly,
(I.v. 16-21)

wouldst

thou

holily.

Lady
the

Macbeth here

thinks of

her husband in the

compassionate

same

terms

he later

applies

to

murderers of

Banquo; his

religion threatens to

undermine

his

heroic

manliness.

But there

are signs that the

Christianity

of the characters
with

in Macbeth does
pagan notions.

it may be Consider Macbeth's bewilderment at his

not always run

deep,

or

that

confused

older,

inability

to join the grooms in their

prayers:

Macb.

the other, and One cried, "God bless As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.

us!"

"Amen!"

List'ning
Lady M.
Macb.

their

fear, I

"Amen,"

could not

say
us!"

When they did say "God bless Consider it But

wherefore could not

not so

deeply.

pronounce

"Amen"?

I had

most need of

blessing,

"Amen"

and

Stuck in my throat.

(n.i.24-30)
Macbeth's Christianity, but in fact it points to a certain superficiality in his embrace of the newer religion. He thinks of Amen as a kind of pagan talisman, a magic formula that can be me
Someone
might offer this passage as proof of

chanically invoked, even by a criminal in the middle of his crime. As this passage suggests, Macbeth would gladly take any benefits he might obtain from

Christianity, but he does

upon

not

fully

accept the moral

demands the

religion makes

its believers. At least Claudius in Hamlet

with

understands

that his deeds are

seems

incompatible
to reduce

his

attempt to

pray like

Christian. But here Macbeth

Christianity Christianity has not yet completely

in fact in
warriors

to a mere set of verbal formulas. His

case suggests

that

triumphed in the Scotland of Macbeth and is

competition with and threatened

by

other

forces. In the

minds of

like Macbeth, older pagan ideas with newer Christian beliefs. mixing

still maintain their

force, strangely

"A Soldier
II

Afeard"

and

291

This

analysis of the
play.

basic

situation

in Macbeth helps

explain

Duncan's

prob

lem in the
that

is

not

fully

Duncan is trying to act like a Christian monarch in a country Christianized and that thus retains a strong element of an older,

heroism. He is obviously not a warlike king; when we first see him he is allowing his nobles to do his fighting for him.8 When characters in (I.ii), the play speak of Duncan's good qualities, they never credit him with the kind
savage
of virtues associated with a

of

king's military function. Rather they tend to speak his generosity or, in a key speech by Macbeth, of his meekness and his ability to evoke pity (I. vii. 16-25). In all these respects, he seems to resemble
England's Edward
rather

than the

bellicose

king

of

Norway.

By his

own admis

sion, Duncan is too trusting of humanity, blind to the ambition lurking in the hearts of his nobles (I.iv.12-15). Within the terms of the play, he is presented as
an

the other leaders in Scotland are warlike men, great

anomaly in Scotland (see Sanders, Shakespeare's Magnanimity, p. 69). All field generals like Macbeth,
and
must

Banquo,
he his
the war:

into battle; instead stand on the sidelines, receiving reports, asking like an outsider to "What bloody man is (I.ii. 1). Duncan is crucially dependent on

Macduff.

Only

Duncan does
that?"

not

lead his

troops

great nobles

to fight his battles for him

and

to stand up to the barbaric

invaders.9

Hence Duncan's fatal

and

error

is

not

to recognize and acknowledge how weak

as a
who

insecure his
of elective

kind

truly is. The Scotland of the play is presented monarchy, one in which the powerful nobles have a say in
position

becomes their king. The Scottish

king

cannot

be

said

to serve at the pleasure of

the great nobles, but he is so dependent on their military power to support him that he must constantly work to maintain their allegiance. Duncan's generosity
with

titles, honors,
makes one

and gifts to

his thanes is
nominate?

But he Duncan
archy,

key

error:

he

a way of Malcolm

dealing
as

with of

this problem.

Prince

Cumberland,
of
Scotland.10

thereby trying
as

to ensure his son's designation as the next

acts as

if he

were

already

living

under a system rather

king of hereditary

mon

if he

were

in

fully

civilized

England

than more primitive

Scot

land.
one

By prematurely naming Malcolm as his successor, Duncan of the holds a king in his circumstances has on his thanes.
loyal to him in the hope that he
would

undermines

They

might

eventually throw his weight in favor of one of them succeeding him to the throne. Certainly Duncan's designa tion of Malcolm as his successor proves disastrous as the action unfolds, pro
remain

voking Macbeth into murdering the propel him to the throne.

Duncan does
of which not seem

king,

rather than perhaps

allowing

events to

to

understand

the political necessities of the regime

he is the head. Moreover, he seems temperamentally unsuited to main in a land in which constant warfare has become a way of life. The rule taining civil war in Scotland with which the play begins is testimony to Duncan's

292
failure

Interpretation
as a

king. Shakespeare found this

point made

explicitly in his

source

in

Holinshed's Chronicles:
Duncans
after
reigne was verie quiet and

The

beginning

of

peaceable,

without anie

notable

trouble; but

it

was perceived

how

negligent

he

was

in punishing first had

their

offendors, manie
quiet state

misruled persons

tooke occasion thereof to trouble the peace and

of the common-wealth,
wise.

by
p.

seditious commotions which

beginnings in this

(Bullough,
of of

488)
rule on
which

Holinshed blames the failure

subjects.

Duncan's

his forbearance toward his

makes

The very

meekness

Duncan,

him

admirable

as

Christian,

works against
principles of

his

success as a

king

in

a warlike society.

The idea that

the ethical

Christianity
politics even

might not always work well

in the

rough-

and-tumble world of

Scottish

is developed later in Macbeth

though,
or perhaps

when

Lady
she

Macduff finds herself in danger

precisely because,

is morally innocent:
I have done I
am no

harm. But I
world

remember now where

in this earthly

to

do harm

Is

often

laudable,

to

do

good sometimes

Accounted dangerous folly.

Why

then, alas,

up that womanly defense, To say I have done no harm?

Do I
put
(IV.ii.74-79)"

This idea

of a

double standard,

of a conflict
often

principles, is basic to Macbeth,

versus womanliness.

imaged,

between worldly and otherworldly as here, in terms of manliness

contrast of

The

germ of

this conception can

be found in Holinshed's

Dun

can's character with

Macbeth's:
if he had
been

Makbeth
cruell of realme. wished

[was]

a valiant gentleman, and one that

not

somewhat

nature, might

have beene thought

Duncane

most woorthie the government of a

On
the

the other part,

was so soft and gentle of nature, that the people

inclinations

and maners of these two cousins to

have beene

so tempered
much of
extremities

and enterchangeablie

bestowed betwixt them, that indifferent

and

where the one

had too

clemencie,
might

and the other of reigned

crueltie, the meane vertue

partition

betwixt these two

so should

have

by

in them both,

Duncane have
p.

proved a woorthie

king,

Makbeth

an excellent capteine.

(Bullough,

488)

By juxtaposing
We
are used to

cruelty

and

clemency, this passage

points

to the contrast be
Christianity.12

tween the warlike spirit of paganism and the meek resignation of

concentrating on the tragedy of Macbeth, but the play also presents the tragedy of Duncan, tragically caught between the more civilized notion of Christian kingship embodied in Edward the Confessor and the more primitive
notion of

the

king

as

battlefield warrior,

embodied

in the

person of

Norway.

"A Soldier
This
contrast

Afeard"

and

293

in

notions

of

speare's source

in Holinshed

kingship is expressed most vividly in Shake by the traitor, Makdowald, who calls Duncan "a
goveme a sort of valiant and

faint-hearted milkesop, more meet to cloister, than to have the rule of such
Scots
were"

idle

monks

in

some

hardie

men of wane as the

in Holinshed, this have suggested to Shakespeare the theme of the heroic warrior's contempt may for Christian meekness. Makdowald's taunt to Duncan resembles the speech of the usurper York to Henry VI in one of Shakespeare's first plays:
p. other passage

(Bullough,

489). More than any

That head

of thine

doth

not

become

a crown:

Thy
And
That Is

hand is

made to

grasp

a palmer's staff

not to grace an aweful

gold must round engirt these smile and

princely sceptre. brows of mine,

to
Achilles'

Whose

frown, like

spear,

able with the change to

kill

and cure.

(2

Henry VI, V.i.96-101)

Macbeth
recapitu

As this

passage

suggests, the
contrast

contrast

between Duncan

and

lates

and

deepens the

and the warlike

tyranny).13

Shakespeare drew between the saintly Henry VI Richard III in one of his earliest works (and his first study of
Macbeth harks back to the
result of the

The

outcome of

Wars

of

the Roses in

Shakespeare's First Tetralogy. The destruction

of the great aristocratic

leaders in

England, culminating in the carnage created by Richard III, made possible the centralizing of the English monarchy under Henry VII and the Tudor dynasty.

Similarly
been

in Macbeth,

a sufficient number of potential

rivals to the throne have

eliminated

by

the end of the play to give some plausibility to the idea that

Malcolm may
might explain

peacefully than his father did. Such considerations Shakespeare's dwelling on the moment when Malcolm attempts
reign more

to reconstitute his feudal

followers:

"My

thanes and

kinsmen, / Henceforth be
nam'd"

earls, the

first that
of

ever

Scotland/ In

such an

honor

(V.ix.28-30). The

transformation

the thanes into earls seems to represent an anglicizing of to convert a

Scotland,

an attempt

barbaric

consortium of

feudal

chieftains

into

comparatively from the throne. Thus,

of

centralized

by

monarchy, in which all honors and titles now flow inducing his enemies to call in English aid from the
completed the process
of

saintly Edward, Macbeth may ironically have gospelling of the "English Scotland he
scorns.'4

the

Despite his
English

contempt

for the

overrefinement

epicures"

(V.iii.8), Macbeth

ends

up giving them

foothold in
the domes

Scotland. Malcolm
safe"

anticipates that the

aid will

bring

about

tication of Scotland: "I

hope the days

are near at

hand / That

chambers will

be

(V.iv. 1-2),

of

Christianity
as

and he strongly associates the English forces with the power (IV.iii. 1 89-92). Though Malcolm begins the play just as depen on

dent
he

his father

shows signs of

help from his subordinates in warfare (I.ii. 3-5), by the end having learned from Duncan's mistakes. In particular, judg
with

ing by

Malcolm's canny behavior

Macduff in Act IV,

scene

iii, he

evi-

294

Interpretation
has
outgrown

dendy

his father's overly trusting

attitude.

Perhaps Malcolm is
and

ready by the end of the play to Holinshed projected. Having learned

mies, Malcolm may be
kingship.15

provide the synthesis of

Duncan

Macbeth
ene

a certain toughmindedness

from his

able

to bridge the gap between Christian and pagan

Nevertheless, in
worlds remains

the main action of Macbeth the tension between these two

acute.

Duncan

goes

blindly

to his

death,
of

never

errors, but Macbeth has

some sense of the

peculiarity

his

situation.

realizing his Consider

his

speech when

he is

terrified

by
i'

the appearance of Banquo's ghost at

his feast:

Blood hath been

Ere humane

th'

shed ere

now,

olden

time,

statute purg'd the gentle weal;

and since too, murthers have been perform'd Too terrible for the ear. The time has been,

Ay,

That

when

the
an

brains

were
now

out, the

man would

die,

And there

end; but

they rise

again

With twenty mortal murthers And push us from our stools.

on their crowns,

(III.iv.74-81)

The horror
contrast

of

the occasion calls forth from Macbeth a strong sense

past

of

the

between the
a

knowledges that

kind

of progress

(the "olden time") and the present moment. He ac has been made in Scotland, a process of

civilizing in
("humane

which

the Christian spirit

has tamed the barbarism

of

its

warriors

statute"

has "purg'd the

gentle weal").
what

But Macbeth does

not see

this

process as an unequivocal gain.

And

troubles him about the new dispensa

tion in Scotland

sibility
speech

of

is something specifically Christian: quite resurrection ("now they rise again"; see also

literally

the new pos

III.iv.73 75).

In this

he is

dead, had
faced

the

looking back with nostalgia decency to stay dead.

reaction reflects

to the pagan past, when a man, once

Macbeth's
with

the disorientation of the oldstyle pagan

warrior

the

new worldview and expanded cosmic

horizons

of

Christianity.16

He has

never

had

a problem

dealing face

to face with a

living human

opponent.

That is the
cannot
world:

sort of situation
with

he has been

trained to

handle

as a warrior.

What he

deal

is

some

kind

of supernatural

apparition,

a power not of this

What The

man

dare, I dare.
rugged
th'

Approach thou like the

arm'd

Russian bear,
nerves

rhinoceros, or
and

Hyrcan tiger,

Take any shape but that, Shall never tremble.

my firm

(ffl.iv.98-

102)

"A Soldier

Afeard"

and

295

Nothing
see

in

or of

this world could

frighten the

courageous warrior

Macbeth, but
something

forces that

appear to come

from

another world

terrify him,

although as we shall

they

also appear

to touch

or perhaps even call one cannot as

into

being

deep

within

his

soul.

To be sure,
of

tions with the

possible

force

Christianity;

simply equate supernatural appari Senecan drama reminds us, ghosts are Though Shakespeare evidently
of worked

in

a pagan

framework
one

as well.

to reduce the element of the supernatural in his portrait of the early Roman

Republic in
Caesar
ghosts,

Coriolanus,
Republic
and

way he dramatized the weakening But

even when

the old civil

religion as the and and

waned was to emphasize supernatural

Cleopatra."

forces in Julius

Antony

they

are confronted

by
not

genuinely

shaken

by

the experience,

Shakespeare's Romans do

react with
Brutus'

the pure panic that seizes

cool encounter with

Macbeth.
of

the ghost

Caesar is

representative:

Bru.

Art thou

some god, some angel, or some

devil,
stare?

That Ghost.
Bru.

mak'st

my blood cold,

and

my hair to

Speak to

me what thou art.

Thy

evil

spirit, Brutus.

Why
To tell thee thou

com'st thou?

Ghost.
Bru.

shalt see me at

Philippi.

Ghost.
Bru.

Well; then I shall see thee again? Ay, at Philippi. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then. [Exit Ghost.]
Now I have taken heart thou
vanishest.

Ill spirit, I

would

hold

more talk with thee.

(IV.iii.279-88)
Though
at

first

quite

frightened is

by

the appearance of Caesar's ghost, Brutus

quickly
see

pulls

himself together. His

then"

calm and collected response

"Why, I

will

thee at Philippi

a good measure of the moderation with which

Shakespeare's Romans

accept the

intrusion

of

the supernatural in their

reaction

lives,
possi

especially when this scene is contrasted with Macbeth's Banquo. Shakespeare was aware that the pagan world

to the ghost of

allowed

for the

bility
ing,

of the

supernatural,

but,

as

he shows,

the gulf

between the
paganism.

natural and

the

supernatural was not as wide or as one might even

sharply drawn in

Strictly

speak

say that

paganism predates

the genuine and

full distinction

between the
god and

natural and the supernatural.

with all sorts of

man,

Allowing for a continuum between intermediary figures such as heroes and daifrom
a

monia, paganism

does

not

tend to separate a divine realm

with

human

realm

in the

radical

way that

Christianity does,

its transcendent between

conception of

deity

and

hence its

sense of

the unbridgeable gulf

man and

God. This

is admittedly a complicated issue, but with all the necessary qualifications be ing made, it is accurate to say that Christianity is distinctly more otherworldly

296
as

Interpretation
Macbeth
reacts more

a religion than classical paganism.

violently to the

supernatural apparitions

in his life because he thinks kind

of epoch

cal

when

rift in his existence, marking a the brains were out, the man
not

causing a radi ("The time has been, / That

of them as

would per

die"). In short, the

se, but the impact
pagan terms.

Macbeth is

the impact of

Christianity
to

of

key point in Christianity

on a man who

has been

used

thinking in
in

Of

all

Shakespeare's

tragedies, Macbeth is
most

perhaps the one

which

supernatural

forces have the displaced

disturbing

effect.

The

subject gave

Shakespeare

a chance to explore what

happens to

a pagan warrior wrenched out of

with

his

narrow

horizons

and

into

Christian context,

its

radical

divide between this

world and the next.

Ill

These beth: for

subject
could

speeches

in Act III,

scene

iv, highlight
as

the peculiar
portrays
model of

fact

about

Mac

a courageous

man, he

is,

Shakespeare

him, remarkably
courage; no one

to moments of fear. He begins the play as a

on the

be braver
tormented

battlefield. But in the

and

course of the

action, he the

is increas
his

ingly

by

doubts

fears.

Lady

Macbeth

states

paradox of

character

succinctly:

"Fie, my lord, fie,

warrior,
with

afeard?"

a soldier and

(Vi. 36-37).
ground, that

Though

basically

a stalwart

his feet

planted

firmly

on the

Macbeth finds himself

living

haunt his waking hours and in which "present fears / Are less than horrible
smother'd

slippery torment his dreams,

in

world of ghosts and apparitions

leaving

him in

a confused state

imaginings,"

and what

"function / Is
(I.iii.137has"

in

surmise"

until a
world

for him

"nothing
earth

is / But

is
as

not"

42). Faced

with

where

"the

hath bubbles,

the water

(I.iii.79), Macbeth constantly

thought provided a

experiences

the melting

foundation for his

her

existence.

away of anything he Shaken to the core of his being

at sea and wonders

by

the strange visions that come upon

wife can

him, Macbeth is left

how his

keep
Can

equilibrium:

such things a summer's

be,
cloud,
make me strange

And

overcome us

like

Without

our special wonder?

You

Even to the disposition that I owe, When now I think you can behold And

such

sights,

keep

the natural ruby of your cheeks,

When

mine

is blanch'd

with

fear.

(III.iv.109-15)
Perhaps
no character

in Shakespeare
girl"

undergoes a greater

transformation than

Macbeth does in the

course of the play,

of a

describes

as

"the

baby

manly hero to what he himself (Ill.iv. 105). This strange pattern results from
a

from

Macbeth's unnerving displacement from

a pagan to a

Christian

cosmos.

"A Soldier
At the

Afeard"

and

297
in

beginning

of the

play Macbeth

appears to

be

the most admired man

Scotland. In the
cisely his

second

scene,

people are

singing his praises, celebrating

pre

courage as a warrior:

For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name), Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which
smok'd with

bloody

execution,
out

(Like Valor's minion) carv'd Till he fac'd the slave; Which

Till he
nev'r shook

his

passage

hands,

nor

bade farewell to him,

nave

unseam'd

him from the

upon our

to

th'

chops,

And fix'd his head

battlements.
(I.ii.16-23)'8

Macbeth first

appears

through lesser men on the

similes throughout this

in the play as a kind battlefield like battle

of a

Homeric hero, cutting his way Scottish Achilles (the Homeric feel to
the passage).
and

narrative give an epic a man

In

our

first

glimpse of

Macbeth, he is hacking
meek

in half

is

mended

for it. Even the

King

Duncan is

favorably

impressed

being by
and

com

Mac

beth's heroism, calling him "valiant cousin, worthy 19 (I.ii.24, 67). Later in the play, characters view Macbeth
Macbeth"

gentleman"

"noble

as a

bloody,

cruel, violent tyrant, but at the

qualities problem as

beginning

he is

praised

for the

same savage

long

as

they

are

directed

against

Scotland's

enemies.
on

This is the

the warrior faces: how he is evaluated depends

whether

the context of his

violence,

it is

perceived as pp.

in the
and

service of p.

his

own

opposed to of

it (see Berger,

10-11,
what

especially

14). The

community or epic language

a variant

Act I,

scene

ii,

suggests a situation typical of the genre.

It involves

of the

original

epic

conflict,

one

might call
who

the Achilles-Agamemnon
weaker as a

problem, the dilemma of the legitimate than one of his

warriors.20

king

is

military figure

great

But if Macbeth begins the play as a kind of Scottish Achilles, he certainly does not end that way. We cannot imagine Achilles plotting to murder Aga

he may want to kill the king, but he would do it openly. in secret Achilles is very cruel, but the Iliad builds up to the moment when he shows the hero compassion to Priam. The movement of Macbeth is just the reverse
memnon

becomes like be

crueller as

tween Achilles and

an

the play progresses. What accounts for this difference be Macbeth as heroes? I want to make what will at first sound

traced to the

extremely perverse argument, that the transformation of Macbeth is to Christianity.21 This point is to say the least counterin impact of

tuitive: as a gospel of meekness

Christianity

ought to

tame the fierceness and

savagery

of a

warrior, not inflame it. Indeed we witness this process

happening
and

in Scotland;
seems

have seen, it may explain Duncan's imprudent clemency to have provoked Macbeth's contempt for gospelling.
as we

298

Interpretation
now

But

am not

examining the happens

case of the warrior tamed

by

Christianity.

Rather I

want to consider the more complicated case

what when a warrior retains

Shakespeare is intrigued

by

in Macbeth:

his

martial

spirit, and yet

allows

it to be

redirected or reconstituted

in

a new

Christian

context.

Macbeth for the

very

much stays a

warrior, and even as we have seen expresses scorn

new religion of meekness.

And

its premises, almost against soldier, Macbeth is not immune to the Christian he has
cannot remain true changed

he is secretly affected by it, secretly accepts his will. As much as he tries to remain the heroic
yet critique of

heroism
form.

and

hence

to the oldstyle pagan ethic in

its

pure

Christianity
mo

his

view of

heroism, especially
when

pagan

heroism. Consider the

ment

just before Macbeth's death

he

refuses

to kill

himself: is:
the

"Why

should

I play the Roman fool, and die / On mine taught Macbeth that the Romans were fools?
pellers.

sword?"

own

(Vviii.1-2). Who Christian

gos

My

answer

The

principle of

Roman

suicide was that

honor is

more precious than

life

and thus

in

certain circumstances a noble man would rather

kill himself

than live on in
pagan

disgrace. To Christian thinkers, this

principle was an example of above the eternal

vanity, of placing the

transitory

value of

worldly honor

immortal soul. Macbeth is obviously not approaching the issue theologian, but the way he abjures suicide and desperately clings to life does suggest something in him opposed to pagan attitudes.
value of one's

as a

What Macbeth has learned from behaves like

Christianity

is

contempt

for the

transitori-

ness of pagan values and an appreciation of eternity.

a good

Christian, in
end

the way,

tries to remain
with a cant

loyal to the

to a

I am not saying that he for example, Duncan does. Rather he warrior's ethic, but he reinterprets that ethic

distinctly Christian inflection, though this obviously involves a signifi distortion of Christianity. Holinshed held out the prospect of a positive
"cruelty" "clemency"

Christian ethics, of combining and and thus moderating the bad effects of both. In the figure of Macbeth, Shake speare contemplates the demonic counterpart of this happy synthesis of pagan
synthesis of pagan and and

Christian,

heroic

warrior who
Absolute.22

turns tyrant in pursuit

of a

secularized

version of the

Christian

To clarify Macbeth's transformation of the heroic ideal, it is useful to con trast him with Achilles. Homer's hero is famous for having been confronted
with a

tragic choice
character

between

one.

His

is defined

long by his

but

obscure

life

and a

brief but

glorious and to

opting for the

second

possibility,

many his decision has seemed to be the prototype of all tragic But what is characteristic of Macbeth is his refusal to be bound precisely by the terms of choice. Macbeth wants to have the best of both worlds; he
choices.23

Achilles'

obsessively pursues the goal of a long and glorious life. He is driven by the idea that any glory is worthless to him unless it can be prolonged, perhaps

forever (through his Christian

archetype of pagan

posterity).

critique of pagan

This is the way Macbeth covertly accepts the heroism. For Christian thinkers, Achilles is the
at

vanity, willfully embracing glory

the price of his own

"A Soldier
transitoriness.
cess as
thus"

Afeard"

and

299
suc

Macbeth
of

rejects this pagan

says:

foolishness. At

the peak of

his

"To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely (HI.i.47 48). This line is profoundly characteristic of Macbeth and shows

King

Scotland, he

his peculiarity as a hero. He is an absolutist, with an all-or-nothing attitude; his achievement is worthless to him unless it is perfectly secure. Macbeth's scorn for the transitoriness of pagan values leads to a concern for safety that seems
unheroic ment of

by

classical standards. over

One

cannot

his triumph
scorn

Hector: "To be

thus

imagine Achilles saying at the is nothing, but to be safely

character and
of

mo

thus."

Achilles'

brand idea
beth

of

heroism. One

for his safety is the hallmark of his can find no better measure
of

his distinctive for

the transformation of the

of

heroism in the figure

Macbeth than his This puzzling

almost

bourgeois

concern

the security of his

achievement.24

nonheroic element

in Mac

his fear for his safety

is

somehow related

to the Christian context of

his

actions.

IV

We

can see the

impact

of

the Christian context on Macbeth's

murder of

thinking in

the

famous opening
If it It
were

of

his soliloquy contemplating the

'tis done, then 'twere If
th'

Duncan:

done,

when

well

were

done

quickly.

assassination

Could

trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease, success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

But here,

upon this

bank

and shoal of

time,

We'd

jump

the

life to

come.

(I.vii.1-7)
The
simple

suggests
scene

fact that Macbeth is thinking about the "life to immediately his difference from a pure pagan hero. As Shakespeare does in the key
come"

in

which

how the

expansion of

Hamlet is considering killing Claudius, the playwright indicates Christian horizons to include an afterlife changes the
action

terms of heroic
might

he

would

immediately like to "jump

seems to

(see my Shakespeare: Hamlet, pp. 43-45). Someone object that Macbeth's point in this passage is precisely that
the life to
come,"

to exclude thoughts of the afterlife

from his deliberations. As in his later

complaint about

the dead coming back to

pagan

life, he

long

for

the contraction of

his horizons back to

dimen

only have to worry about what happens in this life. But the very fact that Macbeth wishes to exclude thoughts of the afterlife shows that Christianity has in fact altered his manner of thinking.
sions, so that he
would

Indeed,

no matter

how

unchristian

the object of Macbeth's

thinking in

this

soliloquy is, his thought

processes

display

the influence of Christianity. Instead

300
of

Interpretation

tries to analyze his situation with an unthinkingly plunging into action, he tortuous syntax of almost priestly dissection of motive and consequence. The If Macbeth is depths. its inward, opening up his speech reveals a mind

turning

an

Achilles, he is
aware of

an

Achilles

conscience.25

with a

As becomes

even more evi

dent later in his become

anguished reaction

to

having
of

murdered

Duncan, Macbeth has

even

the moral dimension

human action,

though

he does

a That is why he strikes us as a more complex has created a division in his purely pagan hero. His exposure to Christianity act to him which makes it impossible for singlemindedly or to face the not act morally.

figure than

soul,

consequences of

his

actions without

flinching. The initial description

of

Mac

beth

on

the battlefield might lead us to expect to meet a kind of brainless

machine.

fighting flicting
hero, it
is

Instead, in Macbeth's

soliloquies

in Act I, Shakespeare

re

veals a character with a

richly

developed

psychological

interior,

torn

by

con

impulses

and

struggling
may say

with a nascent conscience.

Whatever
gives

else one

about the
depth.26

impact

of

Christianity

on

the pagan

him

psychological

syntax of

Macbeth's

soliloquies give

The length, frequency, him a complex interior as

and convoluted

a character that

in any of Shakespeare's Romans. Even as thoughtful a character as Brutus, who at first is clearly troubled by the prospect of killing Caesar, is not anguished by his decision to do so in the way that Macbeth reacts in roughly

lacking

similar circumstances.

chic civil war when

To be sure, Brutus images himself as undergoing a psy trying to decide whether or not to kill Caesar (see Julius

Caesar, II.i.61-69), but he never experiences the kind of inner division that tears Macbeth apart. Indeed, once Brutus convinces himself that he is justified in killing Caesar, unlike Macbeth, he never once wavers in his resolve, nor does
he
suffer pangs of remorse or even regret after the able to
confront
deed.27

That is why,

as we

have seen, Brutus is

whereas

the ghost of Caesar as calmly as

visions

he does,
and

Macbeth is tormented

by his

of the

murdered

Duncan

Banquo. Despite his initial

conviction;
moral

doubts, Brutus kills Caesar

must resolve with a

with a sense of moral

by

contrast, Macbeth

to kill Duncan against

his

own

scruples, and thus approaches the deed

deeply

divided

soul.

The

complexity introduced into Macbeth's situation by the conflict between pagan and Christian principles in his soul is what makes him a profoundly tragic figure. A purely
of pagan

Macbeth

might

have killed his

king

without

conscience; a purely Christian Macbeth might not have murdered

any pangs Duncan at

produces

all;

it is

the combination of paganism and

Christianity
bad
were

in Macbeth that
conscience.

his

peculiar

tragic situation as a murderer with a

Moreover, in analyzing Macbeth's "If it

how
tion

done"

soliloquy,

we can see ambi

Christianity
in
a subtle

has

given

him

new

desires

and

in fact transformed his

appears

but

profound way.

Although Macbeth

to be rejecting

"the life to

come,"

what promises

Christianity
an

to

he is really doing is trying to gain here in this life what believers in the afterlife, a kind of absolute perfection,
reveals
what

infinite
what

satisfaction.
will call

As he first

for

the

Absolute Act,

in this speech, Macbeth is questing he calls "the be-all and the

end-all,"

"A Soldier
a single

Afeard"

and

301

deed that

will give

curely

and

forever.28

him everything he desires and give it to him se What gives him pause at this moment in Act I, scene vii, is human
act

the consideration that no

is entirely self-contained; every deed has

consequences,

and

hence

a misdeed
well

Macbeth

would

have done

may come back to haunt its perpetrator. to heed his own warning, which turns out to

characterize

prophetically the

course of

his

career

in

crime.

But he

cannot close

his

eyes

to the

tantalizing

vision of the

Absolute Act that

will yield

him

com

plete and perfect

happiness.
expectation of

Thus Macbeth kills Duncan in

desires,
the

only to have
of

his hopes thwarted,

since once

gaining at one stroke all he in power he finds himself

exposed to a new sense of

insecurity

as a

tyrant. But Macbeth does not rethink

futility
of

his

quest on

Instead
and

focusing

for the Absolute Act; rather he tries to reformulate it. Duncan, now his thoughts dwell obsessively on Banquo,

he

piness

only obstacle standing between him and perfect is his rival general: "There is none but he / Whose being I do
concludes that the

hap
fear"

(III.i.53

54); hence "his

absorbed

death"

would

leave Macbeth
we can see

"perfect"

(III.i.107). In

his

obsession with the royal

succession,

the concern for eternity

Macbeth has
the

from Christianity. What troubles him is the thought that Banquo that he
content with would

Weird Sisters

promised cannot

found

"line

kings"

of

(III.i.59). Macbeth
tion of

be

having

achieved

his

personal ambi

becoming king

if it

now appears

to lead nowhere in the future:

Upon my head they plac'd a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be
wrench'd with an unlineal

hand,

No

son of mine succeeding.

If 't be so,

For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind, For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,

Put

rancors

in the

vessel of

my

peace

Only
To

for them,

and mine eternal

jewel
man,

Given to the

common

enemy

of

make them

kings

the seeds of

Banquo kings!

(ffl.i.60-69)
In the
most unchristian act of

contemplating

another

murder, Macbeth thinks in

Christian terms. He is tormented

jewel"

by

the thought that

he has
not

nal contempt

to the devil for the sake of Banquo's

heirs,

up his "eter his own. For all his

given

for Christianity, the heroic warrior cannot resist thinking like a Chris tian in one decisive respect. Once he has been told of the immortality of the soul, he cannot help conceiving of the issue of his happiness differently from
the way a pagan hero like Achilles would. He comes to desire a perfection
unimaginable

to a

pagan

living

in

a world of

finite horizons.

Having
ertheless

feels that

failed to satisfy his infinite desire by killing Duncan, Macbeth nev perfection is still within his grasp. All he has to do now is to
together with

have Banquo killed,

his

son

Fleance. Shakespeare does

not reveal

302
the

Interpretation
extent of

full

Macbeth's hopes

until

the second

attempt at

the Absolute Act

goes awry.

When the

murderers are

forced to

report

that,

although

Banquo is

dead, Fleance
Then
comes

escaped, Macbeth responds in despair:

my fit

again.

I had

else

been perfect,

Whole But

as the marble,

founded

as the rock,

As broad
now

and general as the

casing air;

am

cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in

and

To saucy doubts

fears.

(III.iv.20-24)
the most forceful expression of Macbeth's all-or-nothing He is constantly searching for a kind of pure perfection, an analogue to Christian salvation; in its absence, he feels himself left with nothing, in a kind

This

speech provides

attitude.

of

damnation. The height

of

Macbeth's hopes is thus

responsible

for the depth

his despair. He desires something infinite ("as broad and general as the casing air"), but he discovers that every human act is finite, something is al
of
ways

left over, like Fleance, to

provoke

further
up"

consequences.

Contrary

to Mac

all the consequences and forestall beth's hopes, no single act can "trammel the need for future action. Hence Macbeth's quest for perpetual satisfaction

only perpetual dissatisfaction. As his wife painfully sums up his tion: "Nought's had, all's spent, / Where our desire is got without
yields

situa

content"

(III.ii.4-5),
failure into
of

and she

to live with "doubtful

correcdy diagnoses her husband's problem as an inability joy" (III.ii.7). Yet despite the mounting evidence of the
allows

his

quest

for the Absolute Act, Macbeth

himself to be drawn

a series of

the end of
still

deeds that only succeed in damning him further. Even toward his life, when his world seems to be crashing down around him, he
some

hopes for last

me

kind

on one

gamble
now"

enduring happiness and is willing to risk everything to achieve perfection: "This push / Will cheer me ever, or
of

disseat This

(V.iii.20-21).29

analysis

sheds

light

on

what

speech, his

response to the news of

is probably Macbeth's his wife's death:

most

famous

To-morrow,

and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time;

And

all our yesterdays

have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard Told
no more.

It is

a tale

by

an

idiot, full
nothing.

of sound and

fury,
(V.v. 19-28)

Signifying

"A Soldier
Struck

Afeard"

and

303

by

the profound nihilism of this speech, some critics have wondered

whether careful seen of quest

to attribute this attitude to Shakespeare himself. But Shakespeare

context.

is

to place Macbeth's nihilism in a specific

Given

what we

have

his all-or-nothing attitude, it is not surprising that the collapse for the Absolute Act should generate this glimpse into a nihilistic

of

his

abyss.

This

speech

again we

is surely not an expression of Christian sentiments, and yet once see how even in opposition to Christianity Macbeth turns out to be

influenced

by

it. When he

speaks of

"the last

time,"

syllable of recorded

he

clearly is no longer thinking in pagan terms, but is rather haunted by the lyptic expectations of Christianity. Indeed in its feeling for time, this
marks a

apoca speech

turn from a pagan to a Christian outlook, as Macbeth leams to devalue

this world

from the

standpoint of

eternity.30

in Act V, scene v, is that he speaks of tomorrow and yesterday, but he has no thought for today. He has lost the pagan ability to take pleasure in the moment, to live happily in this world, without looking beyond its borders to eternity. This speech thus sums up all that What is
characteristic of

Macbeth's

words

has destroyed Macbeth's happiness. him to leave the

past

Futurity has

cast a shadow over

his life,

behind ("what's done, is done"; HI.ii.12) and in driving him.31 The profoundest transformation in the process poisoning the present for the nature of Macbeth's heroism is his reorientation toward the future, brought
about stand of

by

the intervention of the Weird Sisters m his world, who in some way
of the supernatural on when we

for the impact

human life
of

and

hence

the subversion

the natural.

Recall that

first hear

Macbeth in the play, he is

"Disdaining
ious to the

Fortune"

obsessed with the

(I.ii. 17). Like any good pagan warrior, at first he is not future but fights for the glory of the present moment, obliv

consequences

for his

safety.

But

may be some providential order to events his faith in himself and in his own efforts, himself to
whatever

suggesting to Macbeth that there in this world, the Weird Sisters shake

by

and awaken

his

longing
see

to ally

force in the
picks

universe represents same attitude

the wave of the future.

Lady
192.):

Macbeth quickly

up the

(On this point,

Mack,

p.

Thy

letters have

transported me
and

beyond
now

This ignorant present,

I feel

The future in the instant.

(I.v.56-58)
to the transformation of Macbeth's sense of time: the present
contemptible whenever one

Here is the
moment

key

becomes
to a

thinks one can see beyond the

it

con

fidently

perfect

future. Drawn

inexorably into

future, Macbeth
one all

eventu

ally life can be lived only in the present, this means that life itself loses and the "poor His contempt for the "brief for
Macbeth.32
candle"

sees all present moments voided of

meaning, and, since in

basic

sense

meaning
who

player"

304

Interpretation
more"

is merely "stmts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no one last reflection of the disdain for the transitory he has absorbed from Chris
tianity.
a

Ultimately
of religious an

Shakespeare

shows that

Macbeth's

nihilism

is the

obverse of

kind

faith;

this

world

becomes

worthless

to him when it

fails to

live up to

otherworldly

standard of absolute perfection.

To

understand more of a religious

fully

how Macbeth

comes

to be governed

by

demonic
anti-

faith, parody play. Of course, on the face of it, as witches, they Christian force within the world of Macbeth. But
darkness"

we must analyze the role of

the Weird Sisters in the

appear to represent an
although as

"instruments

of

(I.iii. 124) the

witches must

be

viewed as enemies of orthodox reli

gion, the principles in which

respect

they in

effect

instruct Macbeth

are at

least in

one

indistinguishable from Christian beliefs. WTiat the

after all a

witches teach

Mac

beth is

lesson in

providence.

The

providential order

they

represent

may be demonic
their prophecies

lead Macbeth to his damnation, but the fact remains that embody for Macbeth a form of religious teaching, that earthly
and

events are governed prophecies

particular

by

higher

powers.

Indeed the fulfillment him that the

world

of

their specific

in Macbeth's
as

case suggests to

is

governed

by

providence,

in the Christian understanding,

the classical
view.

rather

than

by

a gen

eral

providence, as is
we

more typical of

As

warrior

whether on the

have seen, Macbeth begins the play with the faith of a Homeric he succeeds in battle depends largely on whether he behaves battlefield. But the Weird Sisters his
actions
undermine

bravely

Macbeth's belief

that the outcome of

lies in his

own

hands

and teach

him instead to

rely on supernatural aid. As the play unfolds, Macbeth becomes increasingly hesitant to take the risks a hero normally accepts as a matter of course, and instead seeks guarantees from the witches that his success is assured because it

is foreordained. One

would expect that

Macbeth's turn from heroic

self-reliance

to a faith in a providential order would lead him to act more virtuously in conventional moral ter But in the paradoxical world of Macbeth, the hero's
newfound

long
eral

as

providence actually makes him crueller in his actions. As Macbeth believes that the outcome of single combat is a function

faith in

chiefly league
evil

of

the

behavior he

of

the combatants, he acts nobly, as shown

evokes.

by

the gen

admiration
with

initially

But

once act

Macbeth believes himself in

hidden powers, he begins to

striking down

intentions behind false displays

and open combat.

of good will

proxies,

opponents when once

himself, concealing his (I.vii.82), working through they least expect it, rather than in
secretly

honest ries

Moreover,

are

fated, he loses
his goals,

all restraint and

achieve

including

comes to believe that his victo becomes willing to do anything to murdering women and children. Macbeth develops

Macbeth

"A Soldier
a

Afeard"

and

305

kind he

of

fanaticism; he becomes

so convinced

that he

is favored

by

providence

that

comes

to view his personal cause as

with their paradoxical

universal

(Ill.iv. 134-35).

Thus in line

nature, the Weird

Sisters,

who seem

to

offer new power possessed and

Macbeth, in fact take away whatever power he originally turn him into a creature of their own ends. He thinks that provi
to

dence is serving him, but in reality he ends up serving providence, or at least whatever order the witches represent. Macbeth's loss of freedom is reflected in
the

diminishing
of

proportion of thought to
play.33

deed that
at

characterizes

his behavior in

the course of the

As

we

have seen,

first

a significant expansion and

deepening

Macbeth's

consciousness occurs.

he begins to behave

differently

than a pagan

Once he leaves the battlefield, hero would. He agonizes over the

decision to kill Duncan, running over in his mind all the moral objections to the deed. Speaking of meekness and pity with respect (I. vii. 16-25), Macbeth
comes closest to
once

espousing genuine Christian principles in this speech. Even he has killed Duncan, Macbeth cannot rest content with the deed or put it his
mind.

out of

he is clearly troubled

Although it may be inaccurate to speak of remorse in his case, by what he has done and convinced that he will never
(Il.ii.38 40).

The way his conscience plays tricks on hear voices, is one more indication of his transformation from a purely pagan hero. His behavior provokes a reproach from his wife, who would like to see him act like an oldstyle warrior again: "You do unbend your noble strength, to think / So brain-sickly of sleep peacefully again him, making him see visions
and
things"

(II.ii.42-43).

But the
close

new

interiority

that has

opened

down

under

the pressure of events.

up in Macbeth eventually begins to To be sure, it is still evident when he

beth

murdering Banquo. Shakespeare again gives Mac the before deed, in which he reflects on why he must do long soliloquy been it. And once Banquo has killed, Macbeth's conscience wreaks havoc with

is faced
a

with the prospect of

his

peace of

mind, perhaps even producing the apparitions that haunt his ban
once again tries to restore

quet.

Lady

Macbeth

his heroic

attitude

by

shaming
atti

him: "What?

quite unmann'd

in

folly?"

(III.iv.72). But Shakespeare introduces

murder,
which suggest

subtle variations

into Macbeth's

second

how his

tudes are changing. In considering the

murder of

on prudential than on moral considerations.

Banquo, Macbeth dwells more Moreover, as he finishes his solilo

quy, he has the

over matters

potential murderers enter and

they discussed

the night

indicates that they will be going before. It is thus clear that even before the
the decision to kill Banquo. Unlike

soliloquy Macbeth had already

what

reached

case of Duncan, this time Macbeth's soliloquy merely he has already made. Furthermore, his decision to hire mur derers to kill Banquo suggests that he is trying to distance himself from the

happened in the

confirms a choice

deed

and perhaps avoid the

as

fits
the

of conscience

his

murder of

Duncan

provoked

(unsuccessfully
scruples

it turns

out).

Macbeth

seems to
of

that go along

with

opening up

be reacting against the moral interiority in his soul. As the

306

Interpretation
scene

banquet
affairs,

confirms, the

warrior wishes

he

could return

to an

earlier state of

when

he

was a simpler man and remained undisturbed

by

the prickings

of conscience.

Thus

at the end of

Ill.iv, Macbeth

proclaims:

Which

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand, must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
(Ill.iv. 138-39)

Here

we see

Macbeth

provoked

into

a willful contraction of

his

consciousness.

Up

to this point

he has been

characterized

by

the unusual amount of thought

he

his deeds before acting (at least unusual for a warrior). Now he wishes to reverse this pattern: act first and then think about it. The new principle of
gives to

interiority
he
now

in his

soul

wishes to escape.

has clearly become painful to him, a burden from which But the price Macbeth pays for this escape is his

freedom.

Reacting

against the starts

agonizing thought

processes that

have been going

into his decisions, he

means to act more

to act mechanically, without thinking, and that

he has been free to

pattern

brutally deliberating at
he
reacts

than ever

length

about

before. The very fact that up to this point his deeds indicates that he has been he
allows

act or not.

But from this

point on,

himself to be drawn into

automatically to events, rather than planning them, thus gradually surrendering his freedom of action. When Macbeth is shaken by the news that Macduff has fled to England, he
which

in

conceives the

idea

of what would

today be

called a pre-emptive strike:

Time,
The

thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:

purpose never go with

flighty

is

o'ertook

Unless the deed

it. (IV.i. 144-46)

This
there

attitude

is the

result of the

Weird
are

Sisters'

success

in

increasingly

convinc

ing Macbeth
is
rather what

that events

in life
to

fated. If his
what

no point
one

in Macbeth

debating
try
to

is already decided, then is right or wrong for him to do;

destiny

his

task

becomes

figure out,

with

the aid of the witches,

can

is fated to happen
certain
will

next and act accordingly.

Once he believes that he

have tion,

knowledge

of the

future, he

thinks that

haste,

and not

due delibera

be the

key

to

his

success:

From this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To
crown

The

castle of
upon

my thoughts with acts, be it thought Macduff I will surprise,

and

done:

Seize

Fife,

give to

th'

o'

th'

edge

sword

"A Soldier
His wife, his babes,
and all unfortunate souls

Afeard"

and

307

That trace him in his line. No This deed I'll do before this But
no more sights!

boasting

like

fool;

purpose cool.

(IV.i. 146-55)

After

debating

at

length

killing

both Duncan

and

Banquo, here Macbeth

plunges nant

precipitately into several murders, all of them crueller and more repug morally than his earlier deeds. But having had enough of moral scruples,
goes to

Macbeth One
But

the opposite extreme of unthinking action,

violence.

which

in this

case

leads him into indiscriminate

might

be tempted to

view

this

development

impulsiveness,

an attempt to annul the new speech

as simply a return to pagan Christian principle of interiority.

lurking
"To

behind this
crown

is

model

that cannot

be traced to

pagan

sources.

my thoughts

with acts": as several critics out a p.

speech

Macbeth is attempting to live

dream

of

have noted, in this omnipotence (see, for

that

example,

Kirsch,

pp.

94-95,

and

Turner,

138). He fantasizes

he

need

only think something and it will instantaneously happen, a pattern fully embod ied only in the biblical God. Just as he has been attracted to the Christian idea
of

eternity, Macbeth feels the pull of the Christian idea thoughts translate

of an omnipotent

God,

whose

directly

into

actions.

As

part of

the absolutism we

have

for himself.
goes

in Macbeth, he now covets the omnipotence of the biblical God Reacting against his discovery of his vulnerability as a mortal, he to the opposite extreme of wishing to believe himself invulnerable, which
observed
witches'

is

him prey to the schemes. Once he places himself en in their he is able to overcome his unheroic sense of insecurity and hands, tirely in fact develops a remarkable faith in himself as unconquerable. Toward the end
what makes

of

the play, in

a reversal of

the way he

is

portrayed

in the middle, Macbeth

fear"

begins to

conventionally heroic again: "The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, / Shall never sag with doubt, nor shake with (V.iii.9-10); he fears" (V.v.9). But the irony is actually says: "I have almost forgot the taste of
sound

that Macbeth's sense of absolute power comes just before his experience of
powerlessness.34

absolute control of

Seeking

to take total command of his world,

watch

he in fact

initiative, quickly loses while he is reduced to waiting passively and reacting to their moves, precisely prophecies (V.iii.2-7). In the end, he even because of his faith in the
enemies seize the
witches'

events, forced to

his

loses his freedom But bear-like As his

prior

of movement:

"They have

tied me to a stake; I cannot

fly, /

must

fight

course"

the
scene

(V. vii. 1-2).

speech

in Act IV,
of

i, indicates, Macbeth
sights,"

repudiates

thinking

to acting in the hope

the moral
and

to

contemplate

that is, he does not want avoiding "more of his deeds. Thus his speech fulfills a consequences
wife express earlier

wish that
without

both he

his

seeing, that

is,

without

having

to

in the play to be able to act face up to the consequences of one's

308

Interpretation
But the
ultimate realization of this

deeds.35

hope is

Lady

Macbeth's

sleepwalk

watching!"

ing: "to

receive at once

the benefit of sleep and do the effects of

we see

(V.i.9-11). In
her husband's

Lady
case.

Macbeth

literalized

what

happens metaphorically in

He

comes

to

sleepwalk

through

life, going

through the

motions, his actions

motive or
of

provoked

by

his

opponents'

moves and

meaning, even in his

consciousness

own eyes.

The

ultimate

lacking any inner result of the deepening

act

Macbeth's

is

paradoxical

it leads him to

mechanically,

without consciousness.

As

we

beth's

consciousness causes a
what

have repeatedly seen, the opening up of Mac deep rift to develop in his soul, a painful division

between
in the

he

wants to

do

and what

his

conscience

tells

him is morally right

conscience,

to do. Though
end

for

much of

the play he

wrestles with

his

newfound

he

starts

to repudiate it and all

of

consciousness.

Troubled

by

what

he

finds in the depths Macbeth

searches

his

soul

"full

of scorpions

is my

mind"

(IH.ii.36)

for

the written troubles of the

way to heal the rift in his consciousness and "raze out brain" (Viii.42). But in seeking to extinguish con
unconscious

sciousness, he leaves himself prey to the

make

forces in his soul,

which

him

act more

savagely than he ever did before.

Chafing

under

the con

straints of a new and

morality, he eventually repudiates

all restraints on

his actions,
newfound

becomes

a slave to

freedom turns into

a new

his basest desires. That is how his seemingly form of slavery.

VI

In examining the impact of the Weird Sisters on Macbeth's thinking, we have seen what he dimly suspects from the beginning and finally confirms to his horror himself
their effect

is thoroughly

ambiguous and equivocal.

As Macbeth
good"

says:

"This

supernatural

(I.iii. 130-31). It is
the

of course

soliciting / Cannot be ill; cannot be notoriously difficult to pin down the exact role
opponents of the

of

Weird Sisters in Macbeth. As the

seem

legitimate Christian
forces in

forces in the play, they

to represent a link to the older pagan

Scotland,
in many
are

as was of course

historically

true of witches in medieval Europe. But

respects

the Weird Sisters seem to be aligned with the tendencies that

out of

leading
of

Macbeth

the pagan world

impact

the supernatural and above all

they concretely represent the lead him to believe in particular they

squarely in either the pagan we have seen, Macbeth is a but torn between the two

providence.

Ultimately it
or

is

as

difficult to
as

place the witches

the Christian

camp

it is to

place

Macbeth. As

strange

hybrid,

neither

fully

pagan nor

fully Christian,

worlds, combining

Christianity does not, as it usually does, temper the fierceness of the pagan spirit, but paradoxically inflames it. Supplying an absolutism to Macbeth's pagan spirit,
or rather

aspects of

both. In Macbeth's case,

his distorted interpretation

Christianity

of

it

turns

him into

a crueller and more

"A Soldier
devious figure. Convinced
stand

Afeard"

and

309

of the inevitability of his triumph, he lets nothing in his way, becoming a demonic parody of the crusading Christian war rior and hence a fiend in the eyes of the genuine Christians in the play. One might

think that a combination

of classical and

Christian

principles would pro

duce

some

kind

of

higher synthesis,
temp'

Macbeth himself "Who

can
moment?"

suggests the

incorporating difficulty of synthesizing

the best of

both

worlds.

But

antithetical qualities:

be wise, amaz'd, rate, and furious, / Loyal, and neutral in a (Il.iii. 108-9). If Macbeth achieves a kind of synthesis, he might be both worlds, pursuing pagan goals with a Christian or, alternatively phrased, pursuing Christian goals with a pagan
worst of

said

to combine the

absolutism
ferocity.36

The

witches are

similarly

hybrids, walking

violations of

tempted to impose on them (On this point, see

any category one is Lowenthal, p. 354.). Macbeth

well-defined polarities:

may

seem

to be a play that deals in sharp and

versus

good

versus

evil, Christian
and so on.

pagan,

male

versus

female,

supernatural

versus

natural,
fair"

But from their first appearance, the

witches work to

break

down any simple sense of binary opposition in the play: "Fair is foul, and foul (Li. 11). The way they violate fundamental category distinctions is the is inhabitants first thing Banquo notices about them: they "look not like seem witches to cloud the (I.iii.41-42). Above the all, earth, / And yet are normally clear distinction between male and female:
on't"

th'

o'

th'

You
And That
yet your

should

be women,

beards forbid

me

to interpret

you are so.

(I.iii.45-47)
The

masculine-feminine

dichotomy
with

because it becomes

aligned

is unusually important in Macbeth, in part the pagan-Christian opposition. The pagan in battle,
while

heroic ideal is

associated with a vision of manliness

Christianity

is

associated with a
worries

softer, sensitive,

more

feminine

view of

life. When Mac

might as well

beth

that the murderers

have become too gospelled, he

liege"

have they have become too feminized. As we have seen, the fact that they reply, "We are men, my (III.i.90) shows that they are aware that Macbeth is calling their manliness into question.
questioned whether

The issue

of what

it is to be

a man

is

raised

frequently

in Macbeth

whether

it involves acting solely like a male, tme to the warrior's code of aggressive behavior, or whether the notion of manhood needs to be extended to encompass
a

feminine,

sensitive side of

human

nature.

(For

a thorough
able

discussion

of

this

see Jose Benardete's essay.) Lady into murdering Duncan early in the play

issue,

Macbeth is

to taunt her
a

husband

by

conception of manhood and

59),

thus

treating him

as

speaking he later does the

with contempt

appealing to for

narrowly

masculine

compassion (I.vii.39-

murderers of

Banquo. But toward the

310

Interpretation
play,

end of the

action, the older

passionate

Malcolm tries similarly to goad Macduff into savage warrior stands up for a broader definition of manhood as com
when

humanity:

Malcolm. Macduff.

Dispute it like

a man.

shall

do so;

But I

must also

feel it

as a man.

(IV.iii.220-21)
Passages
nine

such as this give some

idea

of

how

complicated

the masculine/femi

dichotomy becomes in Macbeth. Far from constituting a simple, straight forward opposition in the play, the boundary between male and female is
always on the verge of
of

dissolving, creating
as a warrior

new

hybrid forms. One

which of

of

the signs

Macbeth's disorientation be influenced

is the degree to

he

allows

him his

self to

by female forces,
in

the Weird

Sisters,

wife, who plays a major role

determining

his

course of

course, but action. But

also

even as mas

the masculine is
culinized.

feminized in the play, the feminine is This tendency is evident in the beards of the witches,

being

being
or

in

Lady
her

Macbeth's

various attempts speech

to act the

part of a

male,

most

fully

demonstrated in

her famous
soft

in

which she

desires to be

"unsexed"

and to exchange

femininity

for

a cruel

the masculine with

masculinity (I.v.40-50). One cannot simply equate the pagan in Macbeth or the feminine with the Christian.

Nevertheless, the repeated images in the play of hybrids of masculinity and feminity, most fully realized in the imaging of the Weird Sisters, suggest the
larger
point

portray

a world that

I have been making about Shakespeare's is a hybrid of pagan and Christian

attempt

in Macbeth to

elements.

vn
Sisters'

One final
considered:

aspect of the

Weird

impact

on

Macbeth

remains to

be

the way

they

change

his

view of nature.

As he is drawn into the

world of what

Lady

Macbeth

calls

"metaphysical

aid"

(I.v.29), his increasing

a contempt and even

obsession with supernatural

forces leads him to

develop

hatred for the

In part, this development reflects the fact that Macbeth's desire for the infinite leads him to despise anything merely finite in
world of nature.

the world, and

lishes

hence ultimately the natural world itself.37 Shakespeare estab connection between Macbeth's desire for the infinite and his tyrannical

between Malcolm and Macduff concerning the character of the tyrant, infinite desire emerges as his distinguishing trait: "Boundless intemperance / In nature is a (IV.iii.66-67). Mac
nature.

In the

long

exchange

tyranny"

Testing

duff

by

rice,"

pretending to be a tyrant, Malcolm accuses himself of "stanchless indeed an insatiable desire for wealth: "my more-having would be

ava

as a

"A Soldier
sauce as

Afeard"

and

311

/ To

make me

hunger

more"

(IV.iii.78, 81-82). He
would

also presents

himself

lecherous,

and claims that

his lust

brook

no restraints:

but there's

no

bottom,

none,

In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up The cestem of my lust, and my desire All
continent

impediments
my
will.

would o'erbear

That did

oppose

(TV.iii.60-65)
As Shakespeare
presents the tyrannical
set

character, his infinite desire

makes

him

fight
have

against

any limits

to his

at war with nature

itself,

since

Thus the tyrant ultimately finds himself the very idea of a natural order is that things
will.38

natures that

Macbeth
dead"

seems

define how they behave, that is, set limits to their actions. characteristically to long for the moment when "Nature seems
deeper
and

(II.i.50).
plunges

As Macbeth

titanic
"For

egotism that

fuels the tyrant's

/ All
ego

deeper into tyranny, Shakespeare reveals the actions: "But let the frame of things dis
will eat our meal
way"

joint, both

the worlds suffer, / Ere we

in

fear"

(III.ii.16-17);

mine own good

causes shall give

(Ill.iv. 134-35).

Ultimately

Macbeth's tyrannical
even

leads him to

challenge all the

forces

of nature and

the natural

order

itself:
let them fight
waves

Though

you untie the winds, and

Against the churches; though the yesty Confound and swallow navigation up; Though the bladed Though Though
castles com

be lodg'd, do

and trees

blown down;

topple on their

warders'

heads;

palaces and pyramids

slope

Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure Of nature's germains tumble all together, Even till destruction sicken;
answer me

To

what

ask you.

(IV.i.52-61)
This
and
passage provides a profound

insight into the

character of

Macbeth's

soul of

his

tyrannical

desires. His imagination leaps

to

picturing the

dissolution

in nature, and that means particularly the dissolution of all natural boundaries. What Macbeth's tyrannical soul cannot stand is the limits nature
all order sets

to all activity and especially to human desire. He would

rather see

the

world

in

chaos than accept natural constraints on

his

will.

Ultimately

he

rejects

the idea that there can

human
notion

will.

be any kind of order subsisting in nature, independent of That explains his attraction to the idea of a supernatural order, the in the
world

that what happens

is

always

the product of some will,

even

312
if it it

Interpretation
must

be

a sinister one.

The

more

Macbeth feels in league

upon

with supernatural

forces,
as

the more tempted

subject

he is to look down
own

the world of nature and view

justifiably

to his

will, destined to serve his purposes and his

purposes alone.

Perhaps the
ture's

most

striking feature

of

Macbeth's

speech

is his

curse on

"na

germains,"

the seeds

out of which all

the world of nature springs. He

despises the
out

generative power of

nature, its fecundity.

Ultimately
that

Macbeth turns
most

to be at war

with natural generation.

It is

no accident

his

horrible

crime

is

the murder of

Macduff's

wife and children.

But there is his

a profound

irony
pears

in Macbeth's
to be

attack on the children of

Scotland

own marriage

barren,

thus

leaving

him

without

the heirs he needs to perpetuate

cannot

ap his

line
of

and

hence his

achievement.

Even the tyrant heir.

dispense

with the power

nature, for he needs it to

generate an

unnaturally tries to deny her role as a woman a kind of curse on her natural potential as a mother (I.vii.54-59). Shakespeare
seems to

Early in the play Lady Macbeth (I.v.40-50) and in particular lays

be establishing

a pattern that those who curse natural powers will

live

to regret

it, for

nature will come

back to take its

revenge.

Having

tried to

deny

the womanly side of her nature,

Lady

Macbeth finds herself

unequal

to the

aggressively masculine role she tries to play and her mind snaps in the process. In Act V, Shakespeare brings in a Doctor of Physic to treat Lady Macbeth.
Perhaps he
nature was aware

that the root of

word

physician plant and

is physis, the Greek

problem as
of

word

for

(related to the Greek in

nature"

for

thus emphasizing nature as a

generative power).
perturbation

The doctor diagnoses

Lady

Macbeth's

"a

great

(V.i.9)

and supplies a

formula for the fate

unnatural

both Mac Macbeth

beth

and

his

wife:

"Unnatural deeds / Do breed

troubles"

(V.i.71-72).

The doctor
can

suggests
now

that,

having

turned against the natural order,

Lady
she cure

be helped

than the

physician"

only by supernatural forces: "More needs (V.i.74). Faced with the doctor's failure to
contempt
all

the

divine

Macbeth
none of

expresses

his

for

medicine:

"Throw

physic

his wife, to the dogs, I'll

it"

(V.iii.47). For

Shakespeare's is

supposed

lack

of classical

learning,

here it is difficult to believe that he

was not aware of

the Greek root of physic.

Macbeth's
that

rejection of the physician

consistent with the rejection of nature

has informed his

yet

whole career as a

tyrant.

And

in his
out

attempt to reject the natural and embrace the

supernatural,

Macbeth turns
confusion

in

order

be profoundly confused. The Weird Sisters prey upon his to instill a false sense of security in him and lead him to his
to
prophecies with which

destruction. The
confidence

riddling

they deceive him build his

power of the natural order.

only because

of

his

lingering faith
can

in the

The

prophecies suggest that

Macbeth

be

overthrown
of woman.

yond the natural

order, such
him"

as a man not

bom

only by powers be When Macbeth hears

that

he

cannot

be defeated "until / Great Birnam

wood to

high Dunsinane hill /

on

Shall

come against

(IV.i.92-94), his

reaction

depends

his belief in the

limits

of the natural world:

"A Soldier
That Who
can
will never

Afeard"

and

-313

be.

impress the forest, bid the tree Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements!
Rebellious dead, rise never till the wood Of Bimam rise, and our high-plac'd Macbeth
Shall live the lease
of nature.

good!

(IV.i.94-99)

We
and

see

here how truly egotistical Macbeth has become. He expects everybody everything to be bound by the order of nature with one exception: Macbeth

himself (On this point, see Davis, p. 226.). As the last line in the passage shows, he is relying on the power of nature at just the moment when he con
ceives

himself

as

raised above

it. To

see

how inconsistent his thinking has

of resurrec

become,

one need

only

note

that here he is rejecting the possibility

tion that only two scenes earlier he himself had contemplated. Macbeth has

become totally
world.

confused

Having demanded
end

in sorting out the natural and the supernatural in his to be above the limits of nature himself, he forgets

that someone else might achieve the same power.

In the

conclusion

it is purely natural forces that of the play is surrounded by a

only mysteriously

destroy Macbeth,
supernatural aura.

even

though the
prophecies

The

suggest that

supernatural powers could simple natural

in the
not

event the

forces that triumph have

explanations.39

defeat Macbeth, but The man

of woman turns out to be simply the product of a Caesarean section. And the miraculously moving forest turns out to be nothing more than a camou flaging maneuver. Having attacked the natural order, Macbeth finds himself

bom

ultimately defeated by it. And the deepest irony is that the Weird Sisters did not in fact conceal his fate from him. As several critics have noted, the prophetic
apparitions come with their own
man not
explanations.40

bom

of woman

is delivered

by

The prophecy concerning the bloody child, suggesting a Caesarean

wood

section, and the prophecy concerning Bimam

a

is delivered

by

a child with

tree in his

hand, suggesting

the exact manner of

not

Malcolm's later

stratagem.

look carefully enough at what the Weird what show he listens to he hears and interprets the proph Sisters him; only ecies in light of his own desires, abbve all, his wish to be invulnerable and
Macbeth's
problem

is that he does

omnipotent.

Earlier in the play,

when

Macbeth
o'

sees the apparition of the

other

dagger, he
the

says:
rest"

"Mine

eyes are made the

fools

th'

senses, / Or

else worth all

(II.i.44-45). This disjunction between

portant pattern

sight and the other senses advice of

forms
eyes

an

im

in

the play.

Had Macbeth followed the

spared

his

in this

scene, he

might

have been

destruction. His

experience with the

would

witches'

apparitions

suggests even more

strongly that he
own

have been better

off

trusting
tricked

what

he

saw with

his

eyes,

rather

than allowing

himself to be
and

into

interpreting

the revelations

in light

of

his

own

hopes

desires.

314
The

Interpretation
ultimate

trick the Weird Sisters play on Macbeth

is to

make

him think he is

seeing with his own eyes when in fact he is interpreting what he sees in light of what he hears from the witches and their apparitions. As Macbeth finally comes
ear"

to understand, the Weird Sisters only

"keep

the word of promise to our

ought

(Vviii.21);
between
might sum nite

perhaps

the

ultimate

lesson Macbeth
one's

to learn

is the difference

hearsay
and

and

seeing

with

own eyes way:

(cf. Romans 10:17). One

up the Weird

Sisters'

strategy this

desire

a supernatural alliance and

appealing to his dream of breed a contempt for the

power of

awakening Macbeth's infi omnipotence, they make him long for

natural world

in him. Thus

they

blind him to the

nature,

which

eventually destroys him.

to the mysteries and
para

No interpretation

will ever seem

fully

adequate

doxes

of

Macbeth. But I have tried to

show

that the strangeness of

Macbeth,

the

many riddles that have puzzled critics of the play, can in part be traced to the peculiar situation of its hero. Macbeth is in the odd position of a heroic warrior
whose ambitions

have been

redirected and redefined

him

by

the Christian influences in his world.

along lines suggested to Faced with the Christian critique

can no

of the transitoriness of pagan

of

values, Macbeth
and all of

longer

settle

for the kind for

glory

that satisfied

Achilles

those Roman fools. In particular, under

a need

the influence of the Christian

idea

eternity, Macbeth feels

some

in his life, something absolutely secure and absolutely lasting. Transposed into a world with the expanded horizons of Christianity, he finds a desire for the infinite awakening within his soul, which Shakespeare links with

thing

absolute

Macbeth's human

new

form

of

tyranny

and

his

new attitude

toward nature as subject to

portrait of

will.

If

one were

to analyze

fully

Shakespeare's

the transfor that he

mation of was

the

pagan

hero into the tyrant

to the

of

infinite desire,

one would see

prophetically

looking

prefigures the

tragedy

of modernity.

future; the tragedy of the Scottish warrior Indeed, if Macbeth could have found a way
on earth

to translate his personal

what we would call an

hopes for heaven

tyrant.

into

a political

program, into

ideology, he

might well

have

served as

the prototype of

the

distinctively

modem

NOTES

1. All quotations from Shakespeare are taken from G. Blakemore Evans, ed., The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). The original version of this essay was given as a lecture at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation in Munich on November 28, 1991. An ex "Macbeth" panded version was published in German translation under the title und die Evangelisierung
edited

by Anke Heimann and opportunity to lecture in Munich and for the original publication of this Macbeth essay in book form. I have used this opportunity to update the scholarship, although I have been able to take into account only a fraction of the work on Macbeth that has appeared since I first formulated my interpretation of the play. I have substan
by
Heinrich Meier). I
want

von

Schottland

by

the Siemens Foundation in 1993 (translated to thank Dr. Meier for the

tially

revised

the text based on criticism I received of the earlier version and my own

rethinking

of

certain aspects of the play.

"A Soldier
2.

Afeard"

and

315
all of

According
an

to the concordances, this is the only appearance

the concept of manliness in

of

the word gospell'd

in

Shakespeare.
3. For

insightful discussion
Words,"

of

Macbeth,

see

Jos6 A. Benardete,
of manliness

"Macbeth's Last

Interpretation,

1 (1970): 63-75. For

another good

discussion

in Macbeth, see Matthew N. Proser, The Heroic Image in Five Shakespearean Tragedies G'nnceton: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 51-91. On the distinction between aner and anthropos, see Iliad," Seth Benardete, "Achilles and the Hermes, 91 (1963): 1-5. 4. On this point,
see

Shakespeare's Political Pageant, and Littlefield, 1996), p. 221.

5. The terms
are

Michael Davis, "Courage ed. Joseph Alulis

and
and

Impotence in Shakespeare's

Macbeth,'"

in

Vickie Sullivan (Lanham, MD: Rowman

in Holinshed's

taken

directly

from Shakespeare's

source

Chronicles;

see

Geof Kegan
Inter

frey Bullough,
Paul, 1973),
6. For

Narrative

vol.

7,

p.

Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (London: Routledge 490 (all references to Bullough will be to vol. 7).
and
see

and

a similar

analysis,

David Lowenthal, "Macbeth: Shakespeare

Mystery

Play,"

pretation, 16 (1989): 351. The best attempt I have seen to characterize the Scotland

of

Macbeth is

by

Wilbur Sanders in
and

Sanders
and

an imaginative essay entitled "Macbeth: What's Done, Is in Wilbur Howard Jacobson, Shakespeare's Magnanimity: Four Tragic Heroes, Their Friends Families OLondon: Chatto & Windus, 1978); see especially pp. 59-65.

Done,"

7. See my "Othello: The

Erring

Barbarian
and

Among

the Supersubtle

Venetians,"

Southwest Re

view, 75 (1990): especially pp.

300-301,

my Shakespeare: Hamlet (Cambridge: Cambridge

affaires"

University Press, 1989),

8. Holinshed
writes of

speaks of

especially pp. 54-55. Duncan's "small skill in

warlike

(Bullough,
At

p.

490). Holinshed

9. Here Shakespeare departs from his

Duncan: "he

sources to sharpen the contrast.

one point

set all slouthfull and

lingering

in

most speedie

wise, like a verie

valiant capteine:

delaies apart, and began to assemble an armie for oftentimes it happeneth, that a dull coward
....

and slouthfull

person, constreined

by

necessitie, becommeth verie hardie and active

ward"

the

king

himselfe
critics to

governed

in the

maine

battell

or middle

Q3ullough,

p.

492).

See Sanders, Shakespeare's Magnanimity, p. 65. For an incisive critique of the tendency of idealize Duncan as a perfect ruler, see Harry Berger, Jr., "The Early Scenes of Macbeth:
a

Preface to

ELH, 47 (1980): 1-31. For further analysis of Duncan's problems king, see Graham Bradshaw, Shakespeare's Skepticism (Brighton, UK: Harvester in Graham Press, 1987), pp. 244-49, and John Turner, "The Tragic Romances of Holderness, Nick Potter, and John Turner, Shakespeare: The Play of History (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987), pp. 130-31, 137. 10. On Scotland as an elective monarchy, see H.iv.29-32 and Nicholas Brooke, ed., Macbeth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 74. On the complicated matter of the historical details of the principle of succession in Scotland, see Bullough, pp. 431-32. For a contrary view of Duncan's policy, see Lowenthal, pp. 321-23. Turner, pp. 125-31, also develops a positive view of
and weakness as a
Feudalism,"

New

Interpretation,"

Duncan's kingship.
11. For
a good

discussion

of this

passage,

see

Lowenthal,

p.

331.

12. Although clearly Shakespeare derived his sense of Macbeth's cruelty from Holinshed, the idea of giving it a specifically ant-Christian inflection seems to be Shakespeare's own. At one point in Holinshed's young
men account of

Macbeth, he

writes that

"he

also applied
men of

his

whole

indevor,
from

to cause

to exercise themselves in vertuous maners, and

vocations"

the church to attend their divine

passage comes a section

according to their Holinshed writes on a period

service part of

(Bullough,

pp.

497-98). This Macbeth

of ten years

during

which

ruled

Scotland

justly

and

well,

the story Shakespeare chose to suppress. In general, Shakespeare found a confused mixture

of pagan and worked

Christian

elements

in Holinshed's

account of

Macbeth

and

Scotland;
plays

the playwright

to sharpen and

develop

the contrast.

13. Macbeth
siders

also appears to

be returning to Shakespeare's

Henry

VI

in the way it

con

the influence of women on politics, and especially the question of witches, as originally

embodied

in the figure
point

of

Joan de Pucelle.

14. This may

well

is

suggested

by

a passage
sources

in Hector

Boetius'

be

one of

Shakespeare's

for Macbeth,

since

The Description of Scotland (which Holinshed included it as a preface to

316
his

Interpretation
of

history

Scotland). Boece discusses the decline

of the virtue of the

Scots

as

they

came to not and

imitate the English, specifically in their handling of aristocratic titles: "Furthermore as men walking in the right path, we began to follow also the vaine shadow of the Germane honor
titles of nobilitie, and

boasting

of the same after the onlie

English maner, it fell

would

out yer

long,
not

that whereas
and

he in times

past was accompted

honorable,
now

which excelled other men

in riches

possessions, but in prowesse and manhood,

with most some

he

be taken

most glorious some

that went

loaden

titles,

whereof which

it

came

to pass, that some were named

dukes,
. .

earles, some

lords,
was

barons, in

vaine puffes

they fixed

all

their felicitie. Before time the noble men of

Scotland

were of one

condition, &

called

by

the name of

Thanes

and

this

denomination

giuen vnto them after their

land, Scotland
p.

and

See Vernon Snow, ed., Holinshed's Chronicles: Eng Ireland (reprinted New York: AMS, 1965; London: J. Johnson, 1807-8), vol. 5, desert
and
of

merit."

26. For

discussion

this passage, see

on

in Boetius
colm's

sheds a new

light

the

end of

Turner, pp. 123-24. As Turner points out, this passage Macbeth, suggesting something negative about Mal
Boetius'

Description may have contrib renaming of the Scottish thanes as earls. In general, uted to Shakespeare's fundamental conception in Macbeth. As if he were a sixteenth-century Walter Scott, Boetius contrasts a primitive and barbaric but austere and heroic Scotland with a civilized but
overrefined and effete of a

and sophisticated

England. Turner,

p.

143, aptly
that

characterizes

Macbeth

as

"the heroic destroyer

heroic

age."

15. In
and

late

exchange with

Macduff, Malcolm indicates

he is

at

least

aware of what a
"mercy"

remarkable combination of virtues a true

"lowliness"
"courage"

king

must

possess, in

particular a synthesis of of

"fortitude."

with

and

See IV.iii.93-94. For helpful discussions

and

Mal

colm's role

in
a

the play, see

Lowenthal,

pp.

353-54,

Turner,

pp.

144-45.
he does
understand,"

16. For

discussion

of

how Macbeth "is

unnerved
Man,"

by

what

not

see

Howard B. White, "Macbeth and the Tyrannical Interpretation, 2 (1971): 149. 17. For a fuller discussion of this point, see my Shakespeare's Rome: Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976), pp. 142-45.

and

Empire

18. On the importance

19. On the "epic

rhetoric"

lightness
peculiar

conscience,"

of
and

Plays of Marlowe phrasing battle

Bradshaw, pp. 219-20, and Davis, pp. 219, 223. Bullough, p. 426. On the importance of Macbeth's "pagan see Wilbur Sanders, The Dramatist and the Received Idea: Studies in the Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 297. The
of this passage, see of

I.ii,

see

that Macbeth and

Banquo "meant to
anti-Christian

memorize another a pagan

Golgotha"

in this
ac

(I.ii.39-40)

lends

strangely

tion. On the oddness of this moment,

see

feeling, and hence Bert O. States, "The Horses of

of the praise of

aspect, to this

Macbeth,"

Kenyon Review,

7 N.S. (1985): 56-58. On the 11. For

an

possible

implications

Golgotha reference,
see

see also

Berger,

p.

insightful

analysis of

Duncan's

Macbeth,

Bradshaw,

p.

221.

and

a general discussion of this theme in epic literature, see W. T. H. Jackson, The Hero King: An Epic Theme (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). That Shakespeare may indeed have had Agamemnon specifically in mind when writing Macbeth is suggested by the fact that critics have found a number of verbal echoes in the play of John Studley's 1566 English

20. For
the

translation of Seneca's

Agamemnon. See Bullough, p. 452: "This tragedy of Seneca's seems espe imagination." The most remarkable of these verbal parallels cially to have seized on Shakespeare's can be found in the Act I Chorus of Studley's Agamemnon: "One hurlye burlye done, another doth
begin"

(Bullough,

p.

523;

cf.

Macbeth, I.i.3).
formulation: "It is (p. 348).

21. Cf. Lowenthal's belief helps 22. The

not

parallel
tyranny"

disconcerting to

realize that

Macbeth's Christian

worsen

his

phenomenon of religious wars, and

simply

antithetical to the warlike spirit and

especially the Crusades, shows that Christianity is may in fact be combined with it. Shakespeare
motives

explores

the strange ways

in
V.

which religion

may supply

for

warfare

throughout his

plays, especially in
ton:

history

Henry

23. See, for example, David Lenson, Princeton University Press, 1975). 24. The
contrast

Achilles'

Choice: Examples of Modern

seem to

Tragedy
the

Prince

between Macbeth
in the
and

and

Achilles may

be blurred

appearance

in the

by

Greek hero's

underworld

Odyssey,

which would seem to undermine the

between

pagan

thisworldliness

Christian

otherworldliness.

But

the point of

distinction Homer's presents-

"A Soldier
tion of the underworld in the

Afeard"

and

317

may be in Homer is

a pale shadow of

being desirable,
would rather

the afterlife

is precisely its attenuated character. Whatever afterlife there life, not a higher state as in the Christian vision. Far from in the Odyssey is so close to nonexistence that Achilles says that he

Odyssey

this

a slave on earth than rule in the underworld. As case shows, unlike the Christian hero, the pagan hero does not take his bearings from the afterlife. When in this life, the Christian hero thinks longingly ahead to the afterlife; even when in the afterlife, the pagan hero

be

Achilles'

thinks

in Sylvan Barnet, ed., Macbeth (New York: New American Library, 1963), p. 229: "A commonplace man who talks in commonplaces, a golfer, one might guess, on the Scottish fairways, Macbeth is the only Shakespeare hero who corresponds to a bourgeois type: a murderous Babbitt, let us Originally appearing in Harper's Magazine (June,
say."

Cf.

longingly back to this life. Mary McCarthy, "General

Macbeth,"

1962),
loses

this wrong-headed article nevertheless verges on

interesting

insights into Macbeth, though it

the

sight of

the heroic

dimension
moral

of the play. still

25. Cf. Bradshaw's formulation: "Shakespeare's Macbeth is

warrior with an

terrifying

warrior

but

intensely

imagination"

(p. 250).

Macbeth
sense of

26. Cf. Bradshaw, p. 252: "The 'Christian', decidedly unclassical and unSenecan, character of appears in its terrors, rather than in certitudes or assurances, and corresponds with that die Cf.
psyche as also p.

gustine."

something stratified, vertiginous, which [Erich] Auerbach analyses in Au 255: "Shakespeare has sunk himself into the mindfalls of Macbeth's
.

anguished

imagination.
and

We

are

intimately
difference

involved in the inner

corresponds with

workings and processes of

Macbeth's thought
classical and

feeling;
the

and that

Auerbach's distinction between

Christian
can

feeling."

modes of

27. One
soliloquies.

grasp Whereas Brutus begins

gets

difference between Macbeth

and

with the straightforward:

Brutus simply in the opening of their "It must be by his (Il.i. 10),
death"

Macbeth

immediately
/ It
were

twisted up in the convoluted: "If it were

quickly"

done,

when

'tis done, then

'twere

well

done

Shakespeare's Romans
soliloquies

and

(I.vii.1-2). In these lines, one can hear the difference between his Christians just in the syntax. I discuss the distinctive nature of the in Shakespeare's Rome,
of pp.

in the Roman

plays

113-16.

28. Cf. Maynard Mack's formulation in Everybody's Shakespeare: Reflections Tragedies (Lincoln:
make

Chiefly
time."

on

the

University
wrench

hereafter now, to

Nebraska Press, 1993), p. 194: "Macbeth and his the future into the present by main force, to master
seen of this pattern

wife seek to

The best discussion I have "Senecan

in Macbeth is to be found in Gordon Braden,

also

Tragedy

and the

Renaissance,"

Illinois Classical Studies, 9 (1984): 287-88. See

Terence Eagleton, Shakespeare and Society: Critical Studies in Shakespearean Drama (New York: Shocken, 1967), pp. 130-32. The use of the term Absolute may sound anachronistic in a discussion
of

Shakespeare,

as

if he

were some

kind

of

Elizabethan Hegel. But in fact Shakespeare does

use the

word absolute three

the word acquired

contained

(I.iv.14, HI.vi.40, IV.iii.38), and with something of the force in German Idealism. Indeed, much of what I am arguing about Macbeth is
it
portrays

times in Macbeth

in the

movement

between "absolute

trust"

(I.iv.14)

and

"absolute

fear"

(IV.iii.38). 29. Macbeth's

speech

in Act HJ,
a

scene

iv,

offers an

God, I

could

be bounded in

nutshell, and count myself a

interesting parallel to Hamlet's lines: "O king of infinite space were it not that I
and

have bad or-nothing discussion is

dreams"

(II.ii.254 56).

As different

aS

Hamlet

Macbeth are, they

share

the

all-

attitude of

I have been discussing. See my Hamlet book, pp. 50-52. For a parallels between Hamlet and Macbeth, see Harold C. Goddard, The

provocative

Shakespeare (Chicago:
expressed

University

of^Chicago

Press, 1951),

vol.

2,

pp.

Meaning of 110-11. Macbeth's dilemma

in

lady,
even

that the will

limit"

very different context by Shakespeare's Troilus: "This is the monstruosity in love, is infinite and the execution confin'd, that the desire is boundless and the act a
and

slave to

infects the

tugg'd with

Cressida, IU.ii.81-83). Macbeth's all-or-nothing attitude apparently Banquo, one of whom describes himself as: "So weary with disasters, fortune, / That I would set my life on any chance, / To mend it, or be rid
(Troilus
murderers of

on't"

(IJJ.i.111-13).

30. See

also

Macbeth's

mention of

the "crack of

doom"

at

IV.i. 117. For the importance Macbeth

as

of the
apoca-

apocalyptic mode

in Macbeth,

see

States, especially his

characterization of

"an

318
lyptic See

Interpretation
personality: a man obsessed
p.

by finality, by

absolutes, and to Macbeth's

by

his bondage to
see

time"

(p. 58).

cism,

White, Existentialism, 1963), pp. 320-40.

also

154. For
and

suggestive analogues

Nihilism,"

devaluation, in Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (Boston: Beacon Press,

the essay "Gnosti

31. "In

one who cannot

play which, from die premises of the plot, is Future-driven, Macbeth, especially, is be in his See Francis Berry, Poet's Grammar: Person, Time and Mood in
Present."

Poetry
Mood"

(London: Routledge
provides an

and

insightful
See
also

analysis of

Kegan Paul, 1958), p. 53. This brief essay on "Macbeth: Tense and how Macbeth's distinctive sense of time is reflected in the
and the

grammar of the play. analogue of

Sanders, The Dramatist

tragedy is
plenty"

Received Idea,

pp.

270
of

and

279. An
that

this aspect of Macbeth's

th'

provided

by

the

Porter in his tale

"a

farmer,

hang'd himself 32. For (Charlottesville:

on

expectation of

(U.iii.4-5).

Kirsch, The Passions of Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes Virginia, 1990), p. 95. 33. On this subject, see Timothy Fuller, "The Relation of Thought and Action in in Shakespeare's Political Pageant, pp. 209-18.
a similar

analysis, see Arthur

University

Press

of

Macbeth"

34. Cf. Turner's formulation its

about

Macbeth: "the

magical sense of omnipotence

is haunted

by

fellow-contrary
35. Macbeth.

impotence"

nightmare of

(p. 141).
your

Stars, hide
Let The
not

fires,

light

see

my black

and

deep desires;
let that be
see.

eye wink at the

eye

hand;
when

yet

Which the

fears,

it is done, to

(I.iv.50-53)

Lady Macbeth.
And
pall thee

Come,

thick night,
smoke of

in the dunnest
see not

hell,
it
makes.

That my keen knife

the wound

(I.v.50-53)
In both passages, the
characters

blindly

act without

fully
a

36. For the idea that

unconsciously reveal what they will in fact do, namely act realizing the consequences of their deeds. synthesis of classical and biblical morality might produce an ethic very

different from either, see Leo Strauss, On Tyranny (New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 191. 37. In this context, Lady Macbeth's line about Banquo and Fleance is suggestive: "But in them nature's copy's not (IJJ.ii.38). Nature lacks eternity; like the pagan hero, nature appears defective in Macbeth's eyes when judged by the standard of eternity.
eterne"

Republic;
parallels,

are interesting parallels here to Plato's presentation of the tyrannical soul in the especially 571a to 580a. The central parallel is the idea that in seeking to liberate his appetites, the tyrant becomes a slave to the force of desire in his soul. For a discussion of these
see

38. There

see White, especially p. 145. 39. See Lawrence Danson, Tragic Alphabet: Shakespeare's Drama of Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), pp. 138-39.

in Elizabethan

40. See, for example, Howard Felperin, Shakespearean Representation: Mimesis and Modernity Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 133, and Mack, pp. 19495. Roman Polanski's film of Macbeth, for all its problematic recognizes this point in
aspects,
terms

visual

Polanski intercuts

a scene of a

Caesarean

section with the original

man not

bom

prophecy

of

the

of woman.

Rousseau's Adventure
Todd R. Flanders
Boston College

with

Robinson Crusoe

Rousseau banishes poetry altogether and suppresses all lies. At most he gives Emile Robinson Crusoe, who is not an "other" but only himself. Above all, no gods. Allan Bloom, I took up the Bible the first Words that
and
"Emile"'

and

began to

read

occurr'd to me were

only having these, Call on

.;

opened
me

the Book casually,

in the

Day

will

deliver,

and thou shalt

glorify

me.

And I

add

this Part
of

of Trouble, here, to hint

to

whoever shall read

it,

that whenever

they

come to a true

find Deliverance from Sin

Affliction.

a much greater

Blessing

things, they than Deliverance from Robinson

Sense

will

Crusoe2

Some

centuries ago

Robinson Crusoe
aftermath.

suffered a shipwreck.
with

Allan Bloom,

unawares, testifies to
on a verse

its

Juxtaposed

the meditation

by

Robinson

Daniel Defoe's
a careless uted

from Psalm 50, Bloom's observation suggests that he had not read novel. But how could this be? One may assume that Bloom, not
read a work

scholar, had

both

entitled

Robinson Crusoe

and attrib

to Defoe. Yet many of the more than twelve hundred editions of the novel

to appear

in English have

not

been

editions at

all.3

Many
of

rewrites, bowdlerizations. Title pages

can give no

hint

have been versions, this, as if there has

can

been among some publishers little awareness of the fact. The surprising truth is that the common experience of Robinson Crusoe
not

mainly be traced to Defoe, but instead to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Literary historian Martin Green argues that most of the world since 1762 "has taken Robinson Crusoe to be
what what

Rousseau

made of

it."4

And Rousseau

made of

it

he did through "a "had

editing."

ruthless

act of

His discussion

of the

"radically,
Rousseau's

though nonchalantly, changed the text Defoe

effect,"

had

written"

story (p. 39).

effort

a remarkable

notes

Green:
in the

it transferred Defoe's book from

marked marked

one

(very humble)

niche

literary

system,

to a different "pastime reading for the or "the textbook of our "the one book
needful"

nonliterary,"

and exalted

niche,

times."

And

other

intellectuals followed his lead. There have been few intellectual fortune for
Thanks
on earlier are

such

dizzying

changes of

a single

book.

drafts,

due to Ernest L. Fortin, Daniel J. Mahoney, and Paul Seaton for insightful comments and to the Bradley Foundation whose fellowship made research and writing possible.

interpretation,

Spring 1997,

Vol. 24, No. 3

320

Interpretation
For
one result of

Rousseau's

recommendation of

this one book (out of the

dozens [Defoe] had written) was that Defoe entered into literary immortality, some thirty years after his literal death. After Emile, literary critics talked about Robinson
Crusoe. (Pp. 41-42)

Soon in

after the publication of

Emile, Rousseau-inspired
grew own

revisionism

commenced

several

languages,

and of

Crusoe
Defoe's

in

popularity that continues unabated.

can

If, then,
also can

"shipwreck"

Crusoe

be

credited

to

Rousseau,

so

he be

credited with one of the most spectacular salvage

jobs in

literary

history.
Rousseau
of
could

not,

of

course, have

predicted

the widespread
could not

Robinson Crusoe that Emile

was to prompt.

He thus

refashioning have predicted

of the novel in Emile would eventually have on popular Defoe's book, namely, that such knowledge has largely been effaced. To illustrate this loss, let us review in outline what is commonly as sumed about Robinson. He is shipwrecked without resources on a desert isle,

the effect

his

use

knowledge

of

survives

Friday,
writes

and

only is

by his finally

wits, discovers a footprint that turns

rescued.

out

to

belong

to

"Such is

Robinsoniana,"

our common store of

Philip

Zaleski

of

Wesleyan

University.5

It is the

stuff of a child's adven

ture story, much like the adventure story offered the young Emile. And all of it

is

wrong.

The interest Defoe's

of the present of a

Rousseauan lineage
masterwork

essay is not, however, to trace the remarkable hero from childhood. Neither is it simply to consider in its integrity or his intention with it, although some con

siderations along these lines will be necessary. The main interest is rather to inquire into Rousseau 's intention in utilizing Robinson Crusoe in the first place.

If Defoe's

novel

had to

undergo subsequent transformation

to be suitable for

purposes to which

Rousseau

endeavors to

particular

book? Green

suggests

employ it, why did he choose that that Rousseau's choice of Crusoe "may even
might replace that one

be in

part accidental.

Another book

in

pinch"

(p. 41).
all,

Alexander Selkirk's

celebrated survival on an

island (1704-9) had,

genre,
as

after

inspired
story

several published accounts.

Further,

the

voyager-surviving-shipwreck

amounted at the time to

something

of a

Swift's best-known
in
a work

satire well attests.

Yet I

cannot agree with

Education,"

Green's

conjecture.

philosopher who,

declares, "I hate (Emile, p. 184), and then two paragraphs later names a book, a single book, on which his protagonist's pubescent education will hinge, does not randomly pluck a volume from a
library's
travel section.
we

subtitled "On

books"

Green may

see

Rousseau's

choice as

because he is (and Rousseau's

stated

are) puzzled

by it; Defoe's book

see

ranges so

possibly accidental far afield from

characterization that

make sense of our puzzlement.

purposes,

might

its aptness. I seek here to If Defoe's Robinson Crusoe ill suits Rousseau's Rousseau have had unstated purposes in to it?

it is difficult to

adverting

Rousseau's Adventure
I. RIGMAROLE
"Jean-Jacques,"

with

Robinson Crusoe

321

Emile's pedagogue,

gives

his

charge

Robinson Crusoe be
a while

cause

through

it the

boy

will come

to see

himself, for
man."

anyway, in

Robinson's state,
both

a state

"not that
will

of a social

On the basis

of this experi

ence of solitariness

Emile

be

raised above prejudice and placed

beyond

societal expectation and the moral

dimension
all

of

human interdependence.
at

Rousseau, Allan Bloom

The hero Rousseau
"not
'other'

said, "suppresses
himself."

lies."

This is

gives

Emile is in truth
As

what

Bloom

said of

least partly true. him: Robinson is

gives

an

but only [Emile]

But the hero Rousseau

Emile is

practically

made out of whole cloth.

novel, whose life from a

be seen, the Robinson of Defoe's Rousseauan perspective could be regarded as a web of

will

lies,

must

himself be
at

suppressed

Rousseau hints
writes,

his deed

of suppression and

if any Rousseauan truths are to be its scope. "This

served.
novel,"

he

disencumbered
shipwreck near

of all

its rigmarole [tout cefratras],

and

beginning

with

Robinson's
to

his island
will

take him from

it,

ending with the arrival of the ship be Emile's entertainment and instruction.

which comes

(P.

184)

Emile

will

know nothing

of the

beginning

or

the end of the story

"rigmarole,"

(nearly

one

third of the whole) and nothing of a fair amount in between. Although Rous
seau

does

not explain what constitutes

the expungeable
of

this readily

becomes discernible
undertake a casual moment

us then reading for this purpose, prescinding for the reading specifically from theoretical difficulties.

through even a casual

Defoe's text. Let

The

earliest word about

Robinson is
. .

that

prodigal son.

"My
be

Father

asked me what

his seafaring proclivity made him a Reasons more than a meer wanand

dring
where

Inclination I had for I

might well

leaving

my Father's House

my

native

Country,

Application
pleads with

and

introduced, and had a Prospect Industry, with a Life of Ease and

satisfied with

of

Pleasure"

raising my Fortune by (p. 5). His father

Life."

Robinson to be
with

"the

middle

Station

of

Such

life is blessed
plication,

"all

agreeable

Diversions,

and all

desirable
to

Pleasures."

Ap
an

industry, fortune,

ease, pleasure, diversion. Robinson's father is

economic man of

the Lockean vein, and wishes

his

son

be the

same.

Neither

here

nor anywhere else

view.

in the

novel

father's
bless

Rather, Robinson is

convinced

does Robinson (who narrates) disparage his by misfortunes that, having him
would not

self shunned paternal advice,

me."

his father's prophecy is fulfilled: "God life

not

Robinson

eschews also

the middle station of

wealth.

derlust,
he
is

but

to

amass

When

misadventures on

Robinson turns to

planting.

Soon

finding

himself

only to indulge a wan land him in Brazil, the brink of great success,

lured

by

still another voyage.

322

Interpretation
once

As I had

content now,

I could not be away from my Parents, so of being a rich and View I had happy immoderate Desire thriving Man in my new Plantation, only to pursue a rash and (P. admitted. than Nature of the faster the 32) Thing rising

done

...

in the

breaking
leave

but I

must go and

the

of

...

What

was the purpose of

this irresistible

voyage

that promised to expedite

Rob

inson's rise?
planter should

Acquiring
estate

slaves on

the shores of Africa.

Why

would a well-to-do

leave his

personally to risk such a

voyage?

As supercargo, "I

Stock"

pay.

have my equal Share of the Negroes without providing any Part of the (p. 33). In other words, he would have his chattels without needing to This was the mission that aborted by shipwreck, stranding our hero on the
author of plain

famed isle. That the

tionable
wonder

Emile

should

find

such

early

elements of the novel objec

with

is

to any

having

the philosopher who

passing familiarity bemoans man's lot "in

even a with

Rousseau. (No
the reader

chains"

prefers

of

Robinson Crusoe to begin

the shipwreck and not the voyage!)

And,

when subjected

to Rousseauan scrutiny, the novel's conclusion is little better.

Robinson
settles

reaps an enormous

fortune in

the sale of

his Brazilian

estate and then

back in England, presumably to live the life of ease and pleasure recom mended by his father. He does end up considerably richer than his father would have found
prudent of

and

Robinson is surely the better Lockean for that.

The image

the prodigal son with which the novel

begins, evoking

as

it

does the
phor

parable mere

but

literary

from Luke's Gospel, is in the end neither allegory allusion. Robinson is not contrite upon his

nor meta return

to

England. His father is dead, so there is no reconciliation, no family reunion. This prodigal returns to his native country with his economic view of life intact
albeit enhanced

by

the memory of

diverting

adventures

and, Defoe

hints,

the

prospect of more to come.

The

adventures are, man's

precisely, diversions. Robinson nature, situation,

or

has
is

gained no substantive
or

insights into

fulfillment

from his travels

not

from his

encounters with exotic peoples.

neither

If Robinson Crusoe
man"

the prodigal son of

as the

Luke,

is he

a modem

Odysseus.
of

Nor,

island

narrative

plainly shows, is he that "natural

with simple

Rous
needs.

seau, whole, undivided,

and concerned considers

"natural"

On the contrary, Robinson be that of the "meer

can and

Brute"

primarily life according to "Principles of to (p. 71). He readily distinguishes himself from Afri
Nature"

American

native

peoples,
more

whom

he

regards

ing

curiosity, contempt, or,

often, horror and

variously with condescend fear. In Robinson's view, any

expectation

precivil pointed.

human

being

is

likely
to

to

be

a cannibal. a

This

is

not

disap

Robinson's island, it turns out, is

who wish

destination for

savages

from the

Fri gratify a passion for "inhumane not just happen onto the island but is brought slated captive, for devouring. Robinson, both Friday's liberator and new captor, soon leams that his man too is a cannibal, and promptly undertakes to wean him of the nearby mainland day himself does

Feastings."

Rousseau 's Adventure

with

Robinson Crusoe

323

apparentiy natural lust for human flesh. (The present-day reader finds a comic aspect in Robinson's effort to persuade Friday that alternative victuals provide
tolerable substitutes.)

Natural

man

in Robinson Crusoe is
of a

red

in tooth

and claw.

Reeling
and other

from his first

of

discovery

"Shore

spread with

Skulls, Hands, Feet,

Bones

humane

Bodies,"

Robinson

stood still a while

amaz'd; and then recovering my self, I looked up

with the utmost

Affection

[he]
such

my soul, and with a Flood of Tears in my Eyes, gave God Thanks that had cast my first Lot in a Part of the World, where I was distinguish'd from
of

dreadful Creatures

as

these.

(Pp.

129-30)

Robinson

tial,
man

as

his Englishness (or, more broadly, his Europeanness) as essen that alone which separates him from the depravity to which uncivilized
sees prone.

is

It

would

be inaccurate to describe the heart

of

this novel as

concerning Man on a desert isle. Rather it concerns a late seventeenth-century Englishman on a desert isle. Robinson's Englishness is accented throughout the

island

narrative.

political

customs.6

Wherever possible, he seeks to imitate his nation's An early project is to fashion a table and chair Robinson designates himself king, with housecats. He declares the island his
"Castie."

social and
so

that he
a

may dine
parrot, a

properly. and

subjects

including
rude

dog,

"realm."

His

cave-

dwelling
from the

he dubs
vessel

a which

He is

"Master"

to Friday. When

men come ashore

"Governour."

he eventually leaves, he becomes their On his island, he is legislator, judge, and executive; at times he deliberates over justice, takes prisoners, holds hostages, wages battle, grants amnesty. Yet for all his fondness for his homeland
his
situation on a and appropriation of an

in

desert isle

attests to
not

its customs, the very fact of ambiguity in Robinson's relationship

a subject no

with

England:

a citizen

does

forsake his city;

does

not crown

himself king. While England lives in him, Robinson in gland. Never in the story is there consideration of duty

way lives for En

to country.

or service

Wherever he finds himself, Robinson benefits from a common national store of experiences and mores; but he is unobliged. He comes and goes as he pleases
and

if he

pleases.

His

attitude

toward country

say, the Pilgrims to

America,

who

is wholly different from that of, journeyed two generations His is an

earlier.7

Englishness that

can altogether

do

without

England. This is

novelty, one

char

acterizing bourgeois. island. He

new

type of man, the man Rousseau

disparagingly

called

the

That Robinson is

bourgeois is

evident

in the
He

picture that emerges on

the
as

seeks control over things and men.

either

views other

human beings
or to

instrumental,
when on

to his business
not ungrateful, no

success when off

the

island

his

escape pays

it. He is

but his

gratitude to others

invariably

dividends. There is There is

son's no

controlling bond of family, friendship, or fatherland. good. And consider Marx's reflections on Robin common earthly
economics:

island

324

Interpretation

are diversity of [Robinson's] productive functions, he knows that they hence only different of of one and the same different forms Robinson, activity only Our friend Robinson Crusoe learns modes of human labor. by experience, and having saved a watch, ledger, ink and pen from the shipwreck, he soon begins,

Despite the

like

a good

Englishman,

to

keep

a set of

books. His

stock-book contains a

catalogue of the useful objects

their production, and

products

finally

he possesses, of the various operations necessary for of the labour-time that specific quantities of these
him. All the
relations

have

on average cost

between Robinson

and
. . .

these

objects that

form his

self-created wealth are

simple and transparent

[,

and]

contain all the essential

determinants

of

value.8

Robinson
and after

on

the island is the

homo

economicus

that

he

was

before he landed

he departs.
picture of

Yet the

Robinson-as-mere-bourgeois becomes blurred.

when

During
"the

his

first

year of

solitude,

Robinson is

moved to reflect on
of

suffering his life

life-endangering
and

bout

ague,"

of

lot. He
so

rebukes

himself for

having

long
with
.
.

ignored the hand

proper

Providence, for having

long
. .

applied

"to the Works

(p. 72),

illness, he is
and
on

seized

for my Preservation and Supply. by "the Horror of dying in such

mind turns

himself only Amidst the struggle

Condition

a miserable

his

heavenward. He begins to in his life

a

recognize a radical

dependency

God,

and

to

read

Providential

script.

He

will come

his self-preserving activities to the will of God as he understands it. His fear of miserable death will become an impetus for a wholesale religious
to subordinate
reinterpretation of

life. This is

ean contractarianism.

not exactly the self-preserving impulse of Lock And Robinson's religion is not the tame, civil religion of

Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Defoe's island
nipresence of

narrative

is the

om

Providence, sin, repentance, and redemp tion. All the more astonishing, in this light, is a comment of Marx that betrays a Rousseauan pedigree: "Of [Robinson's] prayers and the like, we take no ac
reflection on

Protestant

count

since our

friend takes

pleasure

in them

recreation"

and sees

them as

(p. 169). Pleasure? Recreation? Consider: Robinson begins to

[T]hro'

during
divine

his

affliction with the

ague,

perceive the

reality

of

retribution.

all the

Variety

of of

Miseries that had to this

it

day befallen
or that or

me, I never had so

much as one

Thought

being

the Hand of
against

for my Sin; my
were
...

rebellious

Behaviour

God, my Father,
general

it

was a

just Punishment Sins

which

my

present
of

great; or
was

so much as a

Punishment for the

of a

Course
...

my

wicked

Life.

meerly thoughtless
not

God,

or a

Providence.

(P.

72)
Christian

Robinson does

conversion that same

stop at feverish first year.

I took the

musings.

He

undergoes a powerful

July 4. In

the

Morning
read

Bible,

and
upon

beginning
my

at

the New

Testament, I
every

began seriously to

it,

and

impos'd

self to read a while

Morning

Rousseau 's Adventure

: It was not every Night long after I Heart more my deeply and sincerely affected

with

Robinson Crusoe

325

and

set

with

seriously to this Work, but I found the Wickedness of my past Life:

ran

and the

Words, All

these

Things have

not

brought thee to Repentance,

seriously in my Thought: I was earnestly when it happen'd providentially the very

these

begging of God to give me Repentance, Day that reading the Scripture, I came to
Saviour,
to give

Words, He is

exalted a

Prince

and a

Repentance,

and to give

Remission: I threw down the Book, and with my Heart as well as my Hands lifted up to Heaven, in a Kind of Extasy of Joy, I cry'd out aloud, Jesus, thou Son of

David, Jesus,
The
prose

thou exalted

Prince

and

Saviour, Give

me

Repentance! (P. 77)

ample.

is virtually Augustinian, Toward the end of his lortg

and the

foregoing

is

hardly

an

isolated

ex

years on the

island, Robinson

rejoices that

is brought to "know Christ Jesus, to know whom is life When Robinson would reflect on this, "a secret Joy run through every Part of my

Friday
Soul,
had

eternal."

and

frequently
me."

rejoyc'd that ever

was

brought to this Place, Afflictions that

could

which

so often

thought the most dreadful

of all

possibly

have befallen
made

To have

saved a soul seemed

to him at that time to have

it

all worthwhile.

In this thankful Frame I

-was now a good

continued all the

a much

Christian,

Remainder of my Time. The Savage better than I; though I have reason to hope, and
. . .

bless God for it, that we were equally penitent, and comforted restor'd Penitents; we had here the Word of God to read, and no farther off from his Spirit to instruct,
than

if

we

had been in England. (P. 172)

The

savage and the

Englishman

are united at

tion, not by consanguinity, not both transcends and attenuates

by

love

of a

condi last, not by any but fatherland, by something that

unum necessarium.

"natural"

other

ties, the
have but

In this their

differences fall

by

the wayside.
and

Like Emile, Robinson

Friday

one

book

as a constant compan

ion. Their book, of course, the young Emile is not to encounter at all. So in order for Emile to avoid that book the Robinson and to avoid so much more
Crusoe that is to be his
bered"

constant companion must

"rigmarole."

necessarily be "disencum

of a vast amount of

II. DEFOE AND CRUSOE: SOME CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS

When

culties emerge

reading of Robinson Crusoe turns from casual to inquiring, diffi from the text. How is it possible to square Robinson's religious

reinterpretation of

life

with

his lack

of

contrition, upon returning to

England,

for

having
reader

ignored his father

an act which

he had termed his "Original Sin"?

The

is

at a

loss, for

that matter, to

repented when given repentance.

identify exactly of what sins Robinson Certainly he had no qualms about having

em-

326

Interpretation
on a

slave-trading expedition, although this would seem to have been the proximate cause of his island distress and thus might easily have been

barked

interpreted
powerful

as an

invitation to divine
conversion

retribution.

How, further,

can

Robinson's
that

Christian

be

squared with

the bourgeois

self-interest

continues most

to characterize him throughout the novel?

The

above are

but

sampling

of

difficulties that have

These

provided grist

for the

mills of over coexist

two

criticism.9

centuries of

and other elements of

the novel
criti

in

considerable

tension that

is

never resolved

in its pages, despite

cal attempts

to see such resolution. The tension, for example, between Robin

ongoing bourgeois character of his soul cannot, as has Ethic.10 been argued, be resolved by chalking it up to a nascent Protestant An appraisal in light of the "Weber proves unsatisfactory; Robinson never
son's conversion and the
thesis"

successfully integrates his religious musings, typified by a tone nation, into a life of otherwise blatantly worldly strivings.
Did Defoe intend to leave
unresolved

of ascetic

resig

tensions? What kind of a writer was

he? A study by Thomas S. Schrock, "Considering Crusoe,"" suggests that De foe did intend to leave tensions in the novel. In a tour de force of close reading
and

the best overall analysis available, Schrock reveals a depth to Defoe's work

belying

Green's

view

that Crusoe could

initially

have been deemed "pastime

to the effect that

reading for the Defoe was a sort

son

nonliterary."

He

even makes a solid argument

of esoteric writer.

His

method

involves

comparison of

Robin

Crusoe

with two

lesser known

Robinson

Crusoe,

and

The Farther Adventures of Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe. "I take all these
works

by Defoe,

seriously,"

neglected writings

he notes,

because I believe that, when an author presents a work of ostensibly connected parts, all said to come from the mind and experience of the same protagonist. .

narrator, the presumption

as

rebuttable to

be

sure

is that he

wants us to read them

connected,

i.e.,

as parts of a whole

which, as such, are

likely

to be more reliable
. . .

guides to the

interpretation

of each other

than are any extraneous documents.

reading elicits enough real interdependence in the volumes to justify saying it would be as arbitrarily foolish to ignore the lesser known portions of the work as it would be to interpret the island narrative
sympathetic

[I]n the

case of

Crusoe,

mechanically in light

of those portions.

(Pp. 78-79,

n.

6)

Schrock's interdependence hypothesis stands in contrast to a tradition that has generally taken the Farther Adventures as an afterthought (begun and com pleted within months of the first volume's appearance) designed to cash in on
the original's popularity, and the
of

Serious Reflections

as a

disjointed

assortment

Defoe

essays packaged

for marketing

purposes under the name of

his famous

protagonist.

self, who

Schrock's hypothesis would seem to be supported says in the preface to the Serious Reflections,
of

by

Crusoe him

As the design
execution,
so

everything is

said to

be first in the intention,

my

and

last in the is
not

come now to acknowledge to

reader that the present work

Rousseau 's Adventure

with

Robinson Crusoe

327

merely the product of the two first volumes, but the two first volumes may rather be called the product of this. The fable is always made for the moral, not the moral for the fable.'2

The

moral

that Schrock draws from the three

volumes

is,

roughly, fourfold:

(1)

there
grace at

is

no

God; (2)
cannot

itself

Machiavelli, overcome; (3) a la Hobbes, fear

a man

la

is

compelled

by

of violent

necessity which death especially

is the human being's fundamental animating principle; and (4) a la Locke, material comfort is the sine qua non of anything that could be deemed happiness or blessedness.
That the
whole of

the hands of men

this moral can be extrapolated through painstaking com the three texts

parison, contrast,
case

and analysis of

is,

I concur,

plausible.

Schrock's

is

strong.

Less compelling

would

be

an argument

which, granted, Schrock

that Defoe intended such esoteric moralism in toto. making explicitly Robinson's statement in the Serious Reflections that "the two first volumes may be called the product of should be viewed cautiously as what it was, a
avoids
this" ...

statement made after the

fact

and on

the heels of earlier popular success. I have

corroborating evidence that Defoe penned Robinson Crusoe as the opening installment of a three-volume opus. It could of course be that De foe's Robinson intended a moral to be drawn from the narrative volumes that
no

discovered

the latter collection of essays refines and elaborates, even a moral

largely

corre

sponding to Schrock's portrayal of it. Schrock

Maximillian E. Novak, that Defoe had some modem political philosophy that is at least in

does convince, along with critic interest in and knowledge of early

part

displayed in

Robinson."

Defoe was, clearly, a kind of political thinker, if not one of the first rank. He flirted with Grotianism, as evidenced in an early pamphlet, and, as Michael Zuckert has observed, "sooner or later he started to make Lockean arguments

instead,
It is

or

in

addition.

By

1701

Defoe had

embraced

Lockean

principles."14

quite possible

(as has

often

been

done)

to extricate Lockean principles

from the Crusoe trilogy,

was

and also elements of the

to culminate in the thought of

serious

modernity that Locke. Yet Schrock appears to be unique

of

"first

wave"

Crusoe scholars in his contention that Defoe, or at any rate God or Providence. He stands against what he acknowl discounts Robinson, edges to be the "prevailing view, indeed the great theme of present day Crusoe

among

studies,"

to wit, "that religion

is his

principle"

vital

(p. 76).
could natu

The

uniqueness of what

shall call

Schrock's irreligion thesis

rally be as much a sign of accuracy as of idiosyncracy. Let investigate key components of the argument. The
crux of the thesis

us then

briefly

he

summarizes as

follows:

All

[Robinson's]

talk about the

blessings

of religious

deliverance has to be

read

in
all

the light of

his virtually
the

ceaseless endeavor to

deliver himself back into

what

he

along

regarded as

him,

the fear of

only necessary and sufficient salvation God is as nothing next to the fear of man. He

civil society. relied on

For
own

his

328

Interpretation
and
prudence

fear
evil,

not on prayer or

Providence to

free himself from the primary

(P.

which

is

the state of nature and not the

state of sin.

77)
rogues and sav

Robinson

speculates

routinely

on the threat of
repentance

falling

prey to

ages, but not on the relationship of

son

to the threat of hell

troubles
vision

(see Robin

Crusoe,
than

p.

77). When

demonic
perils.'5

vision

him, he
is

views

it

as a

warning
son

sign of all-too-human

That this
calls

more real

to Robin

any

vision

of

God, Schrock

"the

principal

defect in Crusoe's

conversion."

One

can

detect

philosophical and theological problems

in Defoe's

presenta
on

tion of Robinson's religion that smack of Locke's veiled

disingenuousness
says that

the

subject of

Christianity. After his conversion, Robinson

he

would

be

satisfied

to pass his life in solitude,

knowing

the comfort of salvation; yet

he

labors

and plots

endlessly to return to civilization and to appropriate compan

who represent

ions in the

meantime

that larger goal in microcosm and are

instrumental to attaining it. Is there not contradiction here? Moreover Robinson has a tendency, intimated at points in the narrative and more pronounced in the

Reflections,
pension of evidence of

toward subordination of

Providence
"atheism,"

altogether

Providence to necessity or toward the sus (Schrock, pp. 87-92, 97-104). Is not this
word?

to use Schrock's
of

But showing that elements ingenuousness is not identical

genuous.

Defoe's

presentation smack of a

Lockean dis

with

showing that the presentation is itself disin

Defoe's

presentation

may, alternatively,
principles that

betray

a confused

sincerity,

bom
cal

of an embrace of

Lockean

falls

somewhat short of theoreti

understanding or consistency. Robinson's religion is not, it bears repeating, that of Locke in The Reasonableness of Christianity. Defoe expends no effort on making it appear in any modem philosophic sense. Textual
"reasonable"

examples quoted

in

section one of

the present essay

character of

illustrate,

rather,

what

have

called the

virtually Augustinian
attempts

Robinson's

religious musings.

Schrock, however,
of religious

to enlist Robinson against himself on the subject

and even polemical

sentiment, revealing, he suggests, a satiric

narrative's religious contents.

in

tention

in the

"Crusoe's

conversion occurred
flu,"

dur

observes century version of the Hong Kong Schrock (p. 79). He interprets as evidence of conversion a part of the June 28 journal entry in which an ailing Robinson ponders words of the psalmist: Call

ing

bout

of a seventeenth

Day of Trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify me. "To be sure, Crusoe may have experienced some religious feelings during his ill ness. But his last word on sickbed conversions is that a man is not 'fit for
on me
...

in the

Repentance

on a

Sick

Bed'"

(p. 91). Schrock

understands

Robinson to be
spurious"

sub

tly telling

the reader that "at

best his

religious

feelings

were

all along.

The startling revelation of a veiled disavowal of faith by Robinson hinges on Schrock's June 28 placement of the conversion. And this placement is oddly chosen. Robinson had on that occasion "opened the Book" and only
"casually,"

Rousseau's Adventure
the psalmist's were

with

Robinson Crusoe
me."

329

but "the first Words

with

that occurr'd to

He

avers that

"my

Head

was

too much disturb 'd

same tobacco

the Tobacco to bear reading, at least that

Brain."

Time."

This

had "at first

almost stupify'd

my
which

Robinson

concludes

the evening

by downing

tobacco-steeped mm,

"flew up in my
Impression"

Head
on

violently"

(p. 75). Although the biblical "Words

was to think

made a great at pains to about

him,

and

he

convey that on There is no intimation

"upon them very Robinson is the twenty-eighth he did not fully have his wits
of a proper conversion

often,"

him.
expe

experience,

no

hint
date

that

his

rience
A

that night was

itself decisive.
the conversion

much

better

placement of

is

July 4,
. . .

about which

Schrock
this

says

only that "Crusoe began serious study of the

Bible."

Yet it

was on

date that Robinson, "in a Kind of Extasy of Joy Jesus to give him repentance. Devoted biblical inquiry,
the-Spirit, God. And the
conversion

aloud"

cry'd out

for

ecstatic

movement-in-

and repentance are all reliable signifiers of metanoia, conversion

to

did

not take place on a sickbed.

not

In

a state of awe the

and

day

before Robinson had written, "Have I

Sickness?"

been

deliver'

d,

too, from aloud, for my

Schrock
after
"vanished"

"Immediately"

he had knelt down

to be

and given

wonderfully "God Thanks

Recovery from my

Sickness"

(pp. 76-77).

understands

Robinson

elsewhere

informing
be

the reader that

altogether

discovering
inclusive

the footprint in the sand, his

p.

religious

feelings

(Schrock,

77). This is not, though, Robinson's

what could

gathered

from

more

evaluation of

reflections after

that discovery. Schrock

shock:

makes much of a particular reflection

following
all

Robinson's initial I had

"Thus

my Fear

banish'

all

my

religious

Hope;
p.

that former Confidence in God

as of

which was

founded
.
.

upon such wonderful

Experience

his Goodness,
much of

now vanished

(Robinson Crusoe,
make

122). But in

order

to make so

this statement, Schrock must

nothing

at all of a

lengthy

passage on the

very

next page.

How
secret

strange a Chequer- Work of

Providence is the Life

about as

of

Man!

and

by

what

present!

differing differing To Day we love what to Morrow we hate; to Day we seek what to Morrow we shun; to Day we desire what to Morrow we fear; nay even tremble at the Apprehensions of; this was exemplify'd in me at this Time in the most lively
Springs
are the

Affections hurry'd

Circumstances

Manner imaginable; for I whose only Affliction was, that I seem'd banished from human Society, that I was alone, circumscrib'd by the boundless Ocean, cut off from Mankind, and condemn d to what I call'd silent Life; that I was as one who
Heaven thought
the rest of
seem'd not

worthy to be

number'

d among the Living,

my
own

or to appear would

his Creatures; that to have to me a Raising me from Death to Life,

next

seen one of

Species,
could

among have

and the greatest

Blessing

that

Heaven it self, I
should now

to the

supreme

Blessing

of

Salvation,

bestow; / say, that

tremble at the

sink into the Ground at his Foot in the Island.

very Apprehensions of seeing a Man, and was ready to but the Shadow or silent Appearance of a Man's having set

330

Interpretation
Such is the

great many uneven State of human Life: And it afforded me a Speculations afterwards, when I had a little recover'd my first Surprize; I considered that this was the Station of Life the infinitely wise and good Providence

curious

of

God had determin'd for me,

might

that as

could not

foresee

what

the

Ends

of

Divine I
was

Wisdom

be in

all

this,

so

was not to

dispute his Sovereignty, who,

govern and

as

his Creature, had

an undoubted

Right

by

Creation to

dispose

of me

absolutely as he thought fit; and who, as I was a Creature who had offended him, had likewise a judicial Right to condemn me to what Punishment he thought fit; and that it was my Part to submit to bear his Indignation, because I had sinn'd
against

him.
reflected that

I then

God,

who was not

had thought fit thus to he did

not think and

punish and afflict

only Righteous but Omnipotent, as he me, so he was able to deliver me; that if
also to

absolutely hope in him, pray to him, daily Providence. These Thoughts took Months.
. .

fit to do it, 'twas my unquestion'd Duty to resign my self entirely to his Will; and on the other Hand, it was my Duty
and

quietly to attend to the Dictates and Directions of

and

his

me

up many Hours, Days; nay, I may say, Weeks

This from There

eration

a man

from

whom all religious with

are other

difficulties in

supposedly had vanished? Schrock's irreligion thesis, but our consid

feeling
it,
at

thus far

should

suffice

to
on

render

the very

least,

problematic.17

Schrock is Robinson

correct

insisting

the error of seeing in the

post-conversion

a uniform manifestation of some religious

orthodoxy, or a

new stead

fastness in trusting God. The passage reproduced above, with its tone of pious resignation, is not Robinson's last word in religious sentiment any more than
was

the prior passage highlighted

by

Schrock. And indeed Robinson's dread

soon returns.

of

the threat represented

word

by

the

footprint

The

point

is,

there is no

last

in

religious sentiment or on religion

itself,

and an effort

to

elicit one

cannot succeed.

As observed, Schrock views the great realism of Robinson's fear of man, in contrast with any fear of God, to be the principal defect in the conversion to Christianity. It may in truth be Calvinism an orthodoxy with
proves of a grave

defect from the

some critics

vantage of orthodox

which

have wrongly, Schrock

beyond doubt, associated Robinson. But why should a Calvinist standard orthodoxy be similarly applied by Schrock in dissociating Robinson from
That Robinson's
creator was a

religion?

Dissenter is

a matter of

record, but this

orthodox

does

not of

itself be

suffice

for,

and might even militate

against, positing

Calvinism

as a standard

by

which

Defoe's
never

religious views or those of

his

char

acters should affiliation and

judged.18

Defoe

tells the reader Robinson's Protestant

churchgoing.

is

almost silent about

his

Schrock takes this

that

as still

more evidence of

Robinson's

atheism.
and

More

likely, I think, is
of

it indicates
religious
a

the same

thing

as

do the variety

irreconcilability

Robinson's
state

expressions and

reflections, namely,

an eclecticism

or, to

it differently,

Rousseau's Adventure
confusion.
was

with

Robinson Crusoe

331

Robinson's

religion

may

or

(a perennially

contested

issue),

may not be Defoe's, whatever Defoe's but Robinson's religion would not have
variegated

been lence

unrecognizable

in the

increasingly

terrain of English Chris

centuries."

tianity during
about

the late seventeenth and

early

eighteenth

Defoe's

si

Robinson's denominational
a religious

affiliation

may

well

have

served to turn

Robinson into

Everyman for

a popular audience.

It is, further, the

critical

very recognizability
notion

of

Robinson's

views that

has fostered the prevailing

that religion

is his

vital principle.
nature,"

Robinson's ongoing desire to be delivered from the "state of conflicting statements about Providence, his lack of contrition for
awareness of certain

his

or

even and

sins,

and other

tensions between thought

or

belief

action, all present serious theoretical problems that could be interpreted

by

the

theorist as marks of atheism. But to credit Defoe's Crusoe with atheism

give

is to

him too

much credit.

It is to

see

in him

a theological and philosophical

attribute

coherence

that simply does not exist, and,

of

by
of

extension, to

to Defoe a

synoptic

grasp

theoretical

implications
nor

warranted neither

by

his

biography

by

early his

modem political

philosophy

oeuvre.20

"The fable is
tions.

always made

for the

moral,"

Robinson

said

in Serious Reflec

We

are now

left

with

three prongs of Schrock's

and

fourfold moral, its Machi

Lockean
elements

avellian element

(if tempered),

its Hobbesian

and

this

because
require

although

Schrock is

correct moral

it,

part of the

intended

in sensing that consistency would is not that there is no God.

seem

to

III. ROUSSEAUAN TRUTHS ABOUT ROBINSON CRUSOE

We
chosen

return

to a

question with which we

Robinson Crusoe

and not some

began: why other book? The

might

Rousseau have Rous

suggestion that

seau selected

be

Crusoe accidentally is not, I have argued, supportable. Nor would suggestion that he read the book only cursorily: his acknowledgement of
that must

"rigmarole"

be dispensed

with shows care reference

in

determining
detail,
as

what consti

tutes the rigmarole. And he makes

to minute

in

describing
the

Robinson's
parasol

apparel.
p.

He bothers

even

to note that Emile will

do

without

(Emile,
books

185).

The

adoption and

thoroughgoing

recharacterization of a popular of

book
a

writer of

who pronounces

his hatred

books

suggests

instead

by a deep

reading
requires

and a studied

intention. It is surely

significant

that Rousseau never

mentions

Defoe, thereby effectively displacing him

that an
author

as author.

Yet if objectivity

first be

understood

as

he

understands

himself,

then

some readers of
son

Emile

cannot

but

wish

to encounter the real writer of Robin

Crusoe. Indeed
to
one

ence

we may assume that, in calling the attention of his audi book alone, Defoe's novel, it was Rousseau's expectation that
Defoe.2'

some should encounter

Only by

reading Defoe

could the reader of

332

Interpretation
aware of

Emile become Defoe

very
might

those

elements

Rousseau

suppressed.

Only by

reading
to those

the

attentive student

discover that, in
appears

drawing

attention

elements

by

his silence, Rousseau

of

to be engaging an

enemy.22

Not
poet

unlike

the Socrates
certain

Plato's Republic (329b), Rousseau forbids his

to say

things and orders

him to tell tales

remains

about

their opposites. In

this sense, what Bloom wrote of Rousseau

altogether.

true:

he banishes poetry

Rousseau
as the

implicitly

rejects

Schrock's

approach of

first installment in any

trilogy
its
parts

of unified

taking Robinson Crusoe intention, only in light of the

understood.

whole of which can

of

be adequately

Rousseau too
religion, and

must

have

recognized

the tensions among philosophy,

theology

or

action
where.

in the first
Indeed the

volume

that prompted Schrock to seek their resolution else

comprises

"rigmarole"

the elements that cause the tensions.

Rousseau's

recommendation of

but

the one volume

may indicate

an appraisal with

that certain tensions in Defoe's Robinson are fundamentally

or without

irreconcilable,
on the

the latter volumes,

and also perhaps a

final judgment

quality
the

and coherence of

Robinson's thought.
an

If, though, Rousseau is engaging

engagement must

enemy in his

use of

Defoe's work,

be

of

something

other than shoddiness or

cause.

incoherence. If he

is

banishing

poet, it must be for

Rousseau's Emile
man and
phy.

presents the education of the

first

renaturalized political

is thus

a crucial element

in the

articulation of a new political philoso

Defoe's

popular novel presented a character

in

part

based

on teachings of

Rousseau's political philosophy ex plicitly engages. Defoe's novel and its hero could, then, be seen to be ripe for a dialectical encounter with Rousseau's novel and its hero. Robinson provides the
earlier modern political philosophers whom

quintessential portrait of a problem

Rousseau identified in his

could

predecessors. what

About Defoe does say

of

and

his

creation and

Rousseau

have said, derivatively,

he

Hobbes
man."23

Locke:
man

"they
pride,

spoke about savage man and

they de

scribed civil

Their

in the

state of nature
all of which

is

characterized

by

need,

avarice, oppression,

desires,
of

and
on

Rousseau deems imports dangerous

charac

from

civil

society; Robinson

his island

manifests all these

teristics,
return.

and the

fact

their

importation from the

place to which

he longs to

an irony in Robinson's impulse to return to civil society. When in England, Brazil, wherever he is bored to distraction. He needs civil society but has no vision of what happiness in its bosom would be. In its bosom, he invariably wants to leave. His life is finally what Leo Strauss, in an

There is

there

analysis of

Locke, memorably
need

phrased a

"joyless

quest

for

joy."

But Robinson's

for diversion is

rendered a

bit less Lockean

and per

haps

a touch more

Pascalian

by

his

disconcertingly

incongruous

religiosity.

The
nei

dangerous

characteristics that threaten the potential

for happiness Robinson

nor to

ther attributes to nature, as had Hobbes and

Locke,

the

amour-propre

Rousseau's Adventure
bom any
of

with

Robinson Crusoe
dangers

333
in

society,

as

did Rousseau. When Robinson

he
attributes

recognizes
sin.

at all

of these characteristics

them rather to

Unlike deformations

wrought

by

dumb

nature or societal

convention, the

sin of

fallen judge

man

is

not

amenable to

merely human

correction.

And if

one considers sin

in light
with

of a

Robinsonian
whether

confusion about

Providence, it is impossible
to any correction.

to

clarity
of

its deformations

are amenable

For the
early or in

attentive student of

Emile, Defoe's Robinson betrays

human
passions

the

failure

modem political what

philosophy to apprehend

in their

origin

is

required

further

offers a case

for their containment, direction, and satisfaction. He study in their failure to understand the socialized human
of
other.24

being's intrinsic religiosity, or to deal effectively with the delicate interplay this dimension of soul on the one hand and societal convention on the
For the
man general reader of on an

stranded

Emile, Defoe's Robinson is a recognizably island, whose economic ingenuity, cunning,

"civil"

adventure-

someness, and piety are

attractive audience
where

immediately

attractive.

And Robinson

was

immediately

to a popular readership in eighteenth-century England. Defoe gave his an agreeable hero blessed with a highly diverting life; I say blessed
says
cursed

Robinson
since)

readers

would not
would

because early readers of the novel (and most typically have left with the impression that Robinson have
wished

was cursed. would

would

They

they

could trade their

lives for his,

and

them

have eagerly awaited reports of Robinson's "farther They have seen in Defoe's hero one who, in attitude and aspiration, was one of only more interesting. With a little luck and a little gumption, anyone
a new and called the

adventures."

among them could be Robinson Crusoe. Defoe could be said to have epitomized breed
nobles with of

(to

Rousseau) dangerous
poet.25

unseemly creature,

what might

be

bourgeois
charming

He

en

an essentially self-interested contractarian his hero's complexity of character: Robinson

of apolitical
otherworldliness

by
an

all

the while

evidences vestiges of chau

vinism, and also

impossible melange,
Defoe's
novel

ac

The general reader charmed by cording to have been unlikely to have experienced a tension between being citizen or subject and being what would come to be called bourgeois. And he would have
would

Rousseau.26

felt

no tension

between any peculiarly

of these and

his

religion.

He

would

have

been,

as

Robinson

is,

confused modem

hybrid.

This

confused modem

hybrid,

so typical of actual

bourgeois societies,
to
overcome

pre

sented special challenges to geois

a philosopher who sought

the bour
made

in the

names of nature and

the city. This hybrid

could not

easily be

to see

himself

as

debased

or contemptible;

he

would not shudder with recogni

tion at Nietzsche's
within

portrait of

the "last

man."

He did

not perceive the

divisions fac

his

soul.

Having
within,

toppled real thrones and real altars,

and so

he had

rebuilt

similes of them

had

not

genuinely

overcome

them.

Yet in

need of

liberation, he Still,

no

longer

experienced

the need.
man was not

as a close

study

of

Robinson suggests, the hybrid

fully

334

Interpretation

self-satisfied either.

He

was educable.

In Robinson,

we witness one such man a

in

a situation

rife

with

human

possibility.

His island is

State

of

Nature, but

he is constitutionally blinded to the possibilities of original freedom. Rousseau redraws Robinson, supplying him with the nature denied him by Defoe and
misunderstood

by

Defoe's

philosophic teachers.

Rousseau's young Emile is

not

at

all, in the end, made to become like Robinson.

made

Rather,

through

Rousseau's invites the

in
a

legerdemain, Robinson is
charmed reader of

to become like Emile. Rousseau

recast

Robinson Crusoe to

the experience of that novel

way that
ables

enables

him to inhabit Rousseau's Emile's

education.

novel

instead

in

way
man

that en

him to
his

share

Only
be he

thus

may the hybrid

discover

in himself the
cover

confusion

that

must

overcome.

unfelt needs.

Only

thus may

gain some

Only inkling

thus may he dis

of a

way to their

satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

Schrock's insightful

analysis

has been

crucial

in

leading
his

us

to discover the
of

heart

of

problem

that Rousseau

addressed

through

use

Robinson

Crusoe. Robinson's bourgeois soul, in large

tional philosophic enterprises,
nor citizen.

measure

a consequent of
"Man"

inten

is

not whole.

Robinson is

neither

Schrock

showed that soul

it

makes no theoretical sense

simply for Defoe to

have

overlaying it with a veneer of religiosity. Because his soul is so augmented, though, Schrock is right to question Robin son's sincerity. But Robinson's religion turns out to be strangely sincere. That is
augmented

Robinson's

by

the heart of the problem.

Rousseau

saw that earlier contract

theorists had not perceived man in

wholeness.

his

wholeness, and so had been unable to prescribe for his

Centrally,

they did
se with sulted

not understand the role of religion proper political

in

integrating

the

human

being

per

its

incarnation,
of

the citizen. Their theoretical failure re

completion that we

practically in the kind witness in Robinson.

haphazard grasping for

be
an

Emile,
will
will

on

the other

hand, is

educated to

integrated

whole.

Religion

necessarily be part of his education eventually, and Emile's religion too be sincere; in fact its presentation through the Savoyard Vicar's profession
would spark a revolution

of

faith

in

criterion of religious authenticity.

sincerity was to become a sufficient But Emile's sincerity, in contrast to Robin

which

son's, is to be of

a piece with

the rest of him.

as a whole

To

remake

the

human

being

is

task of

Rousseau's

political

thought.

Defoe's

most

famous

work reveals

the extent of such a task

son

among

modem men.

something of the requirements and Rousseau's engagement of Robin

of

Crusoe

shows

his

awareness of these
also reveals

realities, and his dauntlessness in the

the scale of

face

of them.

It thereby

something

his

ambitions.

Rousseau 's Adventure

with

Robinson Crusoe

335

NOTES

1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979), p. 9. in Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs (New York: Simon and Schuster, Essay reprinted as 1990), pp. 177-207.
"Emile"

W.W. Norton & Co., 1975),

edition.

2. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, ed. Michael Shinagel, a Norton Critical Edition (New York: pp. 75, 77. All Robinson Crusoe citations are from this authoritative 3. A 1979
count

found 1,198

editions

in English
of

alone.

There have been

Crusoe,"

several more since

then.

See

Philip Zaleski,

"The Strange Shipwreck

Robinson

First Things,

May 1995,

p.

38. 4. Martin Green, The Robinson Crusoe Story (University Park: The Pennsylvania State Univer sity Press, 1990), p. 40. 5. Op. cit., p. 39. Zaleski's article, concerning the absence of Defoe's religious themes from many editions of Crusoe, first alerted me to investigate the possibility of a Rousseau connection. 6. See Maximillian E. Novak, "The Economic Meaning of Robinson in Frank H. Ellis, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of Robinson Crusoe (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
Crusoe,"

1969),

pp.

97-102.
emphasizes that

7. The Mayflower Compact

their sovereign

the disgruntled Pilgrims remain loyal

subjects of

lord

King

James.
trans.
with

8. Karl Marx, Capital,

of

70. The Marxist fascination

Ben Fowkes (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), vol. 1, pp. 169Robinson Crusoe gained peculiar expression in the Soviet Union

sonesque

1933. That year, the Soviet Writers Circle put Defoe, along with Verne (who wrote the RobinLTle mysterieuse) and Swift, at the head of a list of authors most deserving of translation
p.

(Green,

140).
centuries of

9. Essays from the

Crusoe

criticism can

be found in the Norton Critical Edition; in

Frank H. Ellis, ed., op. cit.; Chelsea House, 1995).

and most

recently in Harold Bloom, ed., Robinson Crusoe (New York:

1962),

10. See, for example, Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel (Berkeley: pp. 60-92.

University

of

California Press,

11. Interpretation 1 (1970): 76-106, 169-232. 12. Daniel Defoe, Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe, in Harold Bloom, ed., op. cit., p. 5. 13. Novak is, Schrock remarks with measured approval, "the one prominent truant from the
(p. 77 n. 5). See Maximillian E. Novak, Defoe and the prevailing school of Crusoe Nature of Man (London: Oxford University Press, 1963). 14. Michael P. Zuckert, Natural Rights and the New Republicanism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
interpretation"

University Press, 1994),

15. Schrock, black
pp.

pp.

290-91.
search

82-83. In his

for

marks of

overlooks a candidate
cloud"

here. Robinson Bible taken

reports of
me."

his

vision that

dubious piety in the Crusoe corpus, Schrock "I saw a Man descend from a great
at

who was prepared

"to kill

Robinson's language is
a

least vaguely
"
. .

reminiscent of

a passage
saw
. . .

in

the Hebrew

by

Christians to be
the

key

instance heaven

of messianic prophecy:

"I

one

like

a son of man

[who]

came with

clouds of

(Daniel 7:13).

tion that

16. Robinson Crusoe, p. 123. William H. Halewood accurately views this passage as an indica are unceasing, and we are reminded that they go on Robinson's "religious reflections
...

even when
Crusoe,"

the

narrative

is

matters"

concerned with other

("Religion

and

Invention in Robinson Robinson denies the

an

in Ellis, ed., op. cit., p. 81.) 17. One other such difficulty has to do in
a universe governed

with chance.

Schrock

states that

existence of chance ment that

by

Providence. He

also

develops

interesting

argu

Crusoe in fact subtly and almost imperceptibly supplants Providence with chance and thereby again reveals his atheism. Yet Schrock cannot but acknowledge that Robinson's customary denials of the existence of chance "place him in perfect agreement with his author, as the latter is
understood"

generally

and perhaps

correctly

(italics supplied,

p.

101).

336

Interpretation
Robinson'

What then Defoe's

Larger Robinson

are we to conclude about

position on chance?

About Defoe's? About

relation

to Robinson on this issue? remain, too, about chance and the

questions

doctrine

of

Providence. Schrock
and

views

as more

Machiavellian than Calvinistic

here, but Machiavelli

Calvin

are

hardly

the

only

significant thinkers who

have

grappled with the of

notoriously perplexing
perspicacious

relations of

Providence
be

and contingency.

Nor

should the

making

conflicting

statements about this complicated matter

taken to mark as duplicitous any but the most

acter

theoretically

drawn

by

dilettantish thinker

who was

and enthusiasm

for

the new philosophy.

Simply
in

himself variously prone put, that Robinson occasionally

particularly to both religious

"natural,"

not a char

enthusiasm

accords a role to

chance, or sees the hand of Providence

events that otherwise appear

does

not render

him

Machiavellian.

Schrock, though, identifies a passage in Serious Reflections which he deems the coup de grdce in establishing the priority of fonuna. There Robinson approvingly quotes a clergyman as saying in the direction of certain events, "Providence might that while Providence may have "some
share"

perhaps

be limited

by

some superior

direction,
it is

the same that guides all the solemn dispositions of

Nature,
but

and was a wind

blowing

listeth."

where

Schrock

grants

that this statement

'mock-goddess'

is

"enigmatic,"

ventures that

by

the "superior

direction"

meant

"either the

Chance,

or some

thing like

the immutable laws of natural

though, only

by discounting
it
listeth,"

the words
means

(pp. 103-4). He may reach this conclusion, lifted from John 3:8, where Jesus, in speaking of a "wind

motion"

blowing
the

where

clearly

the

Holy

Spirit. Schrock is right that the

Jesus'

clergyman's use of

biblical

phrase

is in
be

a context

wonder what

it

could mean

utterance. And wholly alien to that of for God's Providence to be directed by God's

we are

Holy Spirit.

surely right to But the

enigma cannot well

explained

by being

explained away.

18. While adverting repeatedly to Calvin's authority, Schrock turns to the authority of the An glican divine, Hooker, in a note. In so doing, he allows that "Quotation from Hooker may make the
reader wonder

note there
on which

just what orthodoxy I think Crusoe should be judged by. But on the subject of this is little if any difference between Hooker and Calvin, and that goes for many other points the great Anglican and the Genevan would be united in opposition to the attitudes and

ideas

with which

Crusoe indulges

himself."

(pp. 88

n.

24). Calvinism

remains

Schrock's

standard of

orthodoxy.
what

But

why?

Why, for

that matter, should "Anglican

orthodoxy"

(almost

always a some

troubled concept) be consulted in the matter of Robinson's religion? Robinson's faith, observes J. Paul Hunter, "is intended to be unobjectionable to both Anglican and Dissenter. Defoe's preface to the 1715 volume of The Family Instructor applies equally well to

Robinson Crusoe: 'In the

pursuit of

this Book care is taken to avoid Distinctions of

Opinion,

as to

Church
both

of

England
are

or

Dissenter,
so

and no offense can are

be taken here

on the one

Side

or the

other; as I

hope both
cit., p. 118

Christians
least

both

treated here as such, and the Advice is

impartially

directed to
op.

without the
n.

distinction' "

("Robinson Crusoe's
be
an orthodox

Deliverance,"

in Harold Bloom, ed.,

since orthodoxies

8.)
faith
will not

An

"unobjectionable"

faith

of

any stripe,
nobody's

liter

ally define themselves S. T. Coleridge, an

against objections.

avowed

Christian

who was spokesman

for

orthodoxy, is

one partic

ularly astute observer among many who found Robinson's religion both real and unobjectionable: "Crusoe rises only where all men may be made to feel that they might and that they ought to rise in religion, in resignation, in dependence on, and thankful acknowledgement of the divine mercy and (In Shinagel, ed., Robinson Crusoe, p. 289). 19. Schrock wisely sidesteps the issue of Defoe's religion. Defoe's religious per
goodness"

"[Supposing

suasion can

be

and

in fact is known from

expressed

sources other than

in assuming his persuasion is sciously decided to portray

. . .
sensibilities"

in Crusoe,

or

by

Robinson Crusoe, we are not justified Crusoe. For all we know, Defoe con

a person and/or a

doctrine

uncongenial to

his

own

religious, if not to

from the book of essays: seeing how troublesome those books [the narratives] prove to be, it was considerate of Crusoe to comment thematically in the Serious Reflections" (p. 194). But he also acknowledges that there
narratives
. . ...

his artistic, (p. 78 n. 6). 20. Schrock's interpretive approach requires him to foe's enterprise. He reads this coherence back into the

assume a

high level

of coherence

in De
"

Rousseau 's Adventure

are

with

Robinson Crusoe
examples:

337

instances

son says

"simple mistake[s] on Defoe's in the Farther Reflections that he raised

of

part"

(p. 206). To take but two his first

a nephew upon

return to

(1) Robin England; but

at

according to the

family

accounts

in the first volume, any

nephew would

by

then

have been
off'

least he

thirty-three years old. And

(2) in Robinson Crusoe Robinson

says that

he "pull'd

his

clothes

before swimming back to his ship for supplies, later stuffed his pockets with biscuits.

informing

the reader that while aboard

Critics have
germane

long

observed such was

instances

of what appears to

be

hasty

and careless editing.

The
It

issue here is,

noted

Defoe

careful enough

in his

composition of these

books to have devel

subtlety?

oped philosophical and religious themes of studied

coherence, and with an even esoteric

should

be

in

a similar vein that same year

"Defoe,

who made

his

living
op.

as a

journalist,

churned out

seven other

books the

he fathered

Robinson"

(Zaleski,

cit., p. 38).

A contemporary critic of Defoe (the two knew and disliked each other), Charles Gildon, saw the more substantive inconsistencies in the narratives as representative of inconsistencies in Defoe himself. In
a

parody, Gildon has Defoe answering charges brought

me?"

by

Robinson

and

Friday. Defoe

asks, "what are your complaints of

Robinson responds, "Why, that you have made me a strange whimsical, inconsistent Being, in three Weeks losing all the Religion of a Pious Education; and when you bring me again to a Sense of the Want of Religion, you make me quit that upon Defoe later every Whimsy; you make me extravagantly Zealous, and as extravagantly Remiss. defends himself by saying that "I have been all my Life that Rambling, Inconsistent Creature, I would not have you therefore complain any more of the Contradic which I have made thee. Critics have tion of your character, since that is of a Piece with the whole Design of my
. .
...

Book."

usually

could as

Gildon's parody as a rant, as sour grapes from a writer of lesser success than Defoe. It from an acquaintance of Defoe moreover easily be read as contemporaneous evidence that Defoe and his creation were alike paragons of inconsistency.
read

21. The plausibility 22. Cf. Rousseau's

of this contention

is

enhanced when we note what

Rousseau surely knew,

on

that Defoe's novel had been placed on the

criticism of

Church's Index in 1756.

the Theatre. Al
cases we must

Moliere in the Letter to M. D'Alembert

whereas

though Rousseau engages Moliere

assume

directly

he

suppresses

Defoe, in both

that Rousseau's selection of an opponent is deliberate.

and

23. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Second Discourse, in Roger D. Masters, ed., The First
Discourses (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964), p. 102. It is significant that in Emile Jean-Jacques wants for his
such
"felicity"

Second

charge a

on

Robinson's island

that

Friday

will

hardly
of

be

a concern

(p. 185).
p.

Consider

also

Novak, in Twentieth Century Interpretations,

Rousseau's
civilized man: occupations:

99: "In

spite of

his environment,
and

Crusoe's life is that his brains to find

even seeks

'Always moving, sweating, toiling,

racking
and

still more
put

laborious

he

goes on

in

drudgery

to

his last moment,

death to
"man"

himself in

a position to

live.' "

24. The religiosity intrinsic to socialized man is to be distinguished from the nonreligious in Rousseau's state of nature. Cf. Second Discourse and the Savoyard Vicar's simplicity of
profession of

faith in Emile, Book 4.

some critics

25. Although

identify
was

Don Quixote

as

the first true novel, others give Robinson

Crusoe that distinction. If Defoe

simultaneously
through

truly

the originator of a new art

identifying

dangerous

potentialities of

the

new art

and, with

form, Rousseau may be Emile, correcting them

his own practice. 26. See Social Contract

on the vrai chretien,

Book

4,

chapter

8.

Prescott's Conquests:

Anthropophagy, Auto-da-Fe
Eternal Return
Colin D. Pearce
Humber College

and

"It was my hint to speak of Cannibals that each (other) eat, The Anthropophagai, and men whose heads (Do grow) beneath their shoulders. These things to hear
...

Would Desdemona seriously incline

Othello, Act I,scene iii

'Through the
Better
shadow of the globe we

sweep into the

Cathay."

younger

day:
Tennyson

fifty

years of

Europe than

a cycle of

"Human

sacrifice!

...

his

soul

world, and the world, his

sun-mystery,

and the moon-power

day."

departed back, back into the blood-sacrificial preaway from his own white
. . .

own white conscious

D.H. Lawrence

INTRODUCTION

It sary

seems altogether appropriate of

in

the

light

of the

the half-millennial anniver

a

Christopher Columbus's

arrival

in the New World just his

few

years

ago,
to

and of the recent sesquicentennial of the publication of

great

histories,

mm to the foremost

English-speaking
Prescott.'

student of

the Spanish conquests in the

Americas

William
called

landing
on

has

forth

some

The five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's adverse comments both on the European impact

the original peoples of the Americas and on the treatment this episode has

received at the

hands

of

the most
analysis

militant of

those clamoring

Western historians. Prescott's treatment may not satisfy for politically correct history. In the final
and

he

accepts

the superiority of Western civilization over all others, and

he

argues that

for

all

its faults

crimes, the European

of the

or

Spanish takeover

of

the New World

was

justified in the light

Aztec,
But

and

to a lesser extent, to Pres

Inca

practices of

human

sacrifice and cannibalism.

when we turn

cott we are relieved

to find no simple paean to the

over

Europeans
we

and their

intellec

tual and

cultural

superiority

the conquered.

Rather

find

a sympathetic

interpretation,

Spring 1997, Vol. 24, No. 3

340

Interpretation
discussion
of

and exhaustive
one

the life and society of the Aztecs and Incas on the

hand,

and an even-handed and sometimes

radically

critical

discussion

of

the mentality and conduct of the

Spanish

conquerors on the other.

and

Thus his

histories

should

encomiasts of

leave both the politically correct enthusiasts the Western way of life equally dissatisfied.
why Prescott's histories
"culture,"

the simple

An

additional reason

are

refreshing

at

this time

is in

"sacred,"

the concern
butions"

they

exhibit with
"unique"

with the

and with

the "contri

made what

by

peoples.

Prescott
of

enables us to

better

understand

"values"

the

particular culture and

the Aztec and Inca societies consis

order

He carefully sifts and weighs the available evidence in most detached picture of these civilizations as is humanly
ted.
cott assists
encounter

to arrive at the

possible.

Thus Pres how the

to the

his

readers

to improve their historical understanding of the initial

and

between the Old

New

worlds.

They

will

be

reminded of

Aztecs

and

Incas

appeared to the particular type of and

Europeans that be

went

New World in the first instance,

shores.

they

will also

reminded of

how this
their

type of Europeans appeared to the Aztecs and

Incas

as

they first

arrived on

But
of

perhaps more allows an

immediately
insight into
mean

important is the
"culture"

consideration
which

that the study

Prescott

another
"culture"

is

neither

Spanish early

nor

"indigenous."

Here I

the

of

late

eighteenth-

and

nine

teenth-century Anglo-American Protestant liberalism. Prescott

stance of this culture or outlook that perhaps can

provides an

in

be

corrective of the view

held
The

by

some that the

"WASP"

mind or

the WASP historian

is incapable

of appre

ciating the

merits and accomplishments of other nations and other cultures.

example of

Prescott may serve to overcome the stereotypical image of the Vic torian progressivist liberal as a dogmatic booster of all things to do with the
modern

West
an

and with no

interests

or sympathies

beyond these bounds.

By

providing
all

instance

of such a type

being

genuinely barbarism

open to the virtues and

accomplishments of

"semi-barbarous"

peoples,

while at the same of the

time

being
West,
as

too aware of the potential or possible

serves to

civilized

Prescott

dissolve

the stereotype of the

Anglo-American liberal

"Eurocentric."

contemporary uncertainty among social constructing of social models or defining the laws of social progress, Prescott's classic historical work on the Aztecs and studying Incas is a reminder of what "social or "comparative can be. Lack of a or scheme within which to handle historical details is not
scientists with respect to the
science" politics"

We may

add that

in light

of

the

"context"

his

problem.

What distinguishes Prescott from

more

recent

scholarship
of

and

gives

his

work a

theoretical coherence which this latter lacks is the fact

a

his

being

guided

by

philosophy

of

history,

or more

broadly

stated,

by

an over

arching lated at

conception of civilization's relation to

barbarism. But it "grand

must

be

stipu

the outset that

Prescott's
not

adherence to a

scheme"

or model of

historical development does

not

lead him to
of

slight or slant the

and

details. He does
onto a Proems-

try

dogmatically

to

force the facts

Aztec

Inca society

Prescott's Conquests
tean
the

341

bed

of preconceived categories. point

To

make a

long

story short, for Prescott

details

history
held to

the way to his philosophy of history, while his philosophy of points the way to the details. I would suggest that the fact that Prescott
such a

basic

outlook explains

why his

work stands

the test

of

time,

and

why the more modem scholars

research

working

with a century's worth of subsequent

have been

unable

to add anything

fundamental to his

analysis.2

LIBERAL CIVILIZATION: THE HOBBESIAN BACKGROUND

It is my
em

contention that and as such

Prescott's

conception of civilization
"Hobbesian"

is that It is

of mod perhaps

liberalism

is

fundamentally

in

nature.

a truism to

Why

refer

say that all modem liberalism is ultimately Hobbesian in to Hobbes in particular when discussing Prescott, as there
somewhat or even much closer to or the

character. are

other writers

Montesquieu, Hume, Smith,

comparison?

Mills,

who

many Prescott's time, say Locke, could serve as a more direct

of

The

answer

here is that the Hobbesian interpretation

the rela

tionship between barbarism and civilization shines through very clearly in Pres cott's works in a way that is not perhaps so noticeable in other great figures in
the liberal tradition. This in turn

is

explained

by

the

fact that Prescott,

although

he is writing in the nineteenth century, is writing about societies which were very close in many respects to the medieval-feudal-theocratic regimes against which Hobbes wrote. For Hobbes, civilization,
of
which

is ultimately

"completed"

by

the

flourishing
the mother

philosophy leisure. "Leasure is the

of

and the arts and

sciences,

requires above all and

the possibility of

mother of

Philosophy;
while

Commonwealth,

Peace,

and

Leasure."3

But leisure,

certainly meaning the cultivation of

things. This ulti

the mind, also involves the

production of new opinions about

mately leads to turmoil as men begin to contend for their versions of right and wrong. In the earlier stages of civilization there was the direct force of the
conqueror, or the immediate authority
claims to
of

the father. But

at a

later date it is
law

yers all claim

knowledge that back up rule. Priests, philosophers, they should rule because they are "in the
poets and prophets

scientists and

know."

In the

ancient

kingdoms the

backed up the

royal rulers to such an extent

that it was standard to see the monarch as a

credulous subjects were

divinity

on earth.

In this way the

kept in

peaceful subjugation

to established authority.

The
to
as

catch

in this

arrangement was which

that the

real power

behind the throne tended in

such mysteries minds of

be the priestly caste,

astrology, sacrifices,

through

its

claims

to

wisdom

holy books, prophecy

was

and so on,

beguiled the

both

rulers and ruled alike and

shall

thus conferred the real political authority on

them. As we
situation

see, this

fundamentally

Prescott's

assessment of the

in

pre-Columbian

America.
who

Macaulay was another historian of Prescott's time fundamentally Hobbesian ideal of civilization in his great
Now

deployed the
English

studies of

342

Interpretation
But

History.4

Macaulay
of

wrote and ushered seven centuries centuries

was writing roughly two hundred years Thus in his in the "New Political
Science."

after

Hobbes

overview of

English development he is

in Britain in "the

from the twelfth century up until since Hobbes's initial impact. Hence he
improvement."

only referring to the five Hobbes, but also to the two centuries
not

alludes

to English
of

leadership
desiderata
was

career of political

In

word, Hobbes's list

out

from

the Leviathan had

been

more or

less filled

by

the time of

Macaulay's
mind,"

writing, and

Macaulay himself,
then was
under

as a great exponent of the

"liberal

part of the checklist of the advancement of civilization.

Macaulay
been formed

writing about a highly civilized community that had the influence of Hobbes and those liberal thinkers who
the way down to Bentham and the Mills. He is not the earlier stages of the historical process which Hobbes

followed
therefore
could

after

him

all

focusing

on

"feel."

virtually

Hobbes himself

was at one point

in danger

of

losing

his

head to
the

religious politics.

overcome.

Hobbes lived very much in the society he sought to But this is only conditionally so for Macaulay, who wanted "more of in the
"progressive"

same"

sense of more of the

measures which were

in

progress even as

he

wrote.

Prescott

by

contrast, in

turning

to the Aztecs and

Incas

was

society the Spaniards

the modem,

that

going back beyond his own and Macaulay's time to the kind of is more recognizable in Hobbes. Prescott is ambiguous as between
and the
"Americans"

but

not as

between

either of these two and

Protestant, liberal

West.5

PRESCOTT'S TRIPARTITE SCHEME OF HISTORY

In

discussing
may be

the

rise

of

the modem

fers to Voltaire "as the

sition
said

personage

by

whom

historiographical approach, Prescott re the present laws of historic compo into

system,"

to have been
whom this

first

arranged was

to Montesquieu as
refined,"

the philosopher

by

"system

subsequently

so much

and

to Gibbon as the historian who more than any other writer "exhibits more dis the full development of the principles of modem history." Thus we are tinctly
not surprised

to find that like Vico with

with

his Divine-Heroic-Human scheme, like

and

Comte
sions,
cott

and

John Stuart Mill like Hegel

with

their

Theological-Metaphysical-Positivist divi
All
free"

and

his "One, Few,

are

arrangement, Pres
which

has

tripartite conception of the Stages

of

Mythology-Theogony-Philosophy.6

History

he labels "the

For Prescott the

poetic

age of of

Mythology

may be

regarded as the period of

age."

development

the religious principle in a primitive

"It is the

effort of untutored man to explain the mysteries of agencies religious

nates"

existence,

and the secret character of

by

which the operations of nature are will

conducted."

The

mythology
p.

"vary

with that of

the mde tribes in which it origi

(Mexico,

36), but it is

always the same expression of man's efforts to

Prescott's Conquests
understand

343

his

place

in the

universe.7

It is

at

"a later

period,"

and more refined

the stage of

Theogony,
outline"

that "we sometimes find these primitive legends com

bined into
a

a regular system under

the hands

of

the

poet."

What

was and

initially
Homer
age,

"mde only "forms of ideal

and

becomes in the hands

which are
ones"

of

the

likes

of

Hesiod

beauty,
of all

the objects

of adoration

in

a credulous

the delight

saying that Hesiod and "filled up the shadowy

(p. 36). What Herodotus means by succeeding Homer "created the theogony of the is that they
Greeks"

outlines of tradition with

clothed

the bright touches

which

of their own

imaginations,
tion of

until

they had
the

them in

beauty

kindled the imagina

others."8

The "power
the phase of

poet"

of

Theogony

and

may be felt even when is in "a much riper

period."

society has gone beyond In Dante and Milton the

reader, even
ened given

by
to

today, feels "his own conceptions of the angelic hierarchy quick those of the inspired artist, and a new and sensible form, as it were,
which

images

had before floated dim

that
even

and undefined

before

him"

(Mex
nature

ico,
as

pp.

36-37).9

It

seems

the

most enlightened of

individual, by
"conceptions
or

it were,

carries around as part of the

furniture

his

soul

of

the

angelic

hierarchy."

brings clarity But in the

and

Great poetry such as The Divine definition to these conceptions.

Comedy

Paradise Lost

age succeeding that of Theogony, philosophy disclaims "alike the legends of the primitive age, and the

makes

itself felt. It

poetical embellish

ments of

At this stage, however, philosophy must "seek to succeeding shelter itself from the charge of impiety by giving an allegorical interpretation to the popular mythology, and thus to reconcile the latter with the genuine
the

one."

deductions divine

science"

of

(Mexico,

p.

37). It
still

appears

that in the Age

of

Philosophy
some

there can still

of

be

"impiety."

Society

has its
of

"rules"

backed up

by

form

authority.

But the

philosophers

this period treat the

traditional-

mythology in such a way as to make it antiphilosophic. The Age of Philosophy is not

popular
secular or atheistic.

appear as not antiscientific or

"impious"

as

such

or

strictly

the

day

which of

It simply adjusts the necessity is

religion

to the highest knowledge of

no

scientific.10

Religion is

longer

at odds with

science-philosophy because it has been improved and adapted to it. But at this point one has to be careful. Although Prescott would be inclined
to describe both the
of

medieval and

the

modern periods as

falling

within

the Age

Philosophy,

there is

nevertheless a

fundamental distinction between the two.

where

The

"accommodation"

earlier period was one of

itself."

philosophy

or reason

"sheltered

into the
"Fourth
or

open and

has

In the later period, however, rationalist thought comes more an increasingly direct effect on society. Thus the "Age of

Philosophy"

should
Stage"

really be divided into two periods. There is a kind of Philosophy" Hobbes" within the "Age of which is the "Age of
Enlightenment.'"1

the "Age of

In

order

to see this more clearly we

need

to

consider

Prescott's interpretation
conception of world

of world political

history.
argument that

Prescott's

history

issues in the

"the

more

344
or

Interpretation
character of

less liberal

the social

institutions

of a

country may be deter

mined

by

its

position."12

geographical

The "progress
which
west."

of

freedom,

civil and reli

gious,
of

of

the enjoyment of those

rights,
to
and

humanity,
based

has
on

gone

from

east

may be called the natural rights In Asia there are "extended despo
"nation
slaves."

tisms"

"a solitary

master"

his

rule over a

of

There

the monarch

is the

state and

"the

people

have

existenc

no political

There is

no constitution

properly
which

so called.

In

such countries there

ress

in

science,"

inquiry,
Prescott
gion of of

and are connected with the singles out

is to say in "those pursuits which best interests of

as

has been "little prog depend on freedom of In this

context
reli

humanity."

Christianity
freedom is
and

the

key

to progress.

Christianity

is the

freedom, and Christianity, quicken(s)

destiny"

the sine qua non of progress.

soul

"The free

spirit

elevate(s) the

by

the consciousness of

its

glorious ment.

and
religion

therefore prepares human

beings for free

provides a

self-govern political

like Mahometanism
of

by

contrast,
was

basis for

despotism. Its "doctrine already 6).

surrendered

blind

fatality"

designed for "those

to an earthly

who

had
(p.

their will,

master"

their responsibility,

These

considerations

cause

Prescott to

view

Europe

world when compared

to Asia. In Europe man "is a

. . .

virtually another free agent; he thinks,

man

as

speaks, acts for himself

nature."

and explores

fearlessly
He lives

the secrets of time and

But

even

in the in

most advanced parts of the a transitional stage.

Old World

is

still not

truly free. He is
archy,
action,"

still

under constitutional mon of speculation and

which although a political product of

his "freedom

is

not yet

the final stage of humanity's destiny. The culminating stage

is distinguished
of the

above all
will

by

popular

freedom

and republicanism.

The

peoples

Old World

have to
can

undergo more

training

and experience

in

self-

government

before they
soil"

qualify for entry into this

ultimate political order.

Opinion in Europe

needs

time to catch up to the principles of republican free

dom,

the "true

for

which

is in the Western Hemisphere.

which

For Prescott it is the New World

the scene
as

has been

marked out

by history
here

as

for the full

flowering

of

human freedom. "The

own."

atmosphere

seems

has been
so

fatal to the arbitrary institutions of the Old World, as that [of the Old World] to the democratic forms of our In explaining why this should be Prescott points in the direction of the Puritan heritage. The Puritans found an "trace
of civilized man, or of

environment within which there was no

scious
contrivances."13

his

con

Under these

circumstances
of

they
could

were

in

a position to
who

"reduce to

practice"

the

"beautiful theories
speculation."

the European philosopher,

had risen to full freedom

land."

of
as

They
or

"verify
as

value"

the

of

ideas "which had been derided

own

visionary,
p.

denounced

dangerous in

their

("Review

of

Bancroft,"

"peak" especially America, is a kind of civilization denotes the final stage of human history,

79). For Prescott then, the West, and in history. The rise of Protestant liberal
which

is to say

the age of

equal and rational

freedom.

Prescott's Conquests
Unlike
some of the

345
the

early

modem philosophers who saw

in

Christianity

enemy of freedom and successful politics, Prescott, in the spirit of Locke per haps, describes true Christianity, which for him is obviously of the Protestant

kind,

as almost a prerequisite

for

successful politics.

Prescott

gives

the Refor

mation a rationalist

interpretation. What he freedom is that this

means

by

tion with reason and

movement's

associating break with the Roman

the Reforma

Church
in

its intellectual tradition, through the return to Scripture, succeeded the grip of Catholicism, which is to say of the mindset which distinguished the Inquisition and the Conquistadores, on the European mind.
and

breaking

Once this grip was broken the new reason and the new liberty could flower forth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But here Prescott is close to nineteenth-century philosophy in general, which put a lot of emphasis on the Reformation as the key event in the advance of human freedom. Writing after
about prets
now

two hundred years

of

the Reformation as a

"breakthrough"

liberalism's working on Christianity, Prescott inter for the kind of society in which we
gave an electric shock

live. "The benumbed

glorious
under

Reformation

to the

intellect,
men

long

the influence of a tyrannical

priesthood.

It taught

to

distrust authority, to trace effects back to their causes, to search for themselves, and to take no guide but the reason which God had given them. It taught them
to claim the

right

of

free inquiry,

as

their
of

inalienable birthright,
p.

and with

free

inquiry, freedom
Now in the

action"

of

("Review

Bancroft,"

77).

14

particular case of

the Puritans in America who were so important

for Prescott
were not

New Englander, he knows he must address the fact that they liberals and were inclined to presecute those of other persuasions just
as a
Europe.15

vigorously as did the old authorities back in here end up being an "end justifies the
as

Prescott's

apologetics out

means"

argument.

As it turns

the

"zeal

requisite

for

great revolutions

in

church and

state, is rarely

attended

by

The Puritans themselves were not exemplars charity for difference of of liberal politics but somehow they served the historical purpose of broadening The first set this practice. They were instruments of the "cunning of
History."

opinion."

tlers may

indeed have been "intolerant in

"the

practice,"

but for

all

that

they did
when

bring
their

with them generation

living

principle of

freedom,

which would

survive,
avoid

had

away."

passed

It

was

impossible for them to

serving
that

this purpose because their coming to America was

principle."

in itself "an

assertion of

"They

came

for

conscience's

sake; to worship God in their own way.

avowed"

Freedom
p.
79).16

of political

institutions they

at once

("Review

Bancroft,"

of

Prescott, then,
ism's

subscribes

to a kind of

version of

the "Weber

thesis."

Liberal

advance and great success

in the New World is

final
of

fundamentally
history

attributable

to North American Protestant foundations laid at the very beginnings. But

if

Protestantism is the foundation

as

of the

stage of world

consummated

America,

what was made

the

foundation

the earlier stage of American

us turn to

history

before the West

its

presence

felt? Let

Prescott's Incas.

346

Interpretation

THE INCAS: DESPOTISM, THEOCRACY AND PRIESTCRAFT

Prescott inists "from

a

that we must

be

careful

to approach the Peruvian

which we

institutions

different
In the

point of view

from that in

study those of other

sovereign and that

nations."

case of

Pern, "the laws

emanated

from the

sovereign violate

divine commission, and was possessed of a divine nature. To law was not only to insult the majesty of the throne, but it was the held
In
a

sacrilege."

the

Inca community, then,

"practical"

religion was politics and politics was

religion. with

There

was no separate sphere of or

law

and

legislation

concerned

solely

"concrete"

the community's
of

interests. All laws

was not

were a re

flection
rate

divine

or cosmic order.

The community
of

really

a realm sepa

from

the rest of this order

a

but

a part and an expression of

it. The Incas

rested

"claimed
on a alike

divine

original

for the founders

their empire,

[their] laws

divine sanction, and [their] domestic institutions and foreign wars were directed to preserve and propagate their In short, "Religion was the
faith."

basis

of their

polity, the very condition as it were, of their social existence. The the Incas in its essential principles was a
theocracy"

government of
776).17

(Peru,

p.

Prescott dismisses the Inca theology

or

they

affected to unfold one of

the mysteries of the

...

"the traditionary legends by as "mean and

universe"

which

puerile."

"Scarce

their traditions

is worthy

of note or
man."

throws much light on

one

their own antiquities or the primitive

history
own

of

For Prescott

infall

ible

standard of advancement

in

civilization
of

is the
past

comprehensiveness of a soci
or

ety's

knowledge

of the

details

its

the sophistication of its

when

"anthropology."

referring to as it might be called. Prescott sums up the Peruvian system of law by saying that the "simplicity and severity of the Peruvian code may be thought to infer a state of society but little By this he means
Incas'

Hence he

uses the phrase

"semi-civilized"

the

"historiography"

advanced."

that

Inca Pern "had few "proceeded far

of those complex

interests

and relations that grow

community."

a civilized

The

Incas'

lack

of advancement

is

seen

up in in their not human

having

enough

in

the science of
crime"

legislation
pp.

to economize

suffering by proportioning Inca regime was at bottom

"as in
a

penalties to
a

(Peru,
the

754-55). Even so, the

of which were

"mild

despotism,"

institutions
these

artificial as those of ancient

Sparta."

And

indeed,

institutions, "though

nature"

different way, [were] as their Spartan

quite as repugnant to the essential principles of our

counterparts.18

But for all this Prescott does not describe the Incas as being simply barbaric. On the contrary, they were highly advanced in certain respects. While the "in stitutions of Lycurgus were designed for a those of Pern, "although petty
state,"

originally intended for

infant
fortunes."

such"

seemed

"to have

an

indefinite

power of

expansion,

and were as well suited

to the most

flourishing

condition of the empire as to

its

"In this remarkable

accommodation

to change of

circum-

Prescott's Conquests
stances we see proofs of contrivance that argue no slight advance
zation"

347
civili

in

(Peru,

p.

752).

19

The

extent

of

the

Incas'

advancement

in "public

administration"

should also not established a

structed

be

overlooked

in Prescott's
city

view.

They

had

board

of commissioners

in the

main

which was

"well in

in the

resources of

the country, and the character of the inhabitants of

the different provinces.

...

register was

kept

of all

the births and deaths

throughout the country, and exact returns of the actual population were made to
the government

every

year.

...

At

certain

intervals,
view of

also, a general survey

of

the country was made, exhibiting a complete

the character of the soil,

its fertility, the

of all

nature of

its products, both

agricultural and mineral

empire"

in short,

that constituted the physical resources of the

(p. 759). The Incas

were also
land"

distinguished in their "public

works"

program.

They

"covered the
.
. .

with

their great national projects. "The traveller still meets

with

memorials of the

past, remains

of

temples, palaces, fortresses, terraced

and other public

moun

tains,

great

military roads, aqueducts,

works, which, whatever

degree

of science

they may display in

their execution, astonish

him

by

their

number, the massive character of the materials, and the grandeur of the

design"

(p. 763). Here

we see some of the signs that the

Incas had

moved well

beyond

the state of nature as

described

by

Hobbes.20

As to economics, the Inca agricultural or property laws arranged for a new division of land every year whereby the "possessions of the tenant were in
creased or such a

diminished according to the numbers in his law in other countries, Prescott says, has "after
events."

family."

The
. . .

operation of

a time

the natural order of

vicissitudes of

This

"giving

way"

to nature means

way to that "the usual

given

fortune have been

inequality."

allowed

to take their course, and restore

inequality"

things to their

natural

This "natural

results of

from the

"superior intelligence

and thrift of some and the

notes that nature proved too

strong
p.

even

Prescott prodigality for Sparta itself. "Even the iron law of

others."

Lycurgus

ceased to operate after a

avarice"

luxury
stands

and

(Peru,
(to

time, and melted away before the spirit of 756). Here we see clearly that Prescott under
with respect

there to
of

be

a natural

inequality

to the "faculties

for

the

property"

acquiring lack of civilization for there to be laws the

paraphrase

from James Madison). It is

end of which

a sign of a

is to

control these

faculties
or

avarice"

or

to repress

"luxury

and

in the

name of permanent

equality

"virtue."

According
principle

to Prescott the Peruvian agrarian law ran contrary to the very

and therefore social
soil"

first
"the
the
the

of agricultural

development. In his
permanent

view

desire for
Peruvian

improving

the

is "natural to the
law be
such.

proprietor,"

and

peasant could not

by

Practically

speaking,

however,

law This

was neutralized meant

by

the Peruvian "love of order and aversion to

change."

that there was very little real change of

for the

year was converted

into

a proprietor

for

life."

land tenancy, so "the tenant This should have made

at

progressive agricultural and economic

improvement

least

possible.

But,

as

348

Interpretation
was

Prescott explains, this

far from
were

the case

because the Peruvian "could

rather own

not

better his
ever

condition.

His labors

industrious, he
one

could not add a

for others, rood to his

scale."

than

for himself. How

nor advance

possessions,

himself

hair's breadth in the

of

social

Thus the "great

and universal

motive to
great
die."

honest industry, that

of

bettering
with

one's

lot,

was
was

lost

upon

him. The
he
was

law

human

progress was not

for him. As he

bom,

so

to

This

situation provides

Prescott

the occasion to outline the opposition

between

"Rousseauean"

virtue on

the one

hand,

and civilization or social

no man could

ress on the other.

all might

In Pern "No

man could a

be rich,

be

poor

...

prog but

enjoy,

and

did enjoy

competence."

Ambition,

avarice, the love of change, the morbid spirit of

discontent,

those

passions which most agitate the minds of

men, found no place in the bosom of the

seemed to

Peruvian. The very condition of his moved on in the unbroken circle in

which

being
which

be

at war with change.

He
and

his fathers had

moved

before him,

in

his

children were to

follow. (P. 763)

The

above statement

leaves

us

in little doubt that Prescott

A

was

very

alive to

the dark side of progressive civilization. Social progress in some sense

on the agitation and unease of the mind.
"ambition,"

depends
dis

civilized people will show signs of

"avarice,"

"the love

change"

of

and even a

"morbid

spirit of

content."

One does It

not

have to

reflect

long

here to be

reminded that

Prescott

was an

American
was

and

that these traits are often associated with the American

who compared

character.

Tocqueville
of

the Americans to "certain remote

stationary."

corners of perhaps

Europe"

which, like Inca

the

Pern, had "remained

which

Despite

or

because

their populations
with

distinguished these places, poverty tended to be placid of countenance and light of spirits. But
and
enlightened"

ignorance

the "free and

Americans, Tocqueville
for this
contrast,"

saw that

"a

cloud

habit in

ually
their

hung

upon

their

brow."

He found them "serious "do

not think of the

and almost

sad,

even

pleasures."

"The

chief reason
comers"

he explains, is

that the
while

residents of the

"remote

the

Americans "are forever

brooding
,

over advantages

ills they they do not

endure,"

possess"

(De
the

mocracy in
perspective

America, vol. 2 p. 144). That which Tocqueville saw from of France, Prescott could see from the perspective of Pern.

Despite these
curious parallel

that the

is

nation

radical differences there is one respect in which there is a between Prescott's Peruvians and their later counterparts, and building. Like the United States of America, the "great fabric of arose

Peruvian

Empire"

"by

degrees"

and

in

so

doing

"gave security to

all."

Moreover,
common

under

"the influence

of a common

religion,

common

language,
tribes"

and

government"

"numerous independent

and even

hostile

were and pur

"knit together

as one

nation, animated
sovereign."

by

a spirit of

love for its institutions

might

devoted
poses of

loyalty

to

its

the two empires were

have been, the radically different. The United States was

But however this

com-

Prescott's Conquests
mitted

349

to permanent

social change or

"social

motion,"

as some

have

called the

distinguishing
institutions
nevolent

feature

of

Western societies,
quiet"

while

the "ultimate

aim of

[the

Inca]
be

was

domestic
a

(Peru,
love

pp.

773, 774-75). Inca Pern

for

was a

despotism,

kind

of welfare state where all were cared of

even as all

were required

to work. With their

domestic tranquility

and commitment

to a warrior foreign policy, the Incas were at the opposite pole from commercial
civilization.

They had
piety

psychology

reminiscent of the

Christian Europe

of

the

Middle Ages
historians.21

or religious enthusiasm combined with a warrior spirit

philosophers and

the very worst political psychology from the point of all liberal

"The life

of

the Inca was one

of

long

crusade against

the

infidel,

to

Sun, worship brutish superstitions, and impart to them the blessings of a well-regulated gov mission even as it was "the mission of the Chris This was the
spread wide the

the

to reclaim the benighted nations from their

ernment."

Incas'

tian conqueror who

invaded

empire"

(their)
the

speaking, the Incas

shared much with

"bigotry."

(Peru, Spaniards,

p.

776).

Psychologically
character were

whom

Prescott

izes

as above all

full

of

The inquisitor-conquistadores

ultimately

extending their authority over another government of aggression, persecution, and superstition. In Prescott's presentation, the encounter between the

bigotry
makes

Spanish

and the

denizens

of

the New World

reminds of

the Crusades. Prescott

this

comparison most

explicitly in his treatment

of

the Aztecs.

THE AZTECS: HUMAN SACRIFICE AND PRIESTCRAFT

In summing up the animating core of Aztec "The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the god of
to martyr

civilization
war."

Prescott

states that

The Aztec

soldier sought

himself for this

god.

Thus "like the early Saracen

or the

Christian

crusader,"

the Aztec could be seen

perpetration of

"earnestly invoking
(Mexico,
p.

the

holy

name of reli war

gion

in the

human

butchery"

23). Their

making
while

science."

though, while a trade, was "not elevated to the rank of a ical implication here is that warlike peoples tend to lack
more

The

paradox

a science of

war,

civilized,
Aztecs'

which

is

to say more peace-loving, peoples will possess

and one

it.
46).22

The in

"most striking institution

and

that had the greatest influence

sacrifice

character"

forming the national "Surely never were refinement

together"

was

human

(Mexico,
part of

p.

the

extreme of

barbarism brought

as

when

the

Aztecs

would make and

human flesh

so closely "a banquet

teeming
attended

with

delicious beverages
sexes"

delicate viands,
says

prepared with

art, and

by

both

(p.

48).23

Prescott

that human sacrifice was possi

ble in Aztec society because "[w]retched Indeed, "the most fiendish the "voice of
nature."

superstition

has the

power

to stifle

passions of

the human heart

religion"

have been those kindled in the name ence of the priesthood "became
lowed for
more"

of and

(p. 48). In Mexico the influ

unbounded,"

it

was the priests who

"bel

human

victims

for their rites. "Far from

limiting

the authority

350
of

Interpretation
matters,"

the priests to
where

spiritual

the sovereign "often surrendered

his

opinion

to theirs,

they

were

least

competent

to give it.

The

whole

nation,

from

the peasant to the prince,

fanaticism"

bowed their

necks to the worst

kind

of

tyranny,
to

that of blind

(p. 50).
note that such remarks are not meant not well

But it is
that the

of

key

importance to
process

imply
The
even

civilizational

had

begun

amongst

the Aztecs.

community"

Mexicans "had many

though

claims to the character of a civilized

cannibalism.24

they

practiced

Aztec
the

civilization made provisions was

for "the
Mon

rights both
arch

persons,"

of

property

and

judiciary

independent
and

of the

(a

measure

"worthy

of an enlightened a

people"),

Aztec law

punished

"(o)ffences
progress

property,"

against private
civilization"

fact which in itself "argues

as

a considerable

in

(p. 24). Moreover,

Prescott

sees

it,

the standard for

judging

the Aztecs should be a

comparative one where

they

are measured against

the practices of their conquerors. The Spaniards too managed to combine at one
and the same

time

advancement

in

civilization and

the most barbarous practices.

the

While

the

Aztecs

were cannibals with civilized

tendencies,
presents

Spaniards

were

civilized men with such a

barbaric tendencies. Prescott

Aztec. The first

the Spanish Empire in

civilization

way

as

to make it appear as almost as deficient in

and

enlightenment as the
heap"

Archbishop

of

Mexico
"His

made a "mountain-

of

Aztec

manuscripts and then set them alight.

greater

countryman,

Archbishop Ximenes,
in Granada, twenty

had

celebrated a similar auto-da-fe of

Arabic manuscripts,
two more signal

years

before. Never did fanaticism

many Prescott is

achieve

triumphs,

than
and

by

the annihilation of so

curious monuments of

human

ingenuity

learning."

careful not

to claim "that the records of a

new

semi-civilized people would

be

likely

to contain any

truth or

discovery

important to human iards

progress."

comfort and

But he is in

no

doubt that the Span

were under the obligation

to respect the records of the community

some

overwhelmed.

These
of

records

"could scarcely fail to throw

and

they had light on the

previous

history
is higher

the

nation"

this respect

for,

or openness

to the

history

of

other peoples

a mark of a civilized nation.

Prescott therefore holds the Span

their more advanced stage of
what

iards to

standard than the

Aztecs in

view of

development. WTrat they should have done as conquerors and did do reveals a weakness in their claim that as bearers of
occupation of the empires of the
plate with

they in fact
contem

civilization their

New World

was

legitimate. While "we

thus ruthlessly
all

indignation

the cruelties

inflicted by the early

when we see them

conquerors,"

this

"indig

nation out

is

qualified with

contempt,

trampling
mankind."

the

spark of well

knowledge,

the common boon and property of

"We may

doubt,"

Prescott notes, "which has the

vanquished"

strongest claims to civiliza

tion,

the victor, or the

point

(Mexico,
Aztec

p.

50).

The

then

is

not the of

level

of

science and wisdom so much as the

fanaticism
raise

and

bigotry

the

Europeans. Prescott insists that

a nation

the enlightened

mind should take pleasure

in contemplating

"in its

generous straggle to

itself from

a nation of

barbarism,

and to take a positive rank

in the

scale

Prescott's Conquests
civilization"

351
fanati

of cism and

(Mexico,
that

p.

54). But the Spaniards

no use

were so

blinded

by

bigotry

they had
even

for understanding the Aztec's

themselves

efforts.

They

sought

only to

destroy

all vestiges of

the pre-existing civilization's reli

gious and social

system,

though

they

had

allowed

"the

estab

lishment

of the modem

Inquisition,"

an

thousands, by a death more painful than the Aztec was in some ways more horrible than the practices
brother
against

institution "which yearly destroyed its The Inquisition

sacrifices."

of the

Aztecs. It "armed

brother,
while

stay the

march of

and setting its burning seal upon the lip, did more to improvement than any other scheme ever devised by human

cunning."

And

Aztec human

sacrifice was
victims with

victim, the Inquisition "branded its

signed them shows

nothing degrading to the infamy in this world, and

poor
con

to everlasting perdition in the

next"

(Mexico,

p.

51).25

Prescott here
and their

how

near a

thing it is

with

him in

deciding
"it

between the Aztecs

civilization and

the

Spaniards land

and theirs.

But the issue

was

of cannibalism

forced

him to decide for the Spaniards.

Ultimately

beneficently

ordered

by

Providence
rescue

that the

should

be delivered

over

to another race, who would

extended wider and

it from the brutish

The

superstitions that

daily
of

wider,

with extent of empire.

debasing
Their

institutions from

the Aztecs furnish the best

apology for their

them the

conquest."

conquerors

Inquisition"

but they
of

are saved

outright execration would one

may have "brought along with for this by the

fact that the "benign

once

radiance"

of their

Christianity
be
History"

day

shine

forth

"the fierce flames

fanaticism

extinguished"

should
of

(p.

52).26

But how is it that the the "pious

cruelty"

"cunning
Incas

could

eventually transform
while

the Spanish Inquisition into modem Western

of

"humanitarianism,"

the

Aztecs

and

could never so evolve?

The

answer

here is

that there was a fundamental

"metaphysical"

or cosmological

difference be

tween the two

within

cultures.

The

whole nature of

the universe and of man's place

it

was conceived

differently by

the Old and New worlds.

COSMOS AND TIME IN THE NEW WORLD

Prescott begins his discussion

situation as

of

Aztec cosmology

such,

which

the Aztecs shared with all humankind.

by tracing it to the human They "felt the

which

curiosity
the

common

to man in almost every stage of the

mysterious

civilization,"

is "to lift
But
at of

veil which covers

past,

and the more awful

future."

bottom

what will such a

lifting

of the veil reveal?

Ultimately
ahead.

time stretching behind

future"

us and the same

stretching

We

only infinity are "between past

an either

and

and our

limited

vision can see no real

distance in

direction.

Thus the Aztecs, "like the

the
oppressive

nations of

the
as

Old

Continent,"

sought

"relief from

eternity."

idea

of

But

it

turns out,

they in

their premodern
postmodern

situation sought relief

by

the same means which

Nietzsche, in his

context,

suggested modem western man might redeem

himself from the burden

352
of

Interpretation

his radically historical consciousness, i.e., by means of the Eternal Return. The Aztecs proceeded to break eternity "up into distinct cycles, or periods of time, each of several thousand years duration. There were four of these cycles,
and at the end of swept

each,

by

the agency of the elements, the human

family

was

from the earth, Prescott sums up the Aztec view very beautifully: "They looked forward confidently to another such catastrophe (as had happened before) to
and the sun out

blotted

from the heavens to be

again

rekindled."

take place like the preceding, at the close of a cycle, when the sun was to
effaced

be

ness of chaos was to settle on the

from the heavens, the human race from habitable

"classical"

the

earth,

and when pp.

the dark

globe"

(Mexico,

72-73).27

There is then something

cott's presentation of

or reminiscent of the

Greeks in Pres It is there

with

the

cyclical nature of

the

Aztecs'

chronology.

fore

useful

to consider some aspects of

said

classical

Greek thought

which

Aztec thought may be

well

to

overlap.

Although the

ancients understood

very

the social or civilizational process which moves from

potential of

family

to clan, to

monarchy, to republicanism, and the

nite

the arts for more or less infi

arts

improvement,
or

and

the

relation of progress same

in these

to the possibility of

philosophy of the "end

situation.

science, at the

time

they

never

lost

sight of the

possibility necessarily
and

world"

of the

and

the precariousness of the fundamental human

order of

Human beings live in the

such

nature,

and this order

includes
or

destructive
a

phenomena

as

floods, famines,

plagues, fires

earthquakes.

With luck

few

stragglers

may

survive these catastrophes

years"

in

caves

in

mountains and after

"tens

upon tens of thousands of

(Plato, Laws

667dl), they may

Now it is this

again arrive at

the threshold of civilization. On the other hand

there may be no survivors and the race may

"cosmocentric"

become

extinct.28

aspect to classical

thought

which

distinguishes
Enlighten

it from the
ment and

"anthropocentric"

and

historically literary

oriented thought of the

the Romantic periods. While it could be said of Prescott that

he knew

the classics and was under their

influence in

inclined to their

conception of time or the cosmos.

ways, he is not when he was put in Thus,

some
as

the presence of thought

very

reminiscent of

the ancient alternative,

he inev
was not

itably

was

in the

course of

his

work on

the Aztecs and

and

Incas, he

disposed to

adopt their standpoint as a

fresh

revealing
of

angle of approach

to

the modem West. Prescott

of

leaves

aside the question of the ultimate or the

inevitability
he

the

human
to

race's
on

disappearance,
who was

temporality

human existence, in
"ancients"

order

focus

the means and stages of the civilizational process. In this

contrasts with and their

Plato,

inclined

to

fund

of wisdom.

For Socrates

and

be very sympathetic to the his companions the sayings

or tales

from the

ancient

days,

which

is to say from days before

society's great

prog

ress, and from a time when scientific

very important
proper genuine

and provide

the

key

understanding was much more limited, are to placing human and social progress in its
not expand on the

context.29

Prescott, however, does

between the Aztecs
and

fact that there is

Greek

kinship

Incas

and the classical

view of

Prescott's Conquests
the

353
the

human

situation.

We

are of

forced
has

to wonder why.

Here

we must consider

influence
In the

on

his thought

the Bible and Christianity.

a special place

classical view man

in the

whole or

the cosmic
some sense

scheme of things of which above and

he

constitutes a part.
or

This

scheme

is in

beyond him. Thus heaven

man.

the cosmos, or the whole is more

not

important than
...

As Aristotle says, "(M)an is

the best

thing in

the world

for there

are other things much more

divine in

their nature even than man,

framed"

e.g. most
machean

conspicuously the bodies of which the heavens are Ethics 1141a 22-23, 1142b 1-2). But the Bible inverts this
man

(Nicho-

order of

priority. and

In the biblical description

is

placed at

the center of the universe

and to

the

heavenly bodies,
Incas,
of

which were of such

importance to the Greeks

point of view of

the Aztecs and

are

demoted. From the

moon and

the Bible and

no

God's creation, the sun, the

are not

the

stars are not not even

divine, have

life,
on

and

The

deserving heavenly bodies are created on the fourth day, even after the seas and vegetation. They exist simply for the sake of man. Man, and not the heavens is
the peak of creation.

worship.30

Life does

ultimately depend

them.

For Prescott the biblical Despite

or

placement of man at

the

top is already
a modem

a given.

because
said

of

the fact that Prescott is very clearly

stratum of or

rationalist,

it

might

be

that the deepest

his

anthropocentrism or

humanism
as

comes

not so much

from

modem

Baconian

enlightenment

philosophy

from

revealed religion and and

the Bible. To the extent then that he approaches the

Aztecs
cal

Incas through
will

biblical lens,
on

albeit modified

by

modem philosophi

thought, he
condition

focus

what

their civilization means

in terms

of the

human
points

here

on earth more than on what pre-Columbian thought

itself

to concerning

man's situation

in the

universe as a whole.

The humanism
on

or anthropocentrism of

Prescott,

modem

philosophy
the

and the

Bible

the one

hand,
and

stands opposed
"pagans"

to the

cosmocentrism of

Aztecs-Incas, Plato-Aristotle
and

the

on the other.

classical centrism
"prime"

Greeks

belong

Thus for Prescott, the Aztecs and Incas in essentially the same category. Their common
civilization"

the

cosmo

is the
or

product

of the

"infancy
after all

of

as

compared to

its

maturity

which

comes above

the biblical revelation. This mature the

secular

stage

of civilization reflects

conclusions

that may

be

drawn from the Bible's description Unlike the "abstract contemplation,

that was
evident

of man as the
or selfish

highest thing in
or passive

creation.
fortitude"

indulgence,
and

antiquity,"

"variously

taught

by

the

various sects of

and which was

in the life

and culture end of

and

of the
was

Aztecs

Incas, "Christian doctrine

inculcated that the

ness"

being

best

answered p.

by

life

of active useful

(Biographical

Critical Miscellanies,

77).

Prescott's

view of

history, then, involves

come a

an ascent

from the lower to the

long way from the days when he used to the sun, as did the pre-Columbians. More look up in pious awe and worship prospect that humankind could relapse over, for Prescott there is no immediate
higher, to the highest. Man has

354
into

Interpretation
such a passive or

fatalist

attitude again.

The

modem epoch

is in

some sense nature

a

sui generis
susceptible.

in its
Once

attainment of

the civilized

heights

of which

human

is
of

a certain

level has been

will prevent on

reached

there appears to

be

kind

solid
cott

floor

or

foundation that
dwell

is

not concerned to

any fundamental the insignificance of this process

the whole. He

retrogression.31

Pres

when seen

in

the light

of the eternal order or order of of all civilizations

does

not speak of the

inevitable decline For Prescott

Man's
"doing"

back into barbarism.

to
require a

civilization would seem

time or "the oppressive idea of

somehow

eternity"

and a on

depends

his

not

forgetting of the infinity of focusing on the here and now. reflecting intensely on the primary

or most situation. nities

fundamental
His

questions of a

building
on

concerning the universe, time and the human home for himself in the form of civilized commu
about the things required

depends

his thinking

for this

end and not the

possibility that
race over

all such things pass away.

Humankind

needs to shut

its

eyes

to

such prospects as the possible

disappearance

and reappearance of

the human

the space of eons. Such a perspective necessarily makes each episode

of civilization appear as

only

one

instance,

which

is

no more significant

than

any

other such

instance, in
as

a process over which man

does

not exercise

any

control. must

As

long

there is a focus on the

infinity

of time within which man

live,

civilization and all

its

accoutrements must

languish. Such "melan

with

choly"

reflections, to use Dugald Stewart's phrase, appear incompatible

and
civilization of the

the

"busy-ness"

intensity

of

the moment, upon which the ascent to the

highest

necessarily
a

depends.32

Social

progress seems to require a

steeling if the phase

will,

stiffening

of the spine so

to speak, which can only come

as

of civilization

currently ongoing is taken

the only episode that

really counts, and therefore with the utmost seriousness. We get a clearer sense of Prescott's vantage point and the

likely

reasons

for

his

"refusal"

to listen to "the ancient

sayings,"

as

did Plato,

when we consider

his

view of

the nature of

Western

science.

Far from
of the

looking back,
It

and

forming

itself slavishly

on the

past, it is characteristic

European intellect to be

ever on

the advance. Old discoveries become the

basis

of new ones.

passes onward

succession of and

links,

as

it were, into the for the

from truth to truth, connecting the whole by a great chain of science which is to encircle
of

bind together the

universe.

The light

learning

is

shed over the

labors

of art.

New

avenues are opened are

communication

both

of person and thought.

New

facilities

devised for

subsistence.
and

inconceivably

multiplied,

Personal comforts, of every kind, are brought within the reach of the poorest. Secure
a nobler region than

of

these, the thoughts travel into higher

that of the senses; and the

of an elegant

appliances of art are made to minister to the

moral culture.

demands

taste,

and a

(Mexico,
a

p.

77)
fundamental

For Prescott there is

kind

of

harmony

or parallelism of

intel

lectual

and social progress.

This

was not so much the case with

the premodern

Prescott's Conquests
or pre-Enlightenment

355

thinkers.

They

argued that after

society had developed to

which

the point where the emergence of philosopher-scientists was possible,

would

admittedly very late stage, the intellectual progress of the few would not be directly linked to the changing conditions of society. Rather, the enlightened few would always be observing the progress (or regress) of civili
at a
zation

be

from their

intellectually
at

advantaged
some of

but

more or

less

powerless position.

But

modem

philosophy,

least in
and

disjunction between "science

ends.33

society"

its permutations, dispensed with this for the sake of conquering nature and

Prescott's historical thought falls within this mod making it serve man's em horizon. He sees intellectual and social progress as directly linked and as

having

a reciprocal effect on one another.

of mankind.

And this is

all

to the great benefit and

happiness

CONCLUSION

Prescott tions
about

suggests that

it is
is

natural

to the human condition to form concep

how

the whole
will

animated or
with

determined. The interpretations

of

"ultimate

reality"

vary widely in every human community. Thus it is that the histories of the various commu nities in which human beings have gathered over time reveal the erroneous along which mankind can wander. We know these paths to be erroneous because in the final analysis only one variation of the option, that of the mod
paths

the local and indigenous factors at work

em, Christian own,

of

West, has

shown

itself capable, through is

said and
more conducive

minds such as

Prescott's
or unciv

wondering

aloud whether when all

done,

the

semi-

ilized

state might not

have been

to mankind's happiness and

civilization"

well-being than the condition which awaits him once "the scale has been climbed to its very top rung. In adopting this critical the history of the expanding West, Prescott implicitly seems to
civilization's

of

stance towards
reveal

Western
self-

truest advantage.

This

civilization's

proneness

to

radical

doubt forced Prescott to the

man's place

conclusion

that the modem, Western conception of

relation

in the

order of

the whole and his

to nature,

which makes alternatives.

this self-doubt possible

if

not

inevitable, is
of the

superior
Aztecs'

to all

known

Prescott describes the

genesis

belief in

millennial

cycles

which encompass the world's and

humanity's
gain

repreated
. . .

destruction

and regener

ation as

being
It is

in their desire to
perhaps

"relief

from the

oppressive

idea Of

eternity."

fair to

suggest

that the

liberal,

progressivist

historian's

interest free

and concern with the ways and means of mankind's march

to universal,
need,

and rational civilization

Considering
whether were

the

subsequent

may have its origin in the fate of his brand of Protestant,

since

same

human

progressive

liberal

ism in the century

Prescott

and a

half

he wrote, it is

interesting
were

to reflect on

would revise great

his

assessment of

the Aztec and

he writing his

histories today. Perhaps if he

Inca cosmology he would hear in

356
the

Interpretation
"metaphysics"

of the pre-Columbians a

sing, the "Yes

not

and

Amen

Song"

of

song that he too should begin to Nietzsche's Zarathustra: "Oh, how should I

lust

after

Never
this

yet

eternity have I found the

and

the

nuptial

ring

of

rings,
I

the

ring

of recurrence?

woman

from

whom

wanted

children, unless it
you

be

woman whom

I love: for I love you, O

eternity.

For I love

eternity.'"*

NOTES

to Prescott's study of the conquests came from such distinguished writers and H. H. Quarterly Review historians Milman, "Prescott's History of the Conquest of 73(1843): 187-235, and "Prescott's Conquest of Quarterly Review 81(1849): 215-48; S. M. Edinburgh Review 81(1845): 228-49; Francois Guizot, Phillips, "Prescott's Conquest of

1. First

reactions

Mexico,"

as:

Peru,"

Mexico"

"Philip

II

and

His Times: Prescott

of

Motley,"

and

Edinburgh Review 105(1857):

and

1-45; Theodore
Mexico,"

"Prescott's Conquest of Massachusetts Quarterly Review 2(1849): 215-48, 437-70; Count Adolphe de Circourt, "William Bibliotheque Universelle et Revue Suisse 4(1859): 597-620. The main biogra Hickling William H. Prescott phy of Prescott was by his lifelong friend and colleague George Ticknor, Life of (New York: Merrill and Baker, 1863). Prescott drew attention at the tum of this century from Rollo

Parker, "The Character

Prescott,"

Mr. Prescott

Historian"

as an

Ogden, William Hickling Prescott (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1904); Harry Thurston Peck, William Hickling Prescott (New York: Macmillan, 1905) and John Spencer Bassett, The Middle Group of American Historians (New York, Macmillan, 1917). His work began to be revisited as early as the New England thirties by Philip Means, "A Re-examination of Prescott's Account of Early Quarterly 4(1931): 645-62, but especially in the fifties by Donald Ringe, "The Artistry of Pre scott's Conquest of New England Quarterly 26(1953): 454-76; Robert Arthur Hump hreys, William Hickling Prescott; The Man and the Historian (London: Hispanic and LusoBrazilian Councils, 1959); and David Levin, History as Romantic Art: Bancroft, Prescott, Motley,
Peru," Mexico,"

and

University Press, 1959). More recently there has been a biogra Harvey Gardiner, William Hickling Prescott: A Biography (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969), and a study by Donald C. Darnell, William Hickling Prescott (Boston: Twayne Pub
Parkman (Stanford: Stanford

phy

by

C.

lishers, 1975).
2.
life

Gary fully

M. Feinman describe

speaks as though

even on the sesquicentennial of the publication of and understand the

nothing fundamental has been discovered about Aztec Prescott's great studies: "Scholars are begin
components that comprised the
on the
Aztecs,"

ning to

diverse

basin

of

Mexico

at

the eve of

Spanish

Conquest"

("New Perspectives

Journal of Historical

Geography
they
want

14(1988): 67). In
an

general the specialists

in this field

cannot make

up their
are

minds whether

infinite

absorption

in details

or to move

in the direction

of an overall or comprehensive view.

studies"

Renato I. Rosaldo, for example, says that although "detailed must nevertheless "be balanced by periodic attempts at

synthesis"

("Afterword,"

singularly important, they in George A.

p.

Collier

et

al., eds., The Inca

and

Aztec States 1400-1800 [New York: Academic Press, 1982],

state of new

464). While attempting to give an overview of the societies, Elizabeth M. Brumfiel observes that the
"the entry
Warfare,"

scholarly

studies of the pre-Columbian

considerable extent

trends exemplify to a

of

Marxist

concepts of consciousness and

ideology"

into the field ("Aztec Religion

and

Latin American Research Review 25[1990]: 257). But for Nigel Davies this development Davies' is far from welcome. reason for objecting to a Marxist analysis of these societies is that
attempts to

find

a generalized model offer

too much of a

"temptation to distort
"the

the

facts"

in

order

to

fit them "into is determined

some alien analytical

scheme."

They

presuppose that constitute a

character of a given culture of that culture

by

limited

number of

factors that

core, or substratum,
search

and which are common

to certain
.

others."

According
of

to

Davies, "the

for

an overall model
delusion"

that will serve (to explain)

the Aztec phenomenon, is nothing but a passing

(Nigel

Davies, The Aztec Empire [Norman: University

manifesting
great

fear that the

neo-Marxist

Oklahoma Press, 1987], p. 125). But while approach might force the facts into a preconceived

Prescott's Conquests
"model,"

357
broad

Davies

nevertheless concedes that at some point there

allow that

is

a need

for

"synthesis"

and

generalizations.

He is forced to

the whole enterprise is only worth

what could this
"common"

while

if it issues in the
"core"

uncovering

of some

"substratum''

broader meaning, and (to use his words) which is

where

be

other

than

some picture of a

or

to all human societies,

including

our own.

In

the end we are left wondering

it is that

all this

ethnohistory, historical geography and cultural

anthropology would take us. General conclusions of enduring interest seem few and far between. 3. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), chap. 46, p. 683. 4. Compare Leviathan, chap. 13, p. 186, with Lord Macaulay, Historical Essays (London: Col

lins Clear-Type Press, n.d.), pp. 385-86. 5. Prescott arrests our attention as a
century precisely because
members of

this school
Europe"

"History

of

or

of the early nineteenth virtually par for the course for such as Mackintosh, Macaulay, Hallam, Guizot and others to produce a a "History of showing Western society's passage through the
of

member of the

"historical It
was

school"

his

choice of subject matter.

England"

various stages of civilization

to the present. Prescott

after

indeed

produced

The

History

of Ferdinand

and

Isabella (1837), but

following

William Robertson's

History

to present to the modern reader the

history

and

society

of

of America (1776), he undertook pre-Columbian America and the saga of

"full"

its coming
sphere

under

European dominance. He
a

would provide the

history

of the

Western Hemi
over

painting this task from his friend Washington Irving. See

by

detailed

picture of what existed

before the European invasion. He took

"Preface,"

History

History
Mexico

or

of the Conquest of Peru (New York: Modern Library, Peru.

and

of the Conquest of Mexico and n.d.), Hereinafter cited as either

pp.

6. William Prescott, Biographical 79, 82, 85.

Critical Miscellanies (London: George Routledge, 1875),

Mill says that "any general theory or philosophy of politics supposes a previous theory of in human progress, and that this is the same thing with a philosophy of The Essential Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. Max Lerner [New York: Bantam, 1961], p. 99). In his in the and Preface to Mexico, Prescott explains that he invested great
history"
("Autobiography," "labor" "time" "Introduction" "Appendix"

and

(which he

says

three stages of civilization

"properly belongs in the Introduction"), where his discussion of the appears. These parts of the work he says, were designed to show "the
Mexicans"

true

nature and extent of usual

the civilization of the

odd

(Mexico,

p.

5).
of
of

As

Nietzsche is the
important."

man out

in

modern

human history. For him, "There is a great ladder of In the first stage "one these are the most
stage

philosophy in his tripartite breakdown religious cruelty, with many rungs; but three
sacrificed sacrficed

human beings to

god."

one's

In

two,

which

is "the

mankind,"

moral epoch of

"one

to one's god one's own strongest

and

instincts."

And in

stage three one

had to "sacrifice God himself

the
p.

from cruelty
and

against oneself

fate, [to] Kaufmann [New York: Vintage, 1966], #55,

worship the stone, stupidity, gravity,
transmogrifications of human cruelty, while

nothing"

(Beyond Good

Evil,

trans. Walter
of

67). For Nietzsche

Aztecs
and

history

is the story

the

for Prescott it is the

progressive

cruelty of stage one, which would be the humanitarianism of the modern West. 7. Hobbes had
make

stage of the

overcoming Incas, in the direction

or

of the of

the

said that so

despite the

"seed"

common

of religion,
used

local

for "ceremonies

ridiculous to
Greeks"

another"

different, that those which are (Leviathan, chap. 12, pp. 172-73).
Herodotus's for his
claim

by

one

man, are

incidental factors may for the most part

8. Prescott is "an best

says that

assertion not

to be taken too

nation"

create a religious system perhaps

explained

that Hesiod and Homer "created the theogony of the literally, since it is hardly possible that any man should (Mexico, p. 36). What Prescott intends by this remark is

by

Thomas De Quincey.

Discussing

Plato's

plans

for the
poets

poets

in the Repub
so prodi

lic, De Quincey

says:

"Strange, indeed,

that Plato should ascribe to

any

whatever,

gious a power as that of

having

created a national
. . .

religion, for the religion of paganism was not

The fact really was, that the human intellect had been something independent of the mythology. for some time outgrowing its foul religions; clamorously it began to demand some change; but how little it was able to effect that change for itself, is evident from no example more than
Plato"

(Leaders in Literature With a Notice of Traditional Errors Affecting Them [Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1863], pp. 227-28). It seems that for nineteenth-century writers like Prescott and De

358

'

Interpretation
the broad "forces of
History"

Quincey
one or

have

a greater

explanatory
of the

power

than the

literary

genius of

two great artists.

9. Compare John Stuart Mill: "The intensest setting sun,

of vapours

feeling

beauty

of a cloud

lighted

by

the

is
in

no

hindrance to my

knowing
.

that the cloud

is

vapour of water, subject to all the

p.

laws

("Autobiography,"

a state of suspension

93).

10. This may be said to be the tradition of natural theology which stretched from Socrates (Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.4, 5-7; Plato, Republic bk 2, Laws bk 10, Gorgias, end) to Cicero (De
Natura Deorum

2.4)

to

Paley

(Natural

Theology [1802]).
on

11. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts

Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge
Continent,"

the Prejudices of

Morality,

trans. R.J.

Discovery

12. William Prescott, "Review The North American Review (Jan., 1841), of the

University Press, 1982), Aphorism #189, p. 190. of George Bancroft's History of the United States
p.

From the

75.

in Edward Weeks and 13. See Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Professor at the Breakfast the Atlantic (Boston: Little Brown, 1957), pp. 31-33. Hundred Years Jubilee: One Flint, eds., of Emily 14. "This is the essence of the Reformation: Man is in his very nature destined to be (G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans J. Sibree [New York: Dover, 1956], p. 417. Sir
free"

Table,"

James Mackintosh
human authority,
to

says that

Luther "in his

warfare

against

Rome had

struck a

blow

against all

and

unconsciously disclosed to

mankind

that

they

were

entitled,

or rather

bound,
(The

form

and utter

their own opinions, and

most of all on

the most

deeply interesting

subjects"

Progress of Ethical Philosophy [Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1835], p. 308). Lord Brougham says that one cannot understand modern Europe without considering "[T]he effect of the reformed faith, wherever it was established, in emancipating the human mind and causing reason
alone

to be consulted in all controversial

vol.

matters"

(Political "The
. .

Philosophy
in

[London: Charles Knight,

a great part of

1844],

2,

pp.

63-64). Dugald Stewart

says that

renunciation

Europe,

of

theological opinions so

subjects, a

Philosophy

fail to encourage, on all other congenial freedom of (The Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical and Political Since the Revival of Letters in Europe [Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1835], p.

long

consecrated

by

time

could not

inquiry"

16). Again Nietzsche

to the
South"

"transvalues"

the view of

liberal philosophy

on the

Reformation: "That Lu

ther's Reformation succeeded in the North suggests that the north of Europe was retarded compared

(The

Gay Science,
have

trans. Walter Kaufmann [New York:

was a

Vintage, 1974], #149,

stopped the

p.

195;

see also

Daybreak #88). For Nietzsche the Reformation

moved

disaster in that it

tide of

the Renaissance that might

humanity

to its highest possible plane.

Lawrence, Studies in Classical American Literature (Harmondsworth: Penguin, in Major Critical Essays (Harmonds 1971], pp. 9-11; George Bernard Shaw, "The Sanity of worth: Penguin, 1986), p. 337; Ralph Barton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1944), p. 358; G. P. Gooch, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), p. 8; Egerton Ryerson, The Loyalists of America and Their Times, 2 vols. (Toronto: William Briggs, 1880], vol. 1, pp. 12ff.; Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2 vols. (New York: Vintage Books, 1945), vol. 1, pp. 33-46. 16. See Goldwin Smith, Lectures on Modern History (Oxford: J. H. and Jas. Parker, 1861), p.
Art,"

15. See D.H.

17.
17. Terence N. polity
of
duction,"

D'Altroy
be
a

observes that

"Depending

on the perspective of the

author, the Inka

state"

was considered to

feudal, totalitarian,

Utopian, communistic

or monarchic

("Intro
as one

his

Ethnohistory 34[1987]: 3). Unlike Prescott D'Altroy key possible adjectives describing the Inca regime.

does

not

include

"theocratic"

18. See Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (New York: Hafner Press, 1949), pp. Education," and Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Indian in G. M. Young, ed., Macaulay: Prose and Poetry (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967), pp. 722-24.

316-30,

19. "The Multitude

number, but

sufficient to confide

in for
we

our

by

comparison with the

Enemy

feare"

Security, is not determined by any (Leviathan, chap. 17, p. 224).

of moving, and

certain

20. In the

state of nature

Hobbes

says there are chap.

"no Instruments
p.

things as require much

force"

removing

such

(Leviathan,
of

13,

186).

21. Lord Brougham's description

this period

by

any

number of writers after

Christian aristocracy may stand for the interpretation of Hobbes. 'To the union of constraint and obedience with

Prescott's Conquests
the

359

bravery
. . .

inculcated

by

constant engagement

in

warlike

pursuits,

was added

the superstitious
and pen with civil

veneration of the ances.

clergy,

and the scrupulous observance of a religion

full

All these

circumstances

introduced

a strange mixture of warlike

...

ceremony independence

of

submission, religous enthusiasm and personal courtesy

the
on

be

expected
. . .

from fanatics trained to

lords 22).

love

of conquest engrafted

military life, and led itself on spiritual

fury of their onset was such as might by their priests as well as their feudal
vol.

zeal"

(Political Philosophy,

1,

pp. 321

22. Prescott
tated"

goes so

far kind

as

to say that the conquests of the Aztec Empire were

"greatly facili
helped

by

"the

ferocity
acquire a

of character engendered of

by

their sanguinary

rites."

Human

sacrifice

military virtue, the loss of which amongst modern Europeans was Machiavelli's despair. Prescott notes of Machiavelli's Discourses, 2.2, wherein antiquity's greater
the

Aztecs to

devotion to honors 23.

"liberty"

is

explained

in terms
that

of paganism's

world,"

and possessions of candid

on

this

it "contains

some

energy and ferocity in pursuit of "the ingenious reflections much more

ingenious than

the opposite tendencies of

Christianity"

(Mexico,

p.

52

n.

36).
producing
man"

"Cruelty

is

one of the oldest

festive joys has

of mankind";

"Of

all the means of

exaltation,

it has been human

"innocent,"

sacrifice which

at all times most exalted and elevated

(Nietzsche, Daybreak, #18, #45). For Nietzsche

ment made

the cruelty at the earlier stages of

human

develop
are

is

quite

while

that of the later

Christianity

is less

so.

At bottom human beings

happy by

the sight of the torment of others, while at the same time all

high

culture

is the

(See The Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann [New York: Vintage Books, 1967], n, 5-7, pp. 64-69; Daybreak, #77; and Beyond Good and Evil, #229). See also Evelyn Waugh, Black Mischief (Harmonds worth: Penguin, 1965), pp. 228-30. 24. Prescott says of the Aztec society that the "degree of civilization which they had reached, as inferred by their political institutions, may be considered, perhaps, not much short of that en joyed by our Saxon ancestors, under (Mexico, p. 33).
product of cruelty.
Alfred"

25. "The

existence of similar religious

ideas in

remote

regions,

inhabited

by

different

races

furnish[es]
gether the

one of the most

important links in the

great chain of communication which

n.

binds to Inquisi for its

distant families

nations"

of

(Mexico,

p.

38

5). Prescott devised

says elsewhere that the

tion was "the most terrible

operation on the

engine of oppression
mind"

ever

by

man,

not

so terrible

body

as on the
with

(Biographical

and

Crusoe

seems

to agree entirely

Prescott's

view.

Critical Miscellanies, p. 576). Robinson He remarks to a Spaniard whom he had Spanish colonies, "that I had
rather

rescued, and with whose comrades

he

might escape to the

be

deliver'd up to the Savages be carry'd into the

and

Inquisition"

devoured alive, than fall into the merciless claws of the Priests, and (Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, ed.
which

Angus Ross [Harmonds worth: Penguin, 1965], p. 243). 26. Ross Hassig is loath to enter into the question bian
studies condition

is

the whole purpose of pre-Colum

for Prescott, i.e., the relationship between, and comparative advantages for the human of, civilization on the one hand, and barbarism on the other. He approaches the world of
assumption

the Aztecs "on the

that Aztec practices were as rational as those of any other society,

Mesoamerica"

albeit tailored to the social and technological realities of

(Aztec Warfare: Imperial

Expansion

and

Political Control [Norman:

and the

27. See "On the Vision

(New York: Viking, 1966),

Riddle,"

Oklahoma Press, 1988] p. 267). University in Thus Spake Zarathustra, trans. Walter Kaufmann
of was a

p.

158. Zarathustra
p.

Persian,
of

and

"The Persians had hence

a cycle of one

hundred

years"

and

twenty

(Mexico,

65

n.

38). Nigel Davies

comments that part of the and of

difficulty
so

in studying
prehensible

the world of the Aztecs

our

is that their "concept

time,

history, [was]

radically different from

terms of a

Thus Marx's philosophy of history would have been incom to the Aztecs. "Marx inherited the Judeo-Christian notion in that respect; he thought in beginning and ending of history, in which, in a new Golden Age, proletarian power idyllic
state of man's tribal

own."

would restore the

past; he certainly did not

believe, like

the

Aztecs, in

succession of worlds, with the

implication that the

proletarian revolution would one

again"

day

succumb
pp. 8, Vintage, (August,

and the

fight

against capitalism would

be

resumed over and over

(The Aztec Empire,

125). Compare Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Progress?" The Atlantic Monthly Aph #341, p. 274, with Lord Bryce, "What is

1974),

1907),

p.

154.

360

Interpretation
of

28. One
"Besides the

the

obvious similarities

their agreement on the

divinity

of the

between New World cosmogony and that of the Greeks heavenly bodies. Describing the Incas, Prescott says
worship in
some

was

that

Sun, [they]
the

acknowledged various objects of was the

way

or other connected as part of the

with this principal

deity. Such fairest

of

Moon, his
. .

sister-wife; the

Stars,

revered

heavenly
attends so of

train,

them, Venus,

was adored as the page of the

Sun,

whom

he

(Peru, pp. 778-79). Plato argues for the divinity closely in his rising and in his the heavenly bodies in Laws, 899b; Aristotle expresses this view in the Nicomachean Ethics,
and

setting"

1141M-8 There is
of the
ists."

Physics, 196a33-34;
here to
go

and

Cicero

makes

the case in the Tusculan

Disputations, 1.28.

no space

into the

philosophers'

context of the

defense

of

the idea of the

divinity
same

heavenly bodies,
as all ancient

a stance which was

note

bound up

with a refutation of the atheists or

"material

But it is important to

here that this

stance puts the classical philosophers

in the

camp

peoples, it would seem,

except one.

As

one scholar

has observed, "The deifica

universally operative (Hans Jonas, The Gnostic
the relation of rationalist
and

tion of the heavens or of the chief

reasons an element

heavenly
p.

bodies is for the

most natural and

one)"

in

all

ancient

religions

(except the Jewish

must then

Religion [Boston: Beacon, 1963],

"paganism"

255). We

keep

in

mind

philosophy
of the

and

of all varieties on the one all

hand to the Bible

modern

historical

thought on the other.

Prescott, for

his modern,

enlightenment

rationalism, is under the influence

Bible.
says that the

Aristotle

"first human beings

...

are

likely

to have

been

similar to average or even

today"

simple minded persons

(Politics 1296a6).
an old

Plato sums up the point directly in the Timaeus, when he has Solon: "There have been and will be again, many destructions of
causes; the greatest have been brought about

Egyptian

priest

say to

by

agencies also

innumerable

causes"

(Timaeus 22c 1-2). Consider

arising out of many of fire and water, and other lesser ones by Plato's Laws 676a-c, and Lucretius, De
Sense,"

mankind

Rerum Natura 6.670.

Consider Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral ophy and Truth (New Jersey: Humanities International, 1979), 29. North America,
French

in Daniel Breazeale, ed., Philos

peoples of
of

p.

79.

Roy Harvey Pearce, speaking generally of American students of the indigenous says that "They could learn of the law of progress from any number
who were so

learned

authorities, especially from those Scots

social theorists who

influential in their thinking,

Scots."

and

from those

the works of the Pearce describes the such as Francis century Scotch historians and writers on Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, Lord Karnes and William Robertson, as being the con
upon and verified

built

"grand intention

of the eighteenth

society,"

"a sociology of progress, a theory which would make comprehensible at once social (The Savages of America: A Study of the Indian and the Idea of stability and social Civilization [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965], pp. 155-56, 82-83.27.) "If the Greeks lived in the infancy of civilization, the contemporaries of our day may be said to have reached its prime. The same revolution has taken place as in the growth of an individual. The vivacity of the imagination has been blunted, but reason is matured. The credulity of youth has given way to habits of cautious inquiry, and sometimes to a phlegmatic scepticism a new
struction of
growth"

standard of moral excellence was useful was preferred to the

formed. Pursuits

were estimated

by

their practical results,

and the

(Prescott, Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, p. 77). Compare Thomas Babington Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays, 2 vols. (London- J M Dent, 1961), vol. 2, pp. 366-71.
in respect of "social relations and Egyptians (Mexico, p. 33). We recall here Plato's reliance on an Egyp tian priest in the Timaeus who says to Solon: "You Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed among you down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with (22b5-c3). If Prescott had been more classical or Platonic in his outlook, he might have laid greater stress on the Egyptians' value of the ancient wisdom and less on what they reveal to the historian the preconditions for social progress. It is regarding interesting to note that in the New Atlantis, in which Bacon presents the outlines of the new scientific then called
of

ornamental"

Prescott

says that there were

"points

resemblance"

culture"

between

the

Aztecs

and the

age"

"American"

society,

"Peru,
as

Coya,"

and

Mexico, "then

called

Tyrambel,"

are

described together

with

Atlantis

being "mighty

and proud

Prescott's Conquests
kingdoms, in
ancient
riches."

361

arms, shipping
repulsed and

and

Bacon

suggests that

it

was

Tyrambel

or

Mexico
ed. p.

which the

Athenians

Tristram Coffin

in the Timaeus (A Book of Seventeenth Century Prose, Alexander M. Witherspoon [New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929],
makes the some

Robert P.

44).

In his Laws Plato

ters

both believe that there's floods

a

and plagues and

Athenian Stranger say to his two interlocutors: "Well, then, do you The ones that tell of many disas which have destroyed human beings and left many other things
truth in the ancient sayings?
race."

only
to

tiny

remnant of

the

human

Kleinias

replies:

"This

sort of

thing

seems

everyone"

(Laws 677a3;

see also

Phaedrus 229b5-230bl). Mircea Eliade

says that

entirely credible "Plato could

be

regarded as

succeeded
humanity"

the outstanding philosopher of primitive mentality', that is, as the thinker who in giving philosophic currency and validity to the modes of life and behaviour of archaic (The Myth of the Eternal Return [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954], p. 34).
and

See

also

John Stuart Mill, Dissertations

Discussions (London: George Routledge, n.d.),

eyes unto

pp.

168-71.

30. In

Deuteronomy 4:19-20

it is

said:

"And lest thou lift up thine

heaven,

and when

thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of worship, and serve them/ which the

heaven,

shouldest

be driven to

heaven/ But the Lord hath taken you, be unto him a people of inheritance/ 31
.

Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole and brought you out of the iron furnace/ even out of Egypt, to
as ye are this
day."

Dugald Stewart

explains that the

"very
and

hinge

of

the

controversy"

between those

who em
or

phasize a progressive curean

future for

humanity

those prone to what he

calls

"Atheistical
and

Epi

prejudices"

is "the

essential

difference between the

world."

present state of

society,

any

which

has

occurred

in the preceding

ages of the

Following

Francis Bacon he insists that the

the

art of

printing, the

discovery

of the

New World, the purity

of modern religion and

"retrogradation"

increasing

store of

science available

to modern man provide assurance that

has become impossible.

(The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, ed. Sir William Hamilton [Edinburgh: Thomas Constable, 1854], vol. 1, p. 500). According to Nietzsche there is now in place a "chain of tremendous pro
phylactic ourselves measures
which are

the conception of modern times and through which we separate

from the Middle

Ages."

"We

make

it henceforth impossible for the fruitful fields

torrents"

of

culture again
Shadow,"

to be destroyed overnight

by

wild and senseless

("The Wanderer

and

His

#275, in Human, All Too Human,

are entitled

trans. R.J. Hollingdale [Cambridge: Cambridge Uni

versity Press, 1986], pp. 376-77). 32. According to Stewart we

physical or the moral order of the

to reject
a

universe, in

light

calculated

"every theory which represents to damp the hopes, or

Stewart
allows

either the

to slacken

the exertions of the

friends

humanity."

of

But

at the same time

"some

planet."

physical convulsion which shall renovate or

destroy

the

surface of our

for the possibility of Thus he must

explain

that "The
than to the

object which

I have in

view at present

further
pp. on a

history

of our species

during

the

is comparatively confined, extending no last three (Collected Works, vol. 1,

centuries"

490, 500). In
few

other words

the progressive

vantage point

centuries or millenia.

But extending

one's gaze

is satisfactory as long as one's focus is beyond this necessarily forces one to

earth,
which

consider the

possibility

of telluric or

life-ending

catastrophes on the planet

"Progress"

is

as much

in James C. Hepburn Aztecs, and Plato's, point. See Carl Becker, Robert A. Greenberg, eds., Modern Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1962), pp. 125-35.
as to concede the

and

33. Prescott
policy"

explains

that "the genius of the Peruvian

monarchy"

and the and that the

"key

to

its habitual

was

that "Science was not intended

for the

people"

"amautas"

or wise men

if science it could be that was available to them "engrossed the scanty stock of science (Peru, p. 791). While this may in fact have served to preserve the polity, it would put very clear limits on how far society might progress, if it be allowed that the diffusion of an elementary
understanding of nature and its laws is the sine qua non of society's advancement. in Thus Spake Zarathustra, III, 16, p. 34. "The Seven Seals (Or: The Yes and Amen 231. See Wyndham Lewis, Time and Western Man (Boston: Beacon, 1957), pp. 220-27; 437-40; and Karl Lowith, Meaning in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), pp. 191-22.
Song),"

called,"

Discussion

The Speech That Changed the World

Harry V. Jaffa
Claremont McKenna College

Of
said

Lincoln's speeches, whether greater or lesser, the only one that can be truly to have changed the course of history was delivered to the Republican
all
and

State Convention in Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858. The utterances that have come down to us, graven in bronze like the

in stone,

Gettysburg

Address

and

the Second

Inaugural,
are

are profound medita

tions on human experience. In the midst of the horrors of destruction and

and amid our

death,
to

the turmoil of the passions of war,

the

they

designed to

reconcile us

fate

by discerning

hand

of

God in

events

that might otherwise seem

merely
ular

chaotic.

Although these

speeches arise out of particular events at partic

times, they draw back the curtain of eternity and allow us, as time-bound mortals, to glimpse a divine purpose within a sorrow-filled present, and tell us how
our

lives, however brief,

can nonetheless serve a

deathless

end.

perhaps more than any political The House Divided speech, however, was a causal agent in bringing about the terrible events over address of the time
which

Lincoln

was

destined to

preside.

Its theme is

expressed

in the biblical
In it Lincoln

admonition that

"A house divided

against

itself

stand."

cannot

declared

that

he believed that

this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

He

said

that he did not expect the Union to be

expect

dissolved, South,
or

or the

house to fall,
might might

but he did

it to become

all

one

thing

or all another.

Slavery

become lawful in
placed

all the

states, North

as well as

slavery

be

so

that

the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction.

point of

decision had been reached, The

however,

one path or the other would

have to be followed, because Lincoln's

message.

no middle ground existed

reason

it

was

any longer. That was Lincoln's message was that Stephen A.

sovereignty, seemed to offer that very

Douglas,
tial

and

his doctrine

of popular

middle ground whose existence

Lincoln

denied,

a middle ground

that influen

Republicans

were

finding increasingly
Vol. 24, No. 3

attractive.

The House Divided

interpretation,

Spring 1997,

364

Interpretation
intended to

speech was minds.

destroy

any credibility that it

might

have had in their

The South knew very littie about the Lincoln who became President-elect in 1860. What it did know, however, was that his policy aimed uncompromisingly of slavery. No protestation on his part that he had at the "ultimate
extinction"

no act

intention

whatever

to interfere with slavery

in the

slave states could counter

the impression left

by

the call

for "ultimate
the

extinction"

in the House Di

vided speech.

From the

point of view of policy.

South,
free

there was

little

reassurance

in Lincoln's
surrounded

"non-intervention"

Suppose that the

slave states were to

be

by

an ever-more-powerful cordon of
could not

states.

Suppose

burgeon
outside

ing
the

slave

population, many of whom

be

employed

or sold

existing limits of slavery. Suppose, in short, that slavery was to be strangled where it was, without external intervention. Or suppose, still further, that the
addition of

free

states would

eventually

give them a

three-fourths majority. This

would enable

them to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery with

out the consent of a single slave state.

None

of

Lincoln's
met

promises never

to

interfere

slavery in the slave states themselves the South knew that it would never in future possess
with

these objections. And

the same power relative to

was now or never

the

North that it did in 1861. From that perspective, it

for

Southern independence, if slavery was to be preserved. Why did Lincoln pose the alternatives of slavery and freedom
promisingly?

so uncom

Throughout the

winter

and

spring

of

1856-57,

the

focus

of

national attention was upon the struggle on the plains of

vention of

Kansas. A mmp

con

participating meeting in Lecompton, Kansas, had framed an essentially proslavery constitution and Union.1 with it had applied for admission to the President Buchanan chose to
endorse the action of this

delegates

elected without

free-state

voters

convention,

with a view

to the quick admission of

Kansas
mestic

as a

state,

and with

it

an end a

to all

institutions."

There

ensued

battle royal,

federal responsibility for its "do with the free soil forces
than the redoubtable Stephen A.

in the Congress Douglas.

For

championed

by

none other

Douglas,

with

his incomparable energy

and

skill, to direct

a struggle

to

prevent

Kansas from

becoming
It
of

a slave state represented an almost

incredible
the

reversal of political roles.

was

Douglas,

a mere

three years

before, in

Kansas-Nebraska Act
of

1854,

who was

the Missouri

Compromise
place of was

restriction

principally responsible for the repeal of slavery in all the remaining Louisi

ana

Territory. In
that

the exclusion of slavery, the

Kansas-Nebraska Act had

declared

it

the true intent and meaning of this act not to

legislate slavery into any Territory therefrom, but to leave the people perfectly free to form regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States

or

State,

nor

to exclude it

and

....

The Speech That Changed the World

This
of

365

was

the

famous doctrine
repealing

of a

"popular The

sovereignty."

From the

circumstances

its introduction

longstanding

exclusion of

as a

wholly proslavery
as the

measure.

manifesto

slavery -it appeared denouncing it became in effect

which was

the originating statement of the Republican

Party,

for

some time
of

known
the

Anti-Nebraska

party.

Here

are some excerpts

from the Appeal

Independent Democrats,
At the
present session
on

January 19, 1854.

Congress]
a new

[of

Nebraska bill has been

reported

by

the
of

Senate Committee

Territories which,
the
unorganized

Congress,
We

will open all

it unhappily receive the sanction Territories of the Union to the ingress of

should

slavery. arraign this

bill

as a gross violation of a sacred

pledge; as a criminal

betrayal

of precious

rights;

as part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude

and

from
our

vast unoccupied region own

immigrants from the Old World it into

a

free laborers from

States,

and convert

dreary

region of

despotism, inhabited by

masters

and slaves.

One
was

can

hardly

imagine

rhetoric more

inflammatory,

and the arch-criminal who

its

chief object was

Stephen A. Douglas. Yet

champion of

by

the spring of 1858 Douglas

soil movement

came who

to be looked upon as the

the

free

by

had

subscribed

to the

Appeal. Here is David Potter's

political
loyalties.2

account of

many how the

struggle over

Lecompton transformed

president,

In many respects, this was 1854 all over again. Once again a newly elected with all the influence a new president commands, had been induced,
of

because

his

southern

sympathies, to

support a

bill that
a

was

highly
revolt

objectionable

to the northern members of

his

own party.

Once again,

party

followed,
party

leading
warfare

once again to a pitched political

....

battle, famous in

the annals of

Along

with

these similarities, there were two important differences.

First,

Stephen A. Douglas, previously the Senate floor leader for the administration, was now the floor leader for the opposition. The same tireless energy and the same
matchless readiness and resourcefulness

in debate

which

had

carried Kansas-

Nebraska to victory were now devoted to the defeat of Lecompton. Whereas Buchanan could not face the revolt of southerners if he opposed Lecompton, Douglas could not face the hostile response of Illinois and of the North generally if he
supported

it. Hence Congress

with

presented a new spectacle. and

Day

after

day, Douglas
seen, but for

voted on

the same side

were the

Chase

Wade

and the men who no one

had treated him in

ever

1854

as

if he

Antichrist. Stranger bedfellows

had

a season it was seriously believed that Douglas might become a Republican. Some of the eastern leaders, especially, took up the idea of supporting him and bringing

him into the

praised

country."

Henry Wilson believed Douglas would join the Republicans, and him as being "of more weight to our cause than any other ten men in the Horace Greeley, for all his professions of idealism, now declared: "The
party.
standard

Republican practicality

is too high;

was to throw

His idea of something more Republican support behind Douglas in Washington, and
we want

practical."

366

Interpretation
praise

his Tribune began to

believed that it

Douglas

extravagantly.

To the

end of

his life, he
Douglas. In

would

have been

sound

Republican strategy to

support

Massachusetts, Nathaniel P. Banks

In Washington,
and

urged

Illinois Republicans to

"sustain"

Douglas.

early Schuyler Colfax about

as

as

December

14, Douglas

talked with Anson Burlingame

oppose southern

forming

a great new

party to

disunionists.

From Antichrist to Savior in three years! The "season [when] it was seriously may, however, have been believed that Douglas might become a about one thing: if the clear the gravest of all the crises of the Union. Let us be
Republican"

Illinois Republicans had have

come

"sustained"

Douglas, Lincoln's
and

political career would

abruptly to an
place.3

end.

Had the Republican

standard

been lowered

as

Greeley desired,
have taken

the contest

between Lincoln
of

Douglas in 1858

would not

The Declaration
anchor of

Independence, in any
or

true meaning of its

republic

terms as the "sheet

American
no

would

have been

aban

doned. There
memorialize

would

have been

Gettysburg Address,
be

anything like it, to

as the

the

Founding in

the minds of American citizens. Lincoln's argu

secure as

ment that the

rights

of white men could not

long

rights

of

black

men were not recognized would

have been lost. The

at

essence of

"pop

sov"

is

revealed

in this

passage

from the joint debate

Alton:
and

We in Illinois

tried slavery,

kept it up for twelve years,

reason.

finding

that it

was

not profitable we abolished

it for that

Clearly,

slavery was found profitable, there were no moral inhibitions against it, from Douglas's point of view. As he never tired of saying, he didn't care whether slavery was voted up or down, he cared only for
whenever and wherever

the sacred right of the

should

people

to make that
results of

decision.

Why

the

right

of the people
were

have been sacred, if the

"practical"

the exercise of that right

indif

ferent, Douglas
As
a

never undertook

to say.
sov"

matter,

slavery in Kansas, but that extension threat. It should be

cate of

"pop by no

may have been

sufficient

for opposing

means represented

the whole of the slavery

remembered

that Douglas was a fanatical advo

"manifest

destiny,"

with no scruples whatever about

lands inhabited
added to the

by

"inferior

races."

It

must

be

remembered

subjugating foreign how Texas had been

staged a suc

United States. Americans had

migrated to

Mexico,

cessful revolution against

the government that had

invited them,

and

became

independent.
States.4

Then Texas's
with

Subsequently boundary
the end

Texas

was annexed with

as a slave state

to the United
quarrel of

dispute

Mexico became the

the

United States,
rest of the

result

being

the annexation of California and the

land

area

American southwest, an addition of approximately 40 per cent to the of the United States. There was nothing remaining of Mexico or of

the rest of
means.5

Latin America Mexican

that might not

peonage might

have been

acquired

by

similar

Certainly

have been

combined with

American

The Speech That Changed the World

367

slavery to produce the necessary instruments for racial domination. It should also be recalled that California became a free state largely because Chinese
labor
was

found
the

cheaper and more efficient than slave

"coolies"

labor. But the

conditions

under which

labored be

were

from

slavery.

It

must also

recalled

in many respects hard to distinguish that the Ostend manifesto signed by

James Buchanan among

purchase or

others

by force,

was
with

calling for the acquisition of Cuba, either by issued in the same year as the passage of the Kansas-

Nebraska Act. Cuba,

come a slave state slaves

its large black population,

Fidel

would

(long before

Castro!)

as well no

certainly have be doubt as a supplier of

to the older states and newer territories.

one who

No

resourcefulness

knows anything of Douglas's political ambition and can doubt that any merger of his political following

political with

the

Republicans

would

have

ended with the

Conflict"

Republicans
was

being
most

the tail of the dog.

radical

Seward's "Irrepressible
speech

speech
until

the

antislavery

by

Republican leader

Lincoln's House Divided

speech.

Lowering
could

the Republican standard to accommodate Douglas would have lowered Sew

ard's place

along Republicans have

with

Lincoln's in the

leadership
and

of the party.
without

How

the

closed ranks

behind Douglas in 1858

doing

the same

in the

greater

contest of

1860? Douglas

Lincoln became rivals for the

presidency in 1860 only because of their contest in Illinois in 1858. Had that contest not taken place, Lincoln's path to the presidency would have been
closed,
and

Douglas's
not

made smooth.
opposed

Had Douglas

been

by

Lincoln in 1858, it is difficult to forecast

exactly

what

the party

alignment would

taken as certain, however: returned to

have been in 1860. One thing may be the Senate, and with his free soil opposi

tion effectively neutralized, Douglas would, with a view to

1860, have

turned to

rebuilding his
that

support

in the South. Just

as

he had

persuaded

Horace

Greeley
have

"pop

sov"

was good enough

to make Kansas a

persuaded

Greeley's Cuba

opposite numbers

free state, so he in the South that "pop

would

sov"

was good

enough to add

and the rest of

Latin America to the Union

as slave states.

The Republicans
renewed

would

discover

only too late

that Douglas had given a

vitality

to the expansion of slavery. He would

expansion

in fact have
his

given a

vitality slavery done. For Lincoln, Douglas

opponents,
as evidenced

to

that no other political leader of the time could have

was always the most

dangerous

of

political of

by

his ability to deceive many

compose the

of the eastern

leaders

the Republican Party.

When Lincoln

sat

down to

House Divided

speech

he faced

triple crisis: one of his

own political

career; one of the Republican

Party;

and

one of the nation, as either

free

destroy

Douglas's

credentials as a

importantly, he

set out

to

destroy

set out therefore, first of all, to leader. Less obviously, but not less his credentials to become again a leader of the
or slave.

He

free

soil

country. If the proslavery South had been more intel proslavery forces in the it would have realized that Douglas could do more was, ligent than it actually

368

Interpretation
good"

for them than any "positive ing the plains of Kansas but in
slavery.

disciple

of

John C. Calhoun. Not in

contest

filibustering

south of the

border

lay

the future of
subsequent
even more

The

genius of the

House Divided speech,

and

Lincoln's

in the joint debates, destroyed Douglas's effectively than in the North.

tactics

stature

in the South

It is
unlike

sometimes overlooked that throughout the campaign of

1858

Douglas,

Lincoln,
and

was

battling

on two

fronts. The Douglas

was

political

warfare

waged

by

the

Buchanan

administration against

intense. All federal

office

holders

especially

postmasters

and replaced

by

administration

owing allegiance to Douglas were fired supporters. Buchanan's point man was his Attor
one of

ney General, Jeremiah Black,

agreement with

the sharpest

debaters

of the was

day.6

What

was remarkable about the administration attack on

Douglas

its

essential

Lincoln's
as

attack. student of

Lincoln's attack,
reference

every

the joint debates

knows, has
at

peculiar

to the

famous

second question addressed to

Douglas

Freeport:

Can the
any

people of a

citizen of the of a

formation

United States Territory, in any lawful way, United States, exclude slavery from its limits State Constitution?

against the wish of prior to the

Don Fehrenbacher has shown, contrary to

was not a sudden stroke of political

much popular

mythology, that this

off

wizardry,

throwing Douglas
form
or

his

guard.7

On the contrary, it
answered

was a question

that, in

one

another, Douglas had

many times before. Lincoln's genius was rather in relentlessly press

ing

the matter, and in

hammering

home the inner intent

inconsistency

of

Douglas's

answers.

Douglas had

accepted the premise that the and

Supreme Court's decision

in Dred Scott

represented the tme

that therefore any citizen of a slave state might go

tory

and

there

lawfully

hold his

slave as

meaning of the Constitution, and into any United States Terri property. But, said Douglas, his ability

to enjoy this species of property depended upon local

legislation,

which

his

fellow Court lar

a

citizens of the

territory

were

free to

grant or to withhold.

Douglas,

the

right

of

the slaveholder in the

Territory

recognized

was

merely
might

sovereignty"

of

territory
It
was

depended upon the "popu in the territory. In this way, he said, the people of in fact exclude slavery from their midst.
concrete enjoyment

"abstract."

According to by the Supreme

Its

the settlers

the success

of

this reply that had persuaded

Republicans like Greeley

cared

that

Douglas

was their man.

These

same

Republicans

little,

or rather

approved of the

fact,

that Douglas was in effect

seen

"nullifying"

Dred Scott. The

South, however, had

entire national

Dred Scott

as the certification of their

debate

over the constitutional status of

saw

victory in the in the territories. slavery

the

In Douglas's casuistry they

themselves cheated

of

fruits

of

that victory.

What Lincoln did

pointed

was to make certain

that this casuistry did not prevail. He

and

out, in the

debates,

that

Taney

had said,

Douglas had agreed, that

The Speech That Changed the World

the

369
in

property in the territories was "expressly the Constitution. If this was so, then that right stood upon the same
slaves as

right to hold

affirmed"

constitu
affirmed"

tional

foundation

as the

right to

reclaim

fugitive slaves,

as

"expressly
fugitives

in Article IV

of the

Constitution. But

the

right to

reclaim

was also a

merely abstract or barren right unless implemented by congressional legislation, as it had been in both 1793 and 1850. No one, Lincoln said, could take an oath
to support the
vote

Constitution

as

every Congressman did

an

and yet withhold

his

from legislation

implementing

expressly

affirmed constitutional

right.
when

Douglas's
ever

argument against a congressional slave code

for the territories,

the territorial government withheld legislation securing the slaveholders

well an

property, could apply as

as

to any

fugitive

slave

law. "Popular
constitutional

sovereignty"

a means of
on

nullifying
of

"expressly

affirmed"

right

placed

Douglas This

the side

the abolitionists!

evisceration of

"popular

sovereignty"

by

Lincoln in the

course of

the

joint debates had its

ultimate

fruition in the Democratic National Convention

to adopt a resolution in the

that met in Charleston in April of 1860. When the majority in that convention,

firmly
code

committed

to

Douglas,

refused

favor

of a slave

for the territories, the

year.

seven states of

Deep

South

withdrew.

These

same seven states would secede

from the Union before Lincoln's inauguration from the Democratic Convention
that

the
was

following

But it

was secession

politically decisive. As Don Fehrenbacher has written, everyone knew that South that would not accept Stephen A. Douglas as leader of the Democratic
would never accept

Party
the

Abraham Lincoln
what

as

President

of

the United States.

Yet the South

was

foolish in

lenses Lincoln had

speech.

kindly

provided

it did. It actually looked at Douglas through them in the debates that followed the

House Divided

demand for
phy
root.

a slave

Had they been wise they would have abandoned their code for territories like Kansas or Nebraska, where geogra
soil movement made realized

and a militant

free
have

it unlikely that slavery

would not

could take or else

needed

They

would

that if slavery was extended to

Cuba,
have

where south of

the border (as in the case of

Texas) they

federal

slave code.

They

might then

have

elected a president who might

have

done everything both necessary and possible to guarantee the survival cess of slavery. Indeed, for all we know, slavery might be flourishing
us even now.

and suc

amongst

That it does not,

we

have the House Divided

speech to thank.

NOTES

1. The
stages

various shifts and changes

in the forms

of the

Lecompton Constitution in the into the details

of

various

in the

struggle need not engage us

here. Nor

will we enter

the English

Bill,

which resulted

in

the

final

rejection of

Lecompton

by

the voters

1858. When Lincoln delivered the House Divided

was a

speech

in Kansas Territory, on August 2, in June, the result of the August plebiscite

foregone

conclusion.

370

Interpretation Impending Crisis, 1848-1861,

completed and edited

2. The

by

Don E. Fehrenbacher (New

York: Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 320, 321. 3. In December 28, 1857, Lincoln wrote to Lyman Trumbull: "What does the New York Tri Have they its constant eulogising, and admiring, and magnifying of Douglas? bune mean

by

concluded

that the

republican

cause, generally,

can

best be

promoted

Illinois? If
once.

so we would

like to know it soon; it

will save us a great

sacrificing us here in deal of labor to surrender at

by

"As

yet

I have heard

of no republican ears of

here going
or
. .

over to

Douglas; but if

the Tribune continues

to din his

praises

into the

its five

ten thousand

republican readers

in Illinois, it is

more

than can be hoped that all will stand firm.

The 354). It

statewide vote of

the Republicans in November of 1858 was "about 125,000

for

the

Repub
p.

licans, 121,000 for

can

the Douglas

Democrats,

and

5,000 for the Buchanan

Democrats"

(Potter,

be

seen

that five or ten thousand readers of Greeley's Tribune in Illinois could

on

have

exerted powerful

leverage

the Republicans

margin of

4. When Texas
consent of

was annexed,

it

was provided

Congress

into

as

many

as

five

states.

victory or defeat. with the that, in future, it might be divided That is to say, Texas might have added ten, rather

than two, slave-state senators (and electoral votes).

5. Lincoln's
the eve of the
Winter,"

apprehensions on

the eve of the war were no different

from

what

they had been

on

1858

campaign.
weight of

he threw the

On December 18, 1860, in the midst of the "Great Secession to extend the his influence against the Crittenden compromise

Missouri line to the Pacific.

sorry any republican inclines to dally with Pop. Sov. of any sort. It acknowledges that has equal rights with liberty, and surrenders all we have contended for. Once fastened on us as slavery settled policy, filibustering for all South of us, and making slave states of it, follows in spite of us, "I
am

with an

6. In

early Supreme Court decision, holding our free state constitutions to be unconstitutional. the Name of the People: Speeches and Writings of Lincoln and Douglas in the Ohio
. .

Campaign of 1859, edited with an Introduction by Harry V. Jaffa and Robert Johannsen (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1959), reprints "Observations on Senator Douglas's Views in Popular
Sovereignty"

anonymously, it
against

soon was

from the Washington Constitution, September 10, 1859. Although published known that the author was black. This is a good sample of what was said
the

Douglas from

Buchanan

administration side of

the political battlefield throughout the

1858
chap.

campaign.

7. Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850's (Stanford: Stanford

University Press, 1962),

6, "The Famous 'Freeport

Question.'"

Book Reviews

John Horgan, The End of Science (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996), 308 pp., $24.00. Alex Harvey

Emeritus, Queen's College

Mr. Horgan's indictment is

the

amplified a trifle

in the

subtitle on the

jacket:

Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age. Support Facing for the charge that "pure science might be provides both the generating
over"

force

and

leitmotiv for his book. He

charges that there

is little

more of a

funda

mental character

that could be expected to be discovered. This charge

is

an

armature on which a substantial employed chapter

intellectual

structure

is

sculpted.

The

method

is

the

interview

with

leading

practitioners

in fields indicated in bare

by

the

headings. These interviews weaving

are not presented

and

form, but
judge

are a skillful

of paraphrased questions and

answers, exact quotations,

and comments ments made.

into

a seamless exposition of the concepts

involved

and

Mr. Horgan is

competent, well-qualified

prosecutor. which

been

a staff writer

for Scientific American, in

skills

He has for many years capacity he has not only

honed his journalistic

the

leading

scientists of our

but has had the opportunity to interview many of time. They range from Roger Penrose to Thomas
to Stephen

Kuhn, from Steven Weinberg

very familiar with the land, in distinction to

Jay

Gould to Noam Chomsky. He is

But, does he prove his case? In Scot other Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions, there are three possible verdicts in a criminal proceeding: Not Guilty, Guilty, and Not Proven. The latter is not equivalent to our Mistrial. It means just what it says, i.e., Not Proven.
scientific evidence.

Everything is
Proven.
In the

left hanging. Mr. Horgan's indictment

must

be judged Not
to be covered. to know

prosecution of the case

there

is

a great

deal

of ground

Not

since the mid-nineteenth

century has it been

work

possible

for

a scientist

all of

science,

i.e.,

to be able to

present time
physics.

it is

not even

creatively in any and all fields. At the possible, in this sense, for a physicist to know all of
General"

Indeed, the Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme (American to "90. Geophysics, Astron of Institute Physics, 1992) runs from "00.
Astrophysics"

omy,

and

and

takes more than 26 pages to list the complete

taxonomy. Were such a

and social sciences

classification constructed

for

all of the

physical,

life,

it

might well

be the

size of the

Manhattan White Pages.

interpretation,

Spring 1997,

Vol. 24, No. 3

372

Interpretation
must constrain an

Clearly, Mr. Horgan

his

choice of topics. of

This he does

by
of

restricting the discussion to

science, and

interesting array Science, Physics, Cosmology, Evolutionary Biology,

Chaos
and

disciplines:
Social

Philosophy

Science,

Neuro-

Complexity,
of

which

Horgan

combines

into Chaoplexity.
and

In addition,
entific ror of

there are
or

final

chapters entitled

"The End

Limitology"

of

"Sci

Theology,
God."

The End

Machine

Science"

and an

"Epilogue: The Ter

These latter

resemble

in

structure the earlier

chapters, but

they

are

largely
One

speculative.

the choices. If evolutionary biology is have an infinite future? Why is and do paleontology geology coming discipline does discuss many fascinating included? This of science philosophy Popper's concept of is entertain issues. The argument over Karl
might ask some questions about

to an end,

"falsifiability"

ing, but is it anything

the
practice

more?

It does

not seem

to have the slightest relevance to

of science.

These

questions and others

concerning

your

favorite

science must exemplars science.

be

put

to Mr. Horgan. Perhaps he intends his selections to be

are

and

the pessimistic conclusions

to be extrapolated to all of

Mr. Horgan's definition

of science

is broad

enough

to include almost any

context we

activity

that a reasonable person might call scientific.

"reasonable"

(In this

do

not

consider choice of of people

topics

is,

of

he

might

believers in astrology, a flat earth, or channeling.) His not so broad. It is possibly limited by the number have been able to interview, the preparatory reading he had
course,

time to absorb, and the

disciplines

chosen to support

his thesis. The

result

is the

eclectic mix noted earlier.

In
end

various

fields he
what

attempts to

buttress his has little

view

because
For

can

be

accomplished
reasons

now

plished.

various cites

disparate

more

is coming to an very nearly been accom can be added. In a number of

that science

instances he
cial support.

increasing public apathy to science and a drying up of finan There is also a burgeoning Luddite public antipathy to science as a
is
evil. point.

source of much that

entirely beside the

This is scarcely to be taken seriously. Both are One recalls readily the sudden increase in funding for

space programs when

the Russians

bility
only

of a similar unanticipated stimulus

successfully launched Sputnik. The possi in any given field always exists. The
progress? and a
"no"

criterion should

be: Can there be further

should

be

registered with extreme circumspection.

Mr. Horgan fails to

even seems

overcome a

vaguely that he

does

not

fundamental bar to proving his thesis. It try too hard. This problem resides in the
nonquantitative
sciences.

distinction between
mathematics

quantitative

and

The fact that

of social

is

employed

in

various sciences such as some not make them quantitative.

branches

science and economics

of

does

The

predictive power

economics, e.g., is best described

efficient when compared

very

Paul Feyerabend: "Prayer may not be to celestial mechanics, but it surely holds its own

by

vis-a-vis some parts of

economics."

The

problem

is

that if a particular disci-

Book Reviews
pline

373

is essentially qualitative, then any judgements about it are necessarily At best, only a speculation can be advanced that it has reached its limits. Persuasive though the arguments may be, they can hardly be conclusive.
qualitative.

This

situation pertains

in

all the areas

he

covers save physics and cosmology.

This is certainly nicely how wide

open

manifest

in the

chapter on neuroscience.

While it

explores

some of the

conflicting

opinions

the field is. We seem

not

in this area, all it does is emphasize to have a clue to the solution of the
Are there
no

problem of consciousness or self-awareness.

breakthroughs to be

made

here?
the chapters on Physics and

Only in
able.

Cosmology

titative structure to make clear

judgements

and even

is there the necessary quan here they remain question

In the early part of the book reference is made to The Answer [author's emphasis]. In physics this is the Holy Grail, the modem search for which was initiated
when

Einstein

sought to

relativity,

with the classical electrodynamics of

unify his theory of gravitation, i.e., general Maxwell. The effort was never

successful,
ever since.

but the

concept of unification

has been

driving
forces
and

force for

physicists

To the two forces known to Einstein

when

he initiated

the search

there are two more fundamental

nonelectrical

forces: the
and

"weak"

which mediate

the

interactions
the

of

electrons of

positrons

the

"strong"

force
ele

which governs

interactions
There

protons, neutrons,

and

the

even

heavier

mentary force, but

unified

particles.

was a recent suggestion

that there

might

be

fifth

sufficient negative experimental made.

data killed that

and

possibility.

Progress has been into the for unifying the

Electrodynamics force

the

weak

forces have been

"electroweak"

force. Then there is the

with

so-called standard model

electroweak

the strong forces. The result is a

with

theory
One

with remarkable predictive powers

but

too many troublesome loose ends

parameters.

to be considered the last word. It has too many adjustable

recalls

Eugene Wigner's
wiggle."

justifiably

contemptuous you an

dismissal

of

free

parameters:

"Give
make

me one parameter and

I'll draw

elephant;

give me two and

I'll

its tail

Unified Theories
to

or

GUTS, but
is

This has been seriously addressed in the so-called Grand even these have drawbacks. There is much yet how it is to be done is
no reason not the

be done,
for

and the absence of a clue as to

for

pessimism. reason

String theory
is
that

one of

the regions

being

explored,

least

which

it

would

include the It has

gravitational

force

and provide the

masses of the

hints,

elementary but that is scarcely

suggests

particles.
a reason

yet

to produce other than

tantalizing

to be pessimistic.

Horgan

that progress will

become
the

unanswerable.

There may be two

on which

die away because the questions have reasons for such a situation to arise.
unanswerable and the other
will not

The first is that the

experimental

questions are

intrinsically

is that
As

data

theoreticians feed

be

available.

H. M. Georgi, the distinguished particle theorist, has put it: "The progress of the field is determined in the long run, by the progress of experimental particle
physics.

Theorists are,

after

all,

parasites.

Without

our experimental

friends to

374
do the

Interpretation
real work, we might as well

philos

be

mathematicians or

More

and more

data

at

higher
the

and

higher

energies are what

Dr. Georgi
seen

refers

to. The

higher the energy nate funding for the huge Waxahachie

no guarantee sive progress.

larger the

accelerator.

Here

we

have

Congress termi
not there

machine.

And

even

if it did

is

it

would

have

provided all

the information needed to make deci

not guarantees.

Money

provides

possibility

And

even

if limitless

be money were available, would the ultimate globe-circling built? There are many open questions here, including the idea that the whole structure may take a different form. None of these questions is intrinsically
accelerator ever
unanswerable.

Cosmology
global scale.

is the study of the structure and dynamics of the universe on a Here Mr. Horgan has a stronger case. It also is quantitative, but
are obtainable

there

is

an

important difference. Data

only

by

observation.

We

cannot, as in particle physics, run an experiment to

mation.

obtain some specific

infor

We

must

take what the Hubble telescope and our radio and optical

telescopes provide. Our only choice

we adjoin

is

what we will observe and record.

To this

elementary

particle

interactions

the initial phases of the

about cosmology.
weak and

bang."

"big

being important in understanding There are several things to be understood

as

The only force are short forces strong

at work range.

in this domain is

gravitation.

Both the

Electromagnetic

forces,

which are

long
cos

range,

cancel out

by

virtue of

having

both

attraction and repulsion.

Thus,

mology is discussed solely within the context of the Einstein theory of general relativity. A cosmological model is then nothing more or less than a solution of
the Einstein field equations. As observations are refined so will

be

our

distinguish
able

and select a
whether

best

candidate

among the

various models.

ability to We will be
the

to decide

the presently observed expansion

will continue or

universe will reverse and contract to a

big

crunch.
general relativity.

Cosmology, thus,
doubt that it cessfully
must

stands or

falls

with

Einstein's

This is

not

a stable configuration.

be

quantized.

General relativity is a classical theory, and there is little Despite massive effort this has not been suc
There
seem to
and

accomplished.

be

as

many

schemes to this end

being

pursued as there are

pursuers,
.

there is no consensus. This leaves open the

possibility

of a

succe.f

theory

to general

relativity

being found

one

day. In

this case the problems of cosmology are once again open to reconsideration.

Mr. Horgan is acutely aware that looking over his shoulder as he and the people he interviews judge science to be entering its twilight years is the sim

ilarity

of this

judgement to that
started

made almost a

Max Planck
advised

his doctoral

studies

by

his

mentor

that there was

century ago. It is said that when in the late nineteenth century he was little more to be done in physics beyond
well

tying up
In 1894
of

some at the

loose

ends and that

of the

dedication

everything was Ryerson Physical

more

known

and understood.

Laboratory

at

the

University
and

Chicago, Albeit Michelson

of physical science

said, "The
all

important fundamental laws

and these are now so

facts

have

been discovered,

firmly

Book Reviews
established that the
new

375

possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of discoveries is exceedingly remote Our future discoveries must be
.

looked for in the

tion

sixth place of

decimals."

Mr. Horgan do

reproduces

this predic

in

order to refute
well

it. That he does

not

convincingly.

It is

known that
and

physicists who make

in their twenties
the highest
make.

level, but

early thirties. They will great discoveries will be for other,

groundbreaking discoveries do thereafter always be competent

younger physicists

so at

to

It is thus

questionable that the elder statesmen of the

discipline

are

the

best qualified psychologically to make predictions about great new discoveries just beyond the horizon. They will not be the ones doing the discovering.

No,
apart

the verdict must

be Not Proven.
well worth reading.

Nonetheless the book is

For

each of the
a

fields covered,

from the last two

chapters and the

epilogue,

overview sented.

of the subject at the technical

are well

level

of

very fine state-of-the-art Scientific American is pre

somewhat

They
in

focussed

and

very

effective more

if

idiosyncratic
would

idiosyncratic in the
manifest able.

sense

that there

is

of

Mr. Horgan than

no

be

a straight question-and-answer

format. This is in instances his

way

objection

It

provides a certain spice.

In

some

report seems a

debate.

Without doubt, an expert in any one of the fields will find something objection able, but not of sufficient importance to vitiate the entire chapter. For instance, in the Introduction there is the
statement:

"Many

physicists,

beginning

with

Einstein, had
into
a

tried and

failed to fuse
'unified'

quantum mechanics and general

. .

single, seamless

theory.

relativity This is incorrect. Einstein's at

tempt at unification

involved

These

are minor matters.

relativity and classical electrodynamics. The nonexpert in any of the disciplines treated might enjoy reading the book. It is supple,
well

general

expect to profit as well as glides

written,

and

smoothly

past the mind's eye.

Benardete, The Tragedy and Comedy of Life: Plato's Philebus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), xiv + 250 pp., $37.50.
Will Morrisey

Seth

In the Philebus "Socrates

goods,"

finally

replaces the good with the

beautiful in his

the Benardete states (p. ix). Philosophy's superiority to summary but in its ability poetry "cannot lie in the neutral impersonality of its "to tell a better story than (p. ix). If means, finally, more beau
of
discourse"
poetry"

"better"

tiful, then how does philosophy differ from poetry in kind? Benardete answers that philosophy's beauty is a beauty of the mind and its thoughts, not of the

body

and

its actions,
from the in

beauty

that reflects

"divide between

man as man and such radical

man as political animal that

abstraction

denies"

poetry

(p. ix). It is true that

body

farther

above

the city, which "did

philosophy"

is impossible, but that only makes it more beautiful, not educate [the philosopher] either in its
(p.
xi).

opinions or

How then does the

most

philosopher

differ from
"there is a
this

the aesthete?
range of

He differs in that the

experience

beautiful is

also the truest:

and

human

that is

incorrigibly false,

the

recognition of

is known to the soul, which is always trying to divine itself and "hides from the enchantments of
is,"

where

the tme good

xi).

for
the

poetry"

(p.

Is, then,

beautiful
with the

the true good?

In that case, Socrates has

not

exactly

replaced

the good

beautiful.
consists of

This book

two main parts: a translation of the Philebus and Besays

nardete's commentary.

Socrates

he initiated the dialogue in

human
possessions.

order

to articu

late

and

interpret

what

is the best

of

His

"way,"

he says, is
life that
one

to throw

his interlocutors into

"perplexity"

(p. 15). His

principal

interlocutor

here, Protarchus, is
would not

a man who wants

to have it all. Protarchus

argues that without

wants a

combines pleasure and thought.

Socrates

knowledge

know

one

is

being

pleasured and that thought therefore outranks

optimistic about

pleasure.

Protarchus may be too

the

intense pleasures, particularly sexual pleasures, while same time or at many other times); as Yogi Berra said, "You can't hit and think Socrates may not show by this argument that thought is not at the same
time."

ability to enjoy many thinking (either at the

merely instrumental to pleasure. Socrates does say that genesis

sake of

and

being

are

distinct,

that genesis is for the

a good means and

being; he is
it
seeks.

well aware of

the

difference between

the

good end

He

suggests a solution

to the problem

by

are tme and

closest

false pleasures, that to being, the life "in which

one should choose the

saying that there kind of life that is

pain, but
thought-

there was neither

joy

nor

interpretation,

Spring 1997, Vol. 24, No. 3

378

Interpretation
possible"

ful thinking as pure as (p. 67). As for knowledge, it is similarly ranked. Some knowledge is clearer, purer, than other knowledge. Protarchus easily grasps this point in the abstract but applies it in an unfortu Asked if there is a truest understanding, an understanding that "is by in the
way"

nate way.

nature always

same

(p. 72), Protarchus

rhetoric

Gorgias'

mentions pure.

opinion

that rhetoric

is the best
not

art.

Socrates finds

insufficiently
about

Socrates does
sure.

say

that thought

is

or

brings
and,

the

most

intense

plea

He distinguishes thought
not eliminate

and pleasure

while

subordinating the

latter,

does

requires

that mind
power of

it. But again, any blending requires measure, and measure be prior to pleasure. Measure is beautiful; there, Socrates
the good has

says, "the

fled for

us

into the

nature of

the

beautiful"

(p.

81). In that

sense the

beautiful

"replaces"

the good.

Benardete

comments that measure requires the concepts of the

limited

and

the unlimited. The dialogue

res and so

itself

embodies these concepts.

It begins in

medias

has

'missing'

beginning.
Philebus does

We

are

forced to

wonder

whether the unbounded an

not represent

something

essential about or an end of a

philosophy, that it is

activity that

cannot

have

beginning
always

strictly determined kind, even though the philosopher begins somewhere in the neighborhood of the true beginning of philosophy every question short of the answer he has set out to find. The death or senility also cuts short his quest without affecting the

and ends almost

philosopher's own

unending life

of

philosophy itself. (P.

88)
cosmological

Philosophy
rates

has two beginnings, the first

the quarrel

of philoso when

phers with poets

concerning
for

the status of myths

the other

human,

Soc
in

turned away from the teleological physics that previous philosophers had
myths.

offered as a replacement

The

uniqueness of the
not

Philebus
the

consists

mentioning city and almost mentioning the law. "All of morality is out of bounds in the Philebus, and, whatever the human good turns out to be, it is not informed by any social (p. 90).
not
virtues"

its

presentation of

Socrates

after

his

'turn'

Laws treat human perplexity

by answering

questions with

finality.
must reflect the

The dissatisfaction that Protarchus feels

unfinishable character of

at the end of the

Philebus

any true philosophical question, but it cannot represent the true state of the issue of the human good, for that issue must be settled once and for all if the philosopher is not to be in doubt about the good of philosophy as the human good. The argument of the Philebus must come to a nonarbitrary end while it opens up everything else. (P. 91)
. . .

Human

pleasure

is double: tragic

or comic.

combination,

cannot

grasp the truth.

But tragedy or comedy, alone or in "Philosophy must be by itself the truth of

comedy

and

tragedy

and the good of

human

life"

(p. 91),

else

philosophy

col-

Book Reviews
lapses back into
not

379

poetry. Philosophy, then, is a way of life, as "Socrates stands just for thinking in all its purity but for the effort to think as (p. 94). The moral-political life represents a 'third independent of either philoso
well" way,'

phy

or the

life

of pleasure. means

'Protarchus'

first

beginning

(p. 103). Protarchus fails to

achieve such

perfectly free self-determination, as certain limits are inevitable in any life. The desire to maximize pleasure and thought simultaneously is Utopian, as hedo
nism's

limit is the thoughtlessness that demarcation

set upon

precludes

knowing you're having

a good

time. The
of

the moral-political man

fools,

the purgative elevation of lords of misrule.

holiday"

is Mardi Gras, the feast As for the philosopher, "To

be silly is a privilege of the wise on idealism" (p. 107), which funny form of
sal with

(p. 106). Not only is hedonism "a conceives pleasure as a kind of univer

in it, but each of the other ways of many particulars that life has its own funny form of idealism: the too-political man, whose desire for
self-sufficiency forever
sophic

'participate'

contradicts

his

real

dependence

on

others; the (in

sense) too-philosophic man,

Socrates,
Plato's

whose

life delineates
rescue.

the

limits

of philo

inquiry

'poetic'

and who needs

thought yields a political sort In Protarchus, the attempt to of soul, but one of potentially the most dangerous type. "Protarchus is more (p. 109). A eager to win, or at least not to lose, than he is interested in
mix pleasure and
pleasure"

rhetorician unbound

by

the

laws,

an apolitical-political as

man, tends toward tyr

anny.

Socrates
or

cannot as

deal

with

him

he deals

with

the respectable
sober

but

waver

ing Crito,
Socrates

the Athenian Stranger deals with his

interlocutors.
and

must

convince

Protarchus that there

out and rank
sailing"

are

many pleasures,

that

thought is needed to sort them

science of pleasure. of

them. Protarchus needs to want a that the

The "second

sees

first sailing,

on

the winds

divine inspiration,

gets one nowhere nearer

the truth, and that a new effort

rowing, using

one's own powers public

is

necessary.

Protarchus is

well

beyond the

first sailing, beyond

practiced the rhetoric site of

opinion, at least in his own mind (although if he

he

preaches

he

would

free). He is

not yet at

the second sailing, in that

find himself dependent, the oppo he does not know his

He
wants moral

own true powers or

his

own true weaknesses.

the morality; he does

not want

to know that he does not know.

wants

certainty without Socratic "free

own

men"

dom from the

and

gods and other

very

much

to know its

ignorance
quest-

thereby arrives at for-certitude, moral-political

That the life
and
of reason

a certainty concerning the human good denied to

men and mindless not without

hedonists.
the problem of the one

is

its

problems

the many

being

perhaps

the foremost
of of

among them
of

does

not of course problem of

Socrates'

escape

notice. choose

In terms life

the life of philosophy, this

is the

how to

rationally the

reason,

how to know in

advance that the

which

settled practically by providence or necessity, reasoning life is best. It is unprovidential or random, even if very fortunate. This actually may be

would

thus set a make the origin of philosophy unfree, and

lower limit

on the

philoso-

380
pher's

Interpretation
freedom. Some
simply do not incline to laugh the entire basis of Antigone's
souls more than satisfied

belief. "Socrates

nobility"

rejects with a

(p. 199).

Obviously,
be

the philosopher does

laugh,

else

there would be no distinction

tween a philosopher and the village atheist.

is

goods"

an exact account of one's own

"Self-knowledge, Socrates implies, (p. 202); lack of self-knowledge is

nature

more comic than tragic.

The human

soul

by

does

not rest content nor can

if it
never

could, the purposeless pleasures of

rest or

hedonism

would suffice gives

it

"simply

postulate a goal outside

itself that

the soul no taste of

its

own goodness.
pain"

To

recognize

this is to abandon "the psychology of pleasure and

and

(what

finally

just

and the pious

mirrors that psychology?) the hopes of reward for the (p. 219). The truth the philosopher uncovers is "the truth of
structure"

our perplexities and their

able

truth,

although

necessary it is good for the

(p. 236),

which

is

not a pleasur souls

soul

to recognize

it. Few

bring

themselves to live

happily

according to this disenchanted truth.

INTERPRETATION
A JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Queens College, Flushing, NY 11367-1597 U.S.A. (718) 997-5542

Subscription

rates per volume

(3 issues): individuals $29 libraries and all other institutions $48 students (four-year limit) $1 8
elsewhere

Postage
mail

outside

U.S.: Canada $4.50 extra;

$5.40

extra

by

surface

(8

weeks or

longer)

or

$1 1

.00

Payments: in U.S. dollars and payable U.S. or the U.S. Postal Service.

by air. by a financial

institution located

within

the

Please

print or

type

ORDER FORM FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS (NOT

FOR RENEWALS CURRENT SUBSCRIBERS WILL BE

BILLED)

wish

to

subscribe

to INTERPRETATION.
name

?
?

bill

me

?
ZIP/postcode

student

payment enclosed

address
. .

air mail

country (if

outside

U.S.)

GIFT SUBSCRIPTION ORDER FORM Please

enter a subscription

to INTERPRETATION for
.

name address
.

student

.ZIP/postcode.

air mail

country (if
from:

outside

U.S.)

?
?

bill

me

name

payment enclosed

address
.ZIP/postcode .

RECOMMENDATION TO YOUR LIBRARY

to: the

Librarian,
that
our

recommend

library

subscribe

ical philosophy

[ISSN 0020-9635],
signature

at

to INTERPRETATION, a journal of polit the institutional rate of $48 per year (three

issues).
.

name

date.

position

INTERPRETATION, Queens College, Flushing, New York 11367-1597, U.S.A.

ISSN 0020-9635

Interpretation,

Inc.

Queens College

Flushing

N.Y. 11367-1597

U.S.A.