Interpretation, Vol 22-1

Fall 1994 David C.
Innes
Volume 22
Number 1
Bacon's New Atlantis: The Christian Hope

the Modern Hope
and
39
Peter C. Myers
Equality, Property,
Mixed Regime
and
the Problem of
as
Partisanship: The Lockean Constitution
65 91
Jeffrey
J. Poelvoorde
Women in the Novels
of
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Colin D. Pearce
The Wisdom
of
Exile: Edward Everett Hale's

Country"
"The Man Without
111
Joseph Gonda
On Jacob Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought

and
the
Origin of Algebra
and
129
David Bolotin
Book Review
Leo Strauss
Classical Political
Philosophy
143 151
Paul A. Basinski
Neumann
Liberalism, by Harry Neumann

Politics
or
Harry
Terror
of
Reason: Comments
of
on
Paul Basinski's Review
Liberalism
Interpretation
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Interpretation
Fall 1994
__L
Volume 22
Number 1
David C. Innes
Bacon's New Atlantis: The Christian Hope

the Modem Hope
and
3
the Problem
of as
Peter C. Myers
Equality, Property,
Mixed Regime
and
Partisanship: The Lockean Constitution
39
of
Jeffrey
J. Poelvoorde
Women in the Novels The Wisdom

of
Nathaniel Hawthorne
65
Colin D. Pearce
Exile: Edward Everett Hale's

Country"
"The Man Without Joseph Gonda
91

and the
Origin of Algebra
and
111
David Bolotin
Leo Strauss
Classical Political
Philosophy
129
Book Review
Paul A. Basinski
Liberalism, by Harry Neuman

Politics
or
143
on
Harry
Neumann
Terror
of
Reason: Comments
of
Paul Basinski's Review
Liberalism
151
Copyright 1994
interpretation
ISSN 0020-9635
Bacon's New Atlantis:

The Christian Hope
David C. Innes
Gordon-Conwell Theological
and
the Modern Hope
Seminary
Modem
politics
is distinguished
"progress."
by
its
orientation
toward,
and confidence
Accordingly, hope, the anticipated end of this progressive historical development, has a prominent and even fun damental place. This hope, which gives our world its character and is the key
what
in,
is
called
a particular
to understanding the
progressive attitude which permeates modem
politics, is
the promise of the modem scientific enterprise. The high expectations we
have
for
politics are
informed
by
all
that we
which
have
accomplished as a
in the
past
through
our science and the
disciplines is
look to it
model, as
well as what we
are confident we can accomplish
in the future
by
the same means. That

our
is to
the
say, this
over
progressive attitude
fundamentally
which
nature, but
by
the hope
only by that dominion inspires and

shaped not
dominion
supports:
that, by way of life in which we judge that we would be happy is attainable. This hope implies a judgment as to what sort of life is most satisfying to human beings, and this judgment reflects a particular theory of human nature and a
confident expectation world or means of
this scientific enterprise, a particular
view of
God.
through Biblical religion that hope became a central religious theme
It
was
and a virtue.
Biblical hope is
was
a certain expectation of
the highest good. For the

one
pagans, hope
which revelation affords, however, Nonetheless, because of the role played by faith in the revealed promises of God, it is also a virtue. The Christian hope, like that of the Hebrews of which it is the fulfillment, is ultimately theological. It begins and ends in God, who is the grounds, the means and the object or end. It is grounded first on the nature of God, who is immutable, sovereign and
pensity for error. Biblical hope is a
merely Because
sure
passion,
and a
misleading
because
of
its
pro
of
the certainty
thing.
pure,
and
thereby
on
the
perfect trustworthiness of
His
word
(Titus 1:2). Sec

to this certainty,
ondly, the
resurrection of
Christ
provides an
historical
witness
(I Corinthians 15:20; Romans 8:32). Lastly, the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer testifies to the same certainty (I Corinthians 2:14; Romans 5:5, 8:11).
Furthermore, God
affected or secured. people
the
It is He
Father, Himself, is the means by which the hope is who foreknows, predestines, calls and justifies His
crucifixion and
(Romans 8:29, 30). The Son's
His
resurrection
from the
dead
atone
for
all
the sins of every generation of the faithful from the begin-
interpretation,
Fall 1994, Vol. 22, No. 1
Interpretation
end
ning of the world until the Spirit applies and secures this
the end or substance of the
sures which
(Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 9:22). The Holy work in the believer (Titus 3:5-7). Finally, heaven,
hope itself, is
not the enjoyment of

were prevented
those plea
ing
faithful, by suffering and toil, in this life. Rather, it is God Himself. It is God in whom liever, resurrected in body and sanctified in spirit, will find perfect
satisfaction.
God's
from enjoy the perfected be

and eternal
In the
modem
age, hope
of
this sort takes on a
secular role and emerges
for
the first time in the
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), where we see it linked to his scientific project. In the promotion of his new science, Bacon anticipates many of the technological developments which distinguish our mod
writings of
em age.
In his
account of
the activities of Salomon's House
in the New At
lantis, he
ence.
alludes
accomplishments
shadowy but confident way to what resembles modem for in, example, medicine, meteorology and agricultural sci
a a passive and estab
in
Bacon himself, however, understands this prescience not as seeing into the future but as an active leading through the promotion
of
lishment
his
of
new science.
If
what
Bacon
claims as
the inventor
the very
means of
invention
for himself is tme, that he is we know it today in its fantas

credit
tically
for the
productive
form,
then it is primarily to Francis Bacon that
is due
power which we possess
creation.
The
success of
in varying degrees over almost all aspects of Bacon's science, in addition to Bacon's writings them
selves, have been decisive

which
also in shaping our own attitude toward the future, is to say the character of the hope which animates our civilization. Bacon's promises have proved increasingly, with every passing century, to
even at at
be universally appealing, ises. Part of the appeal,
the expense of people's trust

years
in Christ's
prom
least in the function

thus the
immediately following
Bacon's
death, before
the science had much to show
the New Atlantis. The
literary
and
of
in the way of fruit, can be seen in the New Atlantis is to accomplish

of the new science.
precisely the task with which, at the end of the story, the narrator is charged: to
proclaim
the possibilities,
the science
of
hope,
offers
The
excel
lence
where
of
is
seen
in the
attractiveness of
the island
of
Bensalem,
who popu
the fullness
the hope
which
it
is
showcased.
Those
late the island, like us, are modem people. They are as they do what is most important to them, the fruit
science.
"happy,"
widely enjoying
of
that
largely
triumphant
Their
virtue
is their
"humanity."
This is primarily the disposition to

goods which modem science equips
provide others with us
these goods, the only encompasses,
to
provide.
It
also
however,
the toleration
ing
the
religious
and civil peace which mark the

which
civility underly island. This peace derives
and
from the priority

which science
the Bensalemites give to the comforts and

provides.
security
successfully
The
pictured
hope, however, is deeper

are shown a
than this. It
incorporates
an almost
religious
dimension. We
land
of angels who are
orderly,
civil and and hu-
satisfied with regard
to all their
needs.
They
combine
incorruptibility
Bacon's New Atlantis

manity,
or
5
add
goodness, both in themselves

of
and
toward others. To this
they
faith. Through displays

we
piety
and
charity
and
through the
miracle
by
which
are
told the gospel was revealed to the
island,
we can see
that
they
are
consistent and undisturbed which
in their Christianity.
we
Turning
to the condition of
life
these angelic
hosts enjoy,
seems
find
medicines and
finery
of
distinction. The book
to be designed to show the compatibility to a generation
extraordinary of Chris
tianity
ever.
and modem science
of religious authorities which was
sceptical of
this
new
learning.1
Disturbing
details
permeate
of
these
features, how
are masks
How do these features
change
the nature
the hope? There
textual grounds
which support
the view that in Bensalem
humanity
strong inhu
genuinely providing for basic needs. Chastity, upon closer exam is ination, nothing more than regimented and usefully channelled passion. Pious Christian displays distract from a more fundamental assault upon, trans manity
while
ultimately displacement of Christianity. it was a hesitant and sceptical audience for which Bacon wrote the Indeed, New Atlantis. Men despaired because they believed impossible a science which
of and could
formation
deliver the
power over nature
for
which
Bacon
argued.
For this reason,

a
the New Atlantis
is
not an
argument, like The New
Organon, but
through
captivating
all our
tale intended to inspire hope in a

woes.
sovereign science which would
remedy
This hope, the
picture of what
may be
achieved
widespread and
government supported
ner calls
devotion to
scientific research and
development, Faulk
In Bacon's tale
we at
Bacon's "vision
of a realizable state of
security."2
are
introduced to
men who are
beside themselves
with
joy
their experience of
this civilization. Much of the

ate
language have
which come
Bacon "a
employs seems appropri satisfaction of
to the description
of men who
into their hope, the
their
deepest longings (e.g., "a land of Bensalem is the hope which Bacon holds
world or at
angels,"
picture of our salvation"). who would see a
out
for those
better but
least
a safer and more comfortable world.
Thus,
these men undergo

. .
something
of a conversion
salvation.
because they
see
in this land
their salvation
their earthly
The fullness
of salvation
is the
object of
the highest human hope. That

which we
problem.
highest hope
saved,
and
to which we are saved also
indicates that from
are
thereby
the fundamental
and most
besetting
human
Ba
con's use of the word preservation of the

use of
hope in the New Atlantis is in

against
each case associated with
body
decay
and
destruction. For example, his first
the
word occurs
in the
The
as
context of
the storm
in
which
the
Europeans'
ship
is tossed. The diate earthly sickness (NA
object of
the hope
is the land
which
they
sight,
i.e.,
their imme
salvation.3
second use
has
reference
to preservation against
restoration of
p.
40). Just
the Christian hope includes the

through
the
body, but spiritual and incorruptible, bath, the Baconian hope is in the restoration
resurrection unto an eternal sab
and preservation of
the human
body
in this
world
by
means.4
natural
But
as a
and
hope,
this condition must
be
certain
and thus
secure,
and
also
happy,
thus comfortable or pleasant.
Interpretation
presentation of the
Given the
ties
hope
as a particular
nation, the governing
authori
of which orchestrate
the campaign of science, there is clearly
also a pro
nounced political element to the
hope. Thus,
at
the heart of the
modem charac
ter is
a grave ambiguity.
We
combine
excessively high hopes
with
frightening
moral and political possibilities.
The New Atlantis
opens
with
a picture of
premodern,
prescientific
man,
buffeted
by
the
forces
(NA
of unsympathetic and mysterious nature
to
which
he is
wholly This is their security against ever, leaves them with nothing. As
the
which
subject
p. 37).
These
have laid up a store of food for a year. the future. An ugly change in the weather, how
men
consequence, considering that
they
are
in
grip direct
of nature's
power, it is the forces
of nature and not their own
desires
their course
for
months on end.
It is the
storm and not
their own
plans which are
"carried
also
helpless
us up (for all that we could do) toward the before the fortune of disease. This, then, is the
north."
picture:
They help
lessness, dependence
upon circumstances
spare"
(which
are more often
than not unfa

poverty.5
vorable), making "good
of
limited
resources
and, in the end,
In sum, prescientific man is afloat in "the wilderness of waters in the is wilderness because it is untamed, undomesticated, unconquered by
therefore hostile or
needs and and at
world
It
man and
best indifferent (which

no
amounts
to the same
thing) to his
desires. This is
frontier.6
surprise,
since
it is the
waters
that are
described,
science,
the ocean in particular. The waters of the world are the great unconquered,
unconquerable
For the
people
to
whom
Bacon
offered
his
this description may as well
have been that

death,"
of the whole world.
Accordingly,
these
men at sea
"prepared for
In
spite of their evident of
despair,
seeing that they had no hope. they pray to God. Bacon recognizes the
"yet."
peculiarity
men, and
above.
this
by
his
use of the word

we
"[W]e
our
gave ourselves
and voices
for lost
to God
prepared
for death. Yet
did lift up
hearts
efficacy
of
Perhaps they have in mind what Bacon observed regarding the prayer (NO 1.46). Yet, it is "to God above, who 'showeth his
deep'"
wonders on the
to
whom
they
turn.
This is
a reference to the
Book
of
Psalms 107:23-32. There, God in His loving eignty calms the seas and brings the Godfearing
Weinberger is
and seas so
correct
providence and sailors to their
divine
sover
desired haven.
in observing that, in Bacon's parallel account, the winds themselves bring the sailors to a haven which they did not foresee and first desire. Given that
we
did
not at
later learn that the
men of
Salomon's
House
can control
the winds and seas, there appears to be a suggestion that "the

replaces
providence
displayed in the New Atlantis hostile

creator."7
sponsible and
upon
The
sailors'
prayer
their
ignorance
of
the
wonderful power of
irre for divine mercy is based Bensalemite science. Thus,

that in our mortal struggle
the providence of an
Weinberger
sees the point of this passage as
being

against
nature, there is
no
hope in God. Rather, any hope that
we
have is to be
found in
modem natural science. agree with
interpretation, arising as it does so neatly from the text, Bacon's use of this quotation also has an immediate dramatic function. The sailors turn to God as conceived in a particular way. In this course there is
this
While I
hope for
that
to
us
if
not
for them. It is
not
to God
not
who
brought Israel He is he
out of
Egypt
they cry
as
out, or to God whose arm is

general
too short to save, but specifically

as
revealed
God
"the
He is known through
revelation,
in
nature.
By
deep,"
Bacon intends, through the

nature"
words of the
psalmist,
a metaphori
cal reference
to the secret workings of nature which

of
elsewhere
says
are
hidden in "the bowels
21). It is only when the travellers look to God so described that they spy "thick which might conceal a conti or island. nent At the sight of this, hope stirs within them. Bacon compares his
p.
clouds"
(GI
new
science,
which
itself
was
afar off and
shrouded with a thick cloud of
uncertainty, to a
such a
new continent as
(GI
the
science,
he
says of
Indeed, to many, South Seas, was "utterly

p.
13).
the possibility
of
unknown."
Sure
enough, the
continent which
the European travellers discover is the home
of
Baconian
which
That continent, the nation of Bensalem, represents the hope this modem, Baconian science offers to the human race. It is the City of
science. whom
God
experiment
down to earth, or it is at least the city of this god to is a prayer and every discovery an answer to prayer. The Christian hope, as we have seen, rests in God from whom
come
every
all
blessings
flow. In the New Atlantis, Bensalem is a picture of the new hope. The island's distinctive feature is that it is the exclusive home of properly instituted and successfully pursued Baconian science. But what is even more remarkable is Bacon's
provides use of
heavenly
in
part and
inadequate
and subtly Godlike terms in his presentation of it. This for the visionary quality of the work and the appeal, perhaps yet seductive, to what everyone most fundamentally desires.
This earthly however.
vision
is
offered at
the expense of the more
spiritual
alternative,
The
arrival
narrator of
the
at
the
Strangers'
speaks of
Bensalem
as
tale, throughout his discourse to his crew upon their House and before their meeting with its governor, though it were God (NA pp. 43-44). To the official who
escorts them to the
Strangers'
House,
the European travellers exclaim, "God

spoken
surely is
spect,"
manifested
in this
land."
This is
"with
of
all affection and re one would
which
is
as
if to say
or
with a
love
and
fear
the sort that
render
to one's
father
and
to the Lord God. Despite exhorting

of
"look up to full of piety

"vices
God"
his description
the
the Bensalemites as
his company to "a Christian people

showing their He
counsels them
humanity,"
and
narrator cautions
the
men against
and unworthiness
before them [the

order
Bensalemites]."
also to guard their
behavior in
the
that
they "may find
grace
in the
eyes of
this
people."
Furthermore,
context of
these considerations
is the uncertainty
Interpretation
the Bensalemite authorities will cast them out,
stay.
whether
if
not
kill them,
to
or give
them
further leave to
and
bless
bow low before

p.
They see in the governor this him, "looking that from him we
maudlin
power
curse or
to
or
should receive
life
death"
(NA
44).
a
What follows this is

ernor's
description (NA
of
their response to the gov
"gracious
usage"
and parent-like
pp.
45-46).
of
They
in
are so over
come with awe at speechless.
the
"humanity"
goodness
or
this people that
they
are and
They
see
in this
place
"a
heaven"
picture of our salvation are
"nothing
they
of
but
consolations."
Their hearts
inflamed
with
desire to tour
what
call
"this
ground."
happy
and
holy
it to Zion "that
or
There follows
land,"
an allusion
to the Book
the heav
Psalms 137:6
hope.8
and with
Jerusalem,
a prefigurement of
enly
as
Bensalem is
called
happy
connoting
servants
felicity, beatitude,
heavenly
just
a
contentment.
They
submit
themselves as
to the governor
so even
"by
right
as ever men on earth were
bounden.
and
More
than to
God,
one wonders?
They
continue
"laying
a
presenting both
our persons and
all we
had
at
his
feet."
But this behavior is
appropriate either
to a god or a
despot. The
governor
departs in
tenderness in his
eyes,"
leaving
Godlike compassion, "tears of display the travellers bewildered with joy (cf. Psalms
of
angels."9
But considering themselves to have come into "a land of this last judgment is not made on the grounds of any explicit devotion to God in
137:6)
and
Christ
which
they found
there. The conclusion is made simply on the basis of

anticipated their
the Bensalemites
comforts.
having
bodily
needs and supplied
them with
and
They
mistake provision of necessities and comforts
for kindness,
they
mistake
kindness for
godliness.
Not only is Bensalem compared to God, but it comes out looking better. The Divine Revenge for the actions of Atlantis compares unfavorably with the
clemency which the Bensalemite king, Altabin, showed toward his invaders. Altabin was able to proceed in this way because he had such accurate knowl his own strength (which was great) and that of his enemy (which must have been comparatively much less). By comparison, God appears to be not only unmerciful but insecure in his power and thus over-reactive. In the com
edge of
parison, therefore, lies
not
only
a criticism of
God but
an argument
for the
implausibility
of
his
existence.
THE FIVEFOLD HOPE
The hope
which we see presented
in the New Atlantis in the
general
form
of
Bensalem is in fact fivefold: the
bodily
comforts and conveniences which are
the product of their industrial science; the extraordinary
humanity
which
the
Bensalemites, particularly
quence of these
the officials,
three,
civil peace.
display; Finally, for
religious peace
and, in conse
those who
look beyond these

provide satisfac
things to personal tion for
distinction,
the honors of Salomon's
House
such ambitions.

/: Comforts
and
Conveniences
novel and abundant wealth of the
One
the
might
say that the
land, in
are never
addition
to
humanity of its inhabitants (and the two are connected), diately striking features of the tale. Certainly, the narrator
attention
the most
imme
fails to draw
compar scroll
to the details of how
much
finer everything is in Bensalem in

parchment of
ison to
what
is
available
in Europe. The
the official's
is
"somewhat
yellower
than our parchment, and shining like the leaves

"
. .
of
(NA p. 38). The Father tables, but otherwise soft and flexible mon's House has under his feet a carpet, "like the Persian, but far 70).
of
writing Salo (NA

p.
finer"
Many
of
of what
the European travellers
consider
to be the
riches of a
far away
and exotic
land, however, find later

the
explanation
in the
account of
the activities
Salomon's House
"a kind
ours
. . .
which concludes
the work. For example, the
high-ranking
as
official who escorted them to gown of

of water
Strangers'
House is described
chamolet,
p.
of an excellent azure
wearing a colour, far more

we
glossy than
(NA
39). In Salomon's House,

as
"
find "divers
silks, tissues
mechanical arts
. . .
excellent
Strangers'
more
papers, linen, by them; (NA p. 77). The hospitality of the many others House includes "a drink of grain, such as is with us our ale, but clear; and a kind of cider made of a fruit of that country; a wonderful
and stuffs made
dyes,
and
(NA p. 43). Though this would appear to be a pleasing and refreshing mere difference of geography, it is actually a technological difference. The ale, no doubt, was developed in the the brewhouses which Salomon's House in
cludes
drink"
(NA
p.
75). This
of
great research and
development institute
also cultivates
different kinds
trees and berries from which various drinks are made, includ
ing
the
one which so
art"
impresses these Europeans. The Bensalemite technicians
are able
"by
to make these trees "much greater than their nature; and their
fruit
their
greater and sweeter and of

nature."
differing
of
(The
opposition
here
taste, smell, colour, and figure, from art to nature is Bacon's own.) Think of
the like present
the marketing
possibilities which nectarines and orange-like
in
a consumer color and
society (NA p. 74). Similarly, the which was "most excellent

odour,"
fruit,
with
its
odd
used as a preservative against

works of
infection, is
we see cultivated
also
found in the description

and
of
the
Salomon's House. There

gardens"
described "large
various
orchards
and
wherein
are
effects."
"fruit-trees,
The
which produceth
many
that
research and
account also reveals
development
are always carried are
on with an eye
to
medicinal
applications.
The travellers has
particularly
pain and
as
tounded,
and
understandably to
anyone who
experienced
the
de
bility
of serious
illness
or
injury, by
the seemingly miraculous cures made the scarlet oranges

sea."
available to them.
They
gladly
receive a plentiful number of
already mentioned, "an

refers not
assured
remedy for
sickness taken at
Here Bacon
rapid
simply to the
curative effects of oranges
for scurvy but to the
10
Interpretation
health through techno-oranges. The
fast"
return of
sick of were
the company "mended so

some
kindly
of
and so
that it was as though
they
"cast into
divine
to
of
pool
healing."
This
remark
has two
pool of
references
which are not unrelated
one
another.
The first is to the

we see
Bethesda described in the Gospel

souls,
John
(5:2-4). There
wretched and
many
miserable
blind, lame
and
in
other ways
infirm, waiting for an angel to come down (as on occasion he disturb the waters, bringing healing to whoever was then first to would) enter the pool. Furthermore, unbeknownst to the narrator but certainly as Bacon
and
intended,
this
reference
to a "divine pool of
healing"
anticipates
the account of
the artificial baths which
imitate the
healing
springs of
found in
nature
(NA
p.
73).
Among
to
these
are employed a certain
"Water
Paradise, being, by
life."
that we
do
it,
of the or
In a comparison very sovereign for health and prolongation of two, the divine example looks niggardly, whereas the example from art technology is more humane. Of course, such a judgment would overlook
made points:
two important
first,
that the infirm
man
in the Gospel account,
unable
ever to reach the

which
pool, is healed
of
is the intent
the story.
by Jesus and, second, the spiritual lesson Nonetheless, of the first fifteen paragraphs
Salomon's House ("preparations
mechanical
describing bodily
the scientific
projects of
and
instru
to
ments") before the

preservation.
account of
the
arts, eight have
application
Though these Bensalem

which
activities point toward the grand accomplishments of resurrec

neither of
tion and perpetual youth,

which we are
these goals has yet been realized in the

years of concerted research
which we are
shown, despite the 1900

of
have transpired. Because

there
the accomplishments
reason
shown,
however,
that
does
not seem
to be any
technologies should not be

none of
available.
why in principle the requisite The lesson to be learned in all of this is

upon
these provisions
is dependent
research, the
the
particular geographical or
historical
circumstances of
Bensalem. With the
establishment
in Europe
can
of sim
ilar institutions
of scientific
same sorts of
things
easily be
available there also.
//:
Humanity
great
The
benevolence
and moderation of
the
Bensalemites, in
We
see
particular the
officials,
is especially amazing to the

as
travellers.
the first hint of this in

cries or
the way the travellers are

ness
warned against
landing, "without any

that
made."
fierce
but only
of
warning
us off
by
signs
they
They
mercy."
encounter an
official who offers them
"that
which
belongeth to
While noting the
ambiguity
of
pp.
the reception,
which, under
they
nonetheless
describe this
people as
being
"full
humanity"
the circumstances, seems somewhat overstated (NA to the higher official, the great person, whom next
38-39). The
meet
attendant
attention
they
draws
to the latter's humility. He explains that it is not out

of
11
"pride
greatness"
or
p.
that he does not board their ship but only for

narrator on
humanity,"
reasons of
health (NA
official
p.
40). The
behalf
though
of
his
entire
for his "singular

of
for
what
ship reason is
praises
this high
not obvious
(NA
40). At the time

a reverend
this praise, he had not actually done anything for them.
He has
appearance; he thanks heaven for their
being
Christians (hav
ing just asked); and he claims not to be proud. There appears to be a connection suggested between the Christian piety and the almost superhuman humanity, as
it were,
narrator which
is found
on
the island. This is
made
clearer still
when
the
a
in addressing his company explains that they have come "amongst Christian people, full of piety and humanity (NA p. 43). All the
officials
they
encounter are above
bribery
an
(NA
pp.
39, 41, 43). The

p.
townspeople line up to welcome the weary foreign travellers (NA
41). The
hospitality
House
years
of
Bensalem is
such
that there
is
institution
called
the
Strangers'
which caters
having
solely to travellers such as these, this despite thirty-seven passed since it last received guests (NA p. 45). The sick are
whole are rested
mended and
the
(NA
p.
generosity which the governor of the have any other request to make, hide it
make your countenance offer shore
Strangers'
44). There is seemingly no limit to the House conveys. "And if you

not.
For
ye shall
find that
we will not
to fall
receive."
by
the answer ye shall
This is
a strange
for
Christian
a
priest
to make to a crowd of sailors who have not enjoyed

however.10
leave in
governor
long time, then reminds his guests

it
not so much
Furthermore,
The
good
even as
he
says
this,
the
not
to pass beyond certain
boundaries,
con
tinuing
officials
their house arrest, as
were. as
behavior
of
the people and
is
impressive
it is haunting. Is it
presents
virtue or control?
It
ought to
be
noted at
this point that Bacon

a
"humanity"
in
contra
distinction to
charity.
This is
key
and
to understanding the novelty

humanity"
of
Bensalemite
as
benevolence. The narrator, as Christian people, full of piety

"charity,"
noted
above, describes the Bensalemites
"a
(NA
p.
43). Bacon does

"Christian"
not
say
as
one would expect a

official who
characteristically
the
people
to be
described. The
who were which
first
greets
travellers, speaking to Europeans

provisions
thus
offers
far
unexposed
to Bensalemite ways, describes the
he
to make for their needs as "that which belongeth to
mercy
Christian term, or at least a term shared by Christians. The narrator, however, just a few sentences later but writing as one converted and accustomed to the new ways, calls it humanity (NA pp. 38-39). What Bacon
using in this
case a
here
calls
humanity is
what
in The Great Instauration he
calls
charity (pp.
15,16). This only confirms Bacon's design to recondition our understanding of Christian charity in a way that allows it to be useful to the progress of the sciences, however. Bacon's use of the word charity, like humanity, indicates
only
an orientation
toward the relief of human misery or, more specifically, the

and
prolongation of
life
the wider distribution of
innocent worldly
and
pleasures.
Praise for Bensalemite
humanity
follows
(NA
pp.
"consolations"
"comforts,"
upon
as well as restoration of the sick
45, 46, 38).
12
Interpretation
Despite
what
the travellers
see as
the
great
humanity
of
of
this people,
they
are
"fearful."
nonetheless
Their first
recognition of
the ambiguity of their
reception
has been
Strangers'
noted.
In his
address to the
company
the
ship
at
the
albeit
House,
the narrator
juxtaposes these
the
reactions of comfort and

Strangers'
fear,
before "be
meeting the priest tween death and

come"
who governs
life."
House. He
sees
them
being
He
recognizes
and wonders aloud
breath,
if they he describes his hosts as (NA

p.
shall ever see
continuing "danger present and to Europe again. But in the next
humanity"
43). Even
being "a Christian people, after having spent time with the
fears to
come,"
piety and governor, despite

of
full
the governor's
"rare
humanity"
and angelic character which made past and
his
guests
forget "both dangers

"fearful to
ask"
the travellers are nonetheless
their second question concerning the island's ability to
know
all
and yet remain unknown
(NA
p.
50). Is it just his

or
awesome
majesty, his divine
appearance which evokes this
fear,
is it the
general
display of regimentation?
color
Their
experience
in Europe,
even with
clerics, is bound to
their expecta
tions in Bensalem. Perhaps

ways of political power which
garchic"
they have not caught on to the humane and civil life beyond the old world and the new. Could it be the great
may be
called
he
commands as an official of what
this "technolo-
regime which can command even point
the
wind and of power.
the sea? But at this
in the tale there has been

the
no great
display
The travellers themselves

their
recollection of what
account
for the fearfulness
of
their question
by
concerning the law of secrecy re strangers. Despite all garding comforting signs, their fears before learning about the laws of secrecy were based solely upon their fear of death at the hands of their hosts. This judgment is confirmed by the manner in which they
governor said
greeted
the governor
of
the
Strangers'
House
when
they
life
were or
"looking
that from him
death"
we should receive sentence of
first introduced, (NA p. 44).
Though his kind

gers past and
and gracious
fears to
come,"
company that day made them forget "both dan it appears that this peace was a short-lived thing,
their very
next statement
like sleep
returned.
or
intoxication, for in
their fearfulness has
denly
undesirable as strangers
come
What do they fear in presuming too far but to make themselves sud (or even as servants, as the narrator confesses
to feel)?
they have
relation of
Along
p.
with
the laws of
secrecy
which govern the
the island to the
rest of
the world,
would
they
be
were also
told of the "rare
strangers"
admission of
(NA
46). It
reasonable of them to expect
that any admission of strangers threatens the secrecy, and to wonder,
first,
what
is done
back
with strangers who are not admitted and yet cannot
be
allowed to report
what
little they encountered; second, for

what
what reason are some strangers
admitted; and, third,
becomes
of
those strangers.
all about
Though they say it is

and yet remain
beyond their ken how Bensalem
can
know
Europe
itself unknown, one perhaps inadequate might be that travellers were received killed.
explanation which crosses their minds

or
intercepted, interrogated
and
then

Their fear begins But
as as simple with
13
their
familiarity
comes more sophisticated.
fear of death even as it was on the ship at sea. Bensalem increases, the object of that fear be They see great power behind the Bensalemite ability
Strangers'
to know and yet remain unknown. At the

that
House,
the travellers guess

governor allows
they
are
being
needs
observed
by
unseen eyes
(NA
who
p.
44). The
them to ask the questions since it is
they
know least. He, apparently,

countries or
knows
all
he
to know about them because either their

p.
they
the
themselves are
known (NA
observe
46). In the
course of their second question to

personal
governor,
they
that he knows much of their

p.
"state
[i.e.,
condi
business"
tion]
and
and
(NA
50). It
seems to
and yet to
propriety of divine powers and have others open and as

whom
them, they remarked, "a condition beings, to be hidden and unseen to others, in a light to (NA p. 51). Bensalem,
them"
like God to
such strikes
it is here explicitly compared, is fear in the heart. is

an unknown
an unknown
knower
and as
The
its
state
knower
and therefore
fearsome,
years
with respect also
to
own people.
There is
theme of the hidden or unknown. The Fathers of

unseen of
Salomon's House have been

reference to
in twelve
this
who
(NA
p.
69). There is
"the
crown and
laws
state"
(NA
p.
56)
and references seen
to a
king
(NA
pp.
62-63) but any king
named.
There is
barely
a mention of
may exist is neither him. "The King's

refers
nor even
which
Charter,"
the
Tirsan
receives at not
the Feast of the
Family,
to the recipient as "friend and

explained as
creditor,"
subject, although this
terminology is
the
king!"
being
particular
to the situation (NA p. 62). In response to the reading of the charter, all in
attendance proclaim not
Bensalem"
"Long live
but
"Happy
are
the people of
(NA
the Fathers of
exercises great political
63). The only man to whom we see obeisance paid is one of Salomon's House who travels in state, sits on a throne and authority. But the relationship between him and the ultimate
p.
authority, if indeed
they
are
separate, is
never clarified.
He
mentions
the state but
makes no mention of
tation of the collective
any king. Is the king just a popular represen authority of Salomon's House? This Father of Sa
anyone
lomon's House is described

seen
knower if
man,
is. In the
section
involving Joabin,
policy,
or
and
who
is
as
"a
wise
and
learned,
that the
and of great
excellently
we are
in the laws
nation"
and customs of of
(not kingdom
of
realm),
sit at
told that the Jews
Bensalem
expect
king
Bensalem to
the feet of
and
Messiah
called a
when
he
comes.
But this is
not spoken
directly by Joabin,
it is
vulgarly held "Jewish

the
dream."
We
the
see
effects of government
but
not
the mechanics, the agents but
not
authority.
There is
to know
some
faceless
and nameless
authority, perhaps the state,

are
which seems call
where people are and what
they
doing
and
is
able
to
them away in the midst of
their business (NA
pp.
49, 68-69). Faulkner

listens
and
directs.""
suggests a connection
surveillance
between the interruptions "Behind the

scenes
by
messengers and ubiquitous
and control.
someone
There
are also
the
hauntingly
well-behaved officials and populace
already
men-
14
Interpretation
virtue or control?
tioned. Once again, is it
Yet these
unknowns are
thorough
knowers. Salomon's House is "the very of the kingdom (NA p. 48). This suggests surveillance and hence knowledge. But this eye is without a face.
eye"
Weinberger's reading understanding. Is the

cause
"eye"
of
as
"seat
intelligence"
of
is
compatible with
this
population so
nington
every has
action or
failure to
act
extraordinarily regimented is known to the higher

suffices
and
ups?12
orderly be Richard Ken
observed
that, "The New Atlantis
to
show
that for Bacon
longevity
life,
and vigor of
bodily
no
existence,
as well as comfortable and affluent
are greater goods
than political
freedom."13
But life in Bensalem is
Jews there, the

sense,
after
people
grey world of fear. It is do "love the nation of Bensalem
also tme
extremely"
that, like the and are, in a
"happy,"
all,
should and
humane
told repeatedly (NA pp. 65, 46, 50, 56, 63). Why, be they anything else? What do they lack? Their government is parentlike. Any unprovided need is the daily research concern of
as we are
"eye"
that institution which, again, is the very

attributes
of
the kingdom. The narrator

on
divinity
to the land and confesses
his love for it based
the Ben
salemites'
attendant care
for his
and
company's comforts and
God, Bensalem is both loved

and
feared. Bacon its
was
desires. Thus, like familiar with Machiavelli
knew the importance

and
of
this combination. Both God and the prince are

and particular authorities.
loved
feared. So
also
is Bensalem
Satisfying
in satisfy
and
the people, Bensalem is loved. Through the
exercise of great power on
ing them,
based
on
it is feared. The love for Bensalem is based

life
which
its
humanity
while
the
comfortable and secure or peaceful
it
provides
its
people.
The fear is
these
won
the power implicit in the unknown knower.

which
Thus,
derful benefits
anticipates
this
modem
life
will provide are and
them
depending
for their fullest

or rather
very attractive, Bacon speediest development upon

scientific supervision.
something
akin to a
Godlike,
totalitarian,
///: Religious Peace The third

religion.
characteristic of
the hope which Bensalem represents pertains to
Like Europe, Bensalem is a Christian land. Unlike Europe, it is free from religious strife of any kind or degree. The first indication that the gospel
reached and
official
has
been
embraced
by
the
island is the
of the
scroll which
of
is
presented
by
the first
to the "foremost
man"
company
travellers. It is
cherubims'
stamped with question
wings with a cross alongside official
(NA
p.
39). The first
from the higher
inquires
whether or not swear
they
are
Christians. He
of
thanks
and
his
heaven that they are. They are asked to (NA p. 41). The governor of the
merits"
"[b]y
the name
a
Jesus
Strangers'
House is
Christian
priest.
He is
pleased
that their first question,

seek
pel
there, indicates that they

the
first the kingdom

to the
miraculous revelation of
gospel
concerning the arrival of the gos of heaven. There was a land followed by a prompt and near

universal acceptance of
15
it. The Feast

major
of
the
Family,
one of
the
major
festivals
reverend and pro nature
of
the land if not simply the

custom"
one, is
said
to be "a
most
natural,
and pious nouncements.
and
is
punctuated with
The Father
of
of
Christian hymns, prayers Salomon's House relates the Order's tme

God
men."
to
the
narrator
"for the love
and
But these features
and references
only serve prudently to obscure the heterodox character of a religion which is designed to suit the needs of this scientific regime rather than conform to the
demands
of the tme and
living
God.
good"
First, it is
the scroll,
true that the Europeans draw comfort from the sign of the cross on
as
taking it
"a
certain presage of
(NA
p.
39). But the
connec
tion between the sign of the cross and benevolence or
harmlessness is
the higher
and
not ob
vious, considering that back in Europe Christians
are
known to kill
one another
for
religious and political reasons.

Christians?"
The
question which
official
asks,
must
"Are
ye enough
is
an odd one. a
He knows Spanish
and
therefore
know
word
to
identify
rather
European ship
European faces. His
use of
the
"Christians,"
than Catholics or Protestants or
Reformed,
is he
must
etc., indi
cates that
he is
above
denominational disputes. His

are
Christianity
are
ecumenical.
He is
not
asking if they
European
because
wishes
nations profess
Christian nation, since Christ. He is not asking if they

a
from
know that
all
truly
converted,
bluntly asking is no way to discover such a thing. It may appear that he only to distinguish them from pirates, since his next words, following
thanksgiving,
are
his
pious gestures of
to
ask
them to swear that
they
are not
pirates
(NA
p.
40).
They
are not asked
to swear that
they
as
are
Christians.
Second,
priest,
sees a
and
the governor of the
Strangers'
House is,
his
position with that of
institution is
appropriate
he says, a Christian for a priest. He over
44). But he is the only priest we encounter, ministry Europeans.14 Though a priest, he is addressed not and he ministers only to the as Father but as governor, according to his secular office, and "in this sense his
mercy (NA
p.
state
is
separated
from his
He is
church."15
It is
even
the
governor
himself
who
distin
guishes offers not
his
office
from his
vocation and
thus the separate grounds on
which
he
his
services.
said
to be reverend, but on the basis of his
humanity,
p.
his
piety.
The higher
official
is
also said
to be reverend to
behold (NA
dress.16
39), but,
governor
as
Faulkner notes, this is only on account of his luxurious says that he desires only a priest's reward, which is their
of their souls and
The
brotherly
in
what
love
we
and
the good
bodies. But there is
no evidence
are shown of arrived

.
any
concern
for the
soul on anyone's part.
newly
travellers are asked

no
sign
whether or not
they
are
To repeat, the Christians but only
genetically
marked which
There is
sectarian
of of
the
disputes
for doctrinal orthodoxy which Bacon's day. While it is just such a concern
the
concern
is destructive
of the peace which

and which
Bacon
Bensalem'
presents as one of
most attractive
features
is necessary for the

that
attention
progress of
of a
equally tme that there

another's
can
be
no genuine concern on without
the part
to
science, it is Christian for
spiritual
well-being
orthodoxy (I
Timothy
16
Interpretation
1:9,2:1). The
reverend governor seems warmed
4:16; Titus
by
their
question
regarding the arrival of the gospel to the
island
and commends
them for
thereby
seeking first the kingdom of heaven. But clearly they have not, and there is no connection between asking this question and any such seeking. In fact, the
governor's serves
statement,
only to draw
attention
besides contributing to his piously Christian image, to their failure to seek the kingdom first. It invites
the reader to examine the place of that
heavenly
hope in this
highly
technologi
cally
oriented and
Third,
the revelation miracle
only seemingly Christian land. is included in order to his but
address a problem.
Ba
con wants to show not
only that religion in general and

science also
Christianity
in
partic
ular are compatible with and
that
they
are an encouragement
support to one another.
But Solamona's law
forbidding
the entrance of
strangers are
preserve not of
strangers predates
the coming and spread of the gospel.
Indeed,
perfection of
forbidden entry precisely so that new ideas are kept out in order to the happiness there. The miracle, therefore, serves
circumvent the
the
only to
barrier
which
the law presents to the evangelization
the island
but
also
to overcome the prejudice of the law once the gospel
arrives.
There is
are not
no other
way that the

within was
gospel could
have
reached
Bensalem. But these
restrictions
work.
which
Bacon,
the author of these
details,
was
forced to
It
his
choice that
Solamona's
founding predated Christ.
The implica
tion of that historical
independent Hebrew
of
relationship is that the conception of Baconian science is Christian It is tme that they had access to the
revelation.17
scriptures and
that Solomon is
said
by
the
governor of
the
Strangers'
House to have inspired Solamona. But the informed

be,"
governor
is
not
on
this matter. (See

of the of
his
use of
the words "Some
think,"
necessarily well "I take it to

p.
"I
opinion"
am
...
and
"I
am satisfied
that"; NA
58.) Further
more, the
timing
the
miracle allows
the
tianity
to
be
such that
it is
by
science and not science

of
Christianity by the
does the
which
relationship of science to Chris is in need of being authenticated

Thus it is
one of
Church.18
the
wise men genuine.
(scientists19)
Salomon's House
who pronounces that the miracle shaft of
is
Only
after
he
so pronounces
light break up, exposing the
ark
containing regarding their isolation. If they are Christians, why have they not been in communion with the rest of Christ's body, the Church universal? Why have they not come
under
the book and the letter.
This
account also raises questions
the authority of the Church? Where are their missionaries and

concern?
where
their
Once again, the kingdom of God over souls appears to be missionary subordinate to the kingdom of man over nature, if it is given any place at all. The Renfusans,
to be a
by immediately
in
as
heavenly holy God. References to God are repeatedly to His role as creator and not judge. They are almost deistic. By this time, we know that the people of
a
sign, demonstrate
rowing as near as they can to what they take boldness which is incompatible with belief
Bensalem
are
familiar
with
the Hebrew scriptures

established
or at
least have
over
access
to
them,
since
Solamona had
Salomon's House
three
hundred

years
17
the
before, naming it
for
a
after
the Hebrew king.
Thus,
"our
books,"
to
which
sage of except
Salomon's House divine
refers which teach
that God
never works a miracle
and excellent
purpose,
must refer not
to the Old Testament.
Natural theology, i.e., unassisted reason, does which he prays indicate that it is to the God who
scriptures
teach this. The terms
by
reveals
Himself in the Hebrew

of
that he prays. These books

scriptures.
are
at
least books
theology
which
interpret the Hebrew
prosper which
Yet something is missing from this God: His holiness. They ask the Lord "to this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in mercy;
thou dost in some part
miraculous
48). That this
(NA p. secretly promise by sending it unto event might be a sign of judgment on account of their
us"
sin never crosses their minds.
Rather, it is
said
assumed
to be
"useful,"
like any
thing
the
any value, divine spectacle. It may

extent
of
and
hence their forwardness in

even
fearlessly
be
that to the
that
they actually believe in Him, is
Bensalemites, recognized (i.e.,
approaching this God Himself, to

worshipped,
praised, thanked) only insofar as He is useful. For this reason, the Lord is understood only as Creator (NA pp. 48, 58, 59, 83), not as Judge and Re
deemer,
not
and
His
creation
is
understood
replete with examples.
There is
a reference
solely in terms of utility. The book is to God who rewards (which does
necessarily
and
imply
that He also condemns), but this is spoken
by
of
the Euro
peans,
there is no recorded response (NA p. 41). There is a reference also

which
to perdition, but it is not the judgment of God
is
meant
but
Bensalem
(NA
p.
60). In the Feast

. . .
of
the
Family, "a
most
natural, pious,
and reverend refer
goodness,"
custom
compounded of all
the Tirsan's
blessings
to
long
evity,
of
not perseverance
every heart (NA p. Christ's virgin birth but

of
in righteousness, i.e., obedience to the righteous Judge 64). In our meeting with Joabin, there is even mention of
not of while
His death
and resurrection.
Even in the
(NA
account
the "Jewish
dreams,"
there is discussion of Messiah on His throne
in
Jerusalem,
there
is
not a word on
the
judging
of
the
nations
p.
65). In
all of
Salomon's House, there are daily hymns and services of praise to God for His works except, if conclusions may be drawn from silence, His work
redemption.
Christ is
named as
Savior
on a number of
occasions, but Bacon

the
strains
to hide the
nature of
this
salvation.
The higher
the
official asks
Saviour"
Euro
after
peans upon their arrival
to
swear
"by
the
merits of
but it is,
of
all, to Europeans that he is
speaking.
In the
account of
the Feast
Saviour,"
the
Family,
good
hymns
of thanks are offered
which came of references of
for "the nativity of our described this is generally as blessing,

as
but the
not redemption.
Other
to Christ
"our
Saviour"
are
best
viewed
in light
came
of an examination
the
miracle of revelation governor opens
through which the
island
to call Him
Savior.
The
of the
his
account of
the arrival of the gospel to Bensalem and
island's (NA
subsequent conversion with a reference
to "the ascension
of our
Saviour"
p.
47).
Yet,
when
the
agent of
Salomon's House
no
who confirmed
the
miracle offers response
to God in prayer, there is
hint
of
any
awareness
18
of
Interpretation
his
or
his
people's unworthiness on account of conversion.
sin, something
which neces
sarily
tion,"
precedes
Although Bartholomew's letter

"infidelity"
mentions
"salva
the governor says that it was from the word

"sin,"
that the land was saved.
Use
of
very
merchant's
common
in the
seventeenth
century,
appears
to
be
deliberately
work.
avoided.
Indeed,
there is only one explicit reference to sin in the
After the
harangue
against
European
of
sexual
morality, the
was
narrator comes under a sort of conviction of come to
sin, saying
Joabin, "that he
says
bring
to memory
our sins.
Of himself, he
".
.1
confess
Europe"
the righteousness of Bensalem was greater than the righteousness of
(NA
p.
68). It is
not
the righteousness of
not
Christ
which
is
confessed.
The
narra
tor presents
aware
offending only of having fallen short of the glory of Bensalem. The canonical books and Bartholomew's letter arrive in "a
sin as
God's righteousness but Bensalem's. He is
small ark or chest
of
cedar,
dry,
of
and not wet at all with
water, though it
swam"
(NA
p.
48). Here, Noah His It
allusions to two acts of
God in the Old Testament
stand out.
and
The first is to the
destruction
was saved
the earth
an ark.
by
water as a
judgment from God

on
from
which
in
The
second
is to the bush
Mount Sinai
revealed
which
burned
and yet was not consumed and through which
God
Himself
and
Law to Moses. The latter is only implicit, but the governor also makes reference to the ark's role in preserving Noah or, as he says, "the old
explicit
world
is
not
from God's judgment
and
wrath water.
that he says the ark saved "the
old
world,"
however, but only from
This
anticipates what
is
said
in the
follows concerning the destruction of Atlantis also by flood. (Bacon actually draws attention to his departure from the Platonic account in
account which
which
the
destruction is
by
earthquake.) While
at
first he
presents the
destruc
time"
tion as an act of God's
judgment, he later
calls
it only
an
"accident
of
Conspicuously avoiding notions of sin and judgment, Bacon draws attention away from the letter and Scriptures and therefore repeatedly from the gospel itself and focuses it on the ark which transported them. It is the
pp.
(NA
54-55).
ark which says
Bartholomew
says
he
commits
to the sea,
and
it is the
ark which
he
God
will ordain some people
to receive. He could have said
"these
holy
inno
books,"
giving them their These
rightful attention.
Is this
an overattention to an
cent and accidental choice of serious charge?
words,
and
thus a
weak
observations are vindicated
peg on which to hang a in the lines which follow.
The
governor concludes
the account, saying that the
land
was saved
"by
an
ark."
Moreover, he
says
in the
same
breath that it
"the
was old
from
infidelity
and not
sin and
death that his
world"
people were saved and
was saved
from
water and not
God's judgment.
significance of
What then is the
the ark? Its purpose
is
not
detract, but
interest to books
also
positive, to indicate. The ark
itself
would
only negative, to be of much greater
a people of science
which
it
might contain.
like the Bensalemites than any (nonscientific) This ark swims and yet it remains dry. Is it
a
Scotchguarded? Is it Goretex? In
sense, this
ark uses nature
for its
own
pur-

poses,
nature.
19
i.e., to transport the books safely, and yet is not itself Rather, insofar as the ark remains dry in the water, it is
At the
overcome nature
by
is
that
overcome or conquered. sent
beginning
of
the New
Atlantis,
the
seas repre
the unknown and unconquerable. This

represents
ark
in its ability to
swim and remain
dry
the conquest of
nature
which, according to
Bacon, is Bensalem's
the covenant,
contrasted
tme salvation.
Thus,
the old ark
which which
in the Bible
God's
represents
whether of works or of
grace,
by
people are
saved, is
with
this new ark,

land,"
which represents
the conquest of nature

which was saved
by
which all
may be
saved.
with
Similarly, "the old "this Bensalem,
world"
from
water
is
contrasted
which
is
saved
from infidelity. If this

which
observation was
is correct, then it is specifically infidelity to nature from saved, and this salvation is extended to any land that will
through the science
which commands
Bensalem
faithfully
obey
nature
her.
of
Is there
a parallel
between this tale

the
narrator
lous land
evangelism and what
extraordinary revelation calls the "Jewish
and miracu of
dreams"
the Ben
salemite
of
Jewish remnant, i.e., that there is a secret Jewish significance to the Bensalem? Is it Christian wish fulfillment, an attempt, as the Jews have
done,
which
to reconcile what
they
are called
to
follow
with what
they
want
to
fol
low? Does the Judaized Bensalem

he does
not
which
Joabin describes (but the

parallel and explain
account of
necessarily himself
believe)
the Chris
which
tianized Bensalem
we are shown
dream,"
which we see everywhere else?
Following
of
the pattern
a
by Joabin,
the whole revelation story may
having
grown out of speculations on
the part
with
be only Christians
the
"Christian
who wished
to reconcile
in their hearts Bensalem, along

one
who
all that
it represents,
governor of
and
Christ. The
Strangers'
relates
the
not a
revelation
miracle,
the to
House, is,
after
all,
knower. Consider
once again
his
need
speculate on
of
many Salomon's House (NA

one,
and therefore
points
regarding the circumstances

p.
58). Furthermore, he is
perhaps as much stake
surrounding founding Christian priest, albeit an

the
odd
has
in these things
being
tme as
the Jews have in their
myths
involving
attempt
Nachoran
and
Moses. But because God
is
holy
and
thus
jealous, any
a choice
to reconcile Christ with some

of
competing
authority is in fact
in favor
the competing authority. The fact that
we see official sanction given
to these Christian
features
presents no problem.
Bensalem is indifferent to
ples provided that there
whatever religious expression
is
given
to its princi
scientific re
is peace, i.e., civility,
and
devotion to
of
search as well as to other things on which

population
the strength
the
nation rests
(e.g.,
growth,
of
secrecy).
Thus,
mythological
religious
overlays,
whether
the dreams
Christians
or of
Jews,
are
tolerated and perhaps even encouraged

which might
if they facilitate these
conditions.
Anything
threaten these condi

to doc
tions, however, e.g., trine, is suppressed.

acceptance
evangelistic or
missionary zeal,
or overattention
This theory leaves unexplained how the gospel was able to gain access and in Bensalem following the establishment of the laws of secrecy,
20
Interpretation
alternative to
however. One
that
of
one of
taking
the
revelation miracle at
its face
value
is
the agents sent out to gather

with
information,
early
one of
the Merchants
Light, brought it back

was so
him in
some
century.
But if the Bacon Baconian
ian hope
of
widely
accepted and
tangibly
would
attested
to before the arrival

on
Christianity,
why
as
clearly it was, this

present
leave inexplicable in the
grounds
people would convert
to
Christianity
numbers required
to give the land its
bility
begins
with
superficially Christian character. Another possi the Bensalemite recognizing in 1492, if not before,
"state"
that European
salem's
navigation was about was soon
to increase greatly,
and
thus that Ben

a
isolation
of
to become impossible. This

the
next
presented
like
lihood
invasion
within
couple
of
centuries
which,
despite
Bensalem's military technologies,

nonetheless unwelcome.
which
must
Technology
gaps can
have been stunning, was eventually be closed. This is
ironic,
since
Bensalem from the
Bacon teaches that it is precisely this science which liberates cycle of the rise and fall of civilizations, whether
catastrophe,
by
foreign
and
conquest or natural
thereby distinguishing it from

given
Athens
the old
Atlantis.20
concerns, that the European travellers

good news of
It is paradoxical, would be
these understandable to carry the Bensalemite
commissioned
this science
standards
is,
at
this
point
in history,
doxical,
that
is,
unless
the
by dangerously uncivilized. It is para tranquility and humanity of the island are directly
a place which
still
made peaceful. when the travellers wash up in It is possible, therefore, that with Bensalem introduced into their society in the
back to Europe,
attributable
to the science itself. The world

ripe mind
Bensalem is
this plan in
previous
for
being
the
rulers of
century
or so a
form
of
Christianity,
tamed and trimmed and
fitted
with convenient myths
but
nonetheless
tific civilization more attractive

sion
recognizable, in order to make scien to the authorities in Europe whose apprehen

great
Bacon himself
the Feast
was of
having
difficulty
has
overcoming.
Fourth,
serves
the
Family,
which
at points the appearance of
piety,
instead radically to undermine the orthodox Christianity of Bacon's day. The feast is called, "(a) most natural, pious, and reverend custom (NA p.
60). It begins
with
"divine
service"
(but
none of p.
the details
of
are
shared) (NA
p.
61)
and
and ends with
the singing
of
hymns (NA
64). Some
these praise Adam
Noah for their
accomplishments
Abraham, "the Father

rest are
of the
Faithful,"
who peopled
in peopling the world. Some praise the household of God. The

the birth of
hymns
of
thanksgiving specifically for

blessed."
Christ,
"in
whose
birth the births "private
of all are
prayers."
only This is followed
The Tirsan then

of
retires
to a time of
by
his bestowal
blessings. The rich de institu
scription of which
the event,
however, distracts from

contradicts
the true character of the
tion, fundamentally are later told of "such reverence

ture,"
first impressions. For example,
when we
and obedience p.
they
give to the order of na obedience
obedience
is
substituted
for piety (NA
61). This
is
given not
to
God,
as
it
would
be if it
were a
fitting
substitute
for piety,
however, but
to

the Tirsan.
21
Before the
merriment which
honors the two best
sons with
follows the feast begins, the Tirsan jewelled symbols of fertility.
In all, Christianity is reduced to a naturalistic religion, a fertility cult and deistic Creator worship (NA pp. 48, 83). Emphasis is on physical reproduction,
not spiritual regeneration.
Hence, Adam
stressed
and
Noah
are prominent.
It is
not
Adam's
tion is
moral
lapse that is
upon
but his
generative accomplishment.
Atten
focussed
Noah's
fatherhood,
not
his faithfulness
and
righteousness.
The
references
to faith present it as a birthright. If only it were tme that
Abraham had fathered only faithful men and women. At first glance, it appears that the statement concerning the birth of Christ is saying that it is only through
His birth that it is

were
possible would
for
anyone who
is bom to be blessed. Even if this

Christ's birth, the incarnation
of
its meaning, it
a
be inaccurate
since
God, is
blessing only insofar as it anticipates His death, and even then not insofar as we are bom but insofar as we are capable of receiving Him merely (e.g., taking into account geography, disposition of heart, etc.). But that is not
what
it
says.
At best, it
says that
that all the
faithful be
who are
bom
are
it is through His birth, and by no other means, blessed. But it would say this very poorly, Bacon's extraordinary care and skill, at something. The phrasing of this sentence
and
which would
odd
for
a writer of conceal
least
without an
intention to
lends itself have been The

same
more
easily to say that
it is through His birth
by
no other means
that everyone
who
is bom is blessed. But this horror
rejected with
by
soteriology would every professing Christian of Bacon's day.
universalist
ambiguity is found in the account of the miraculous revelation of the gospel to Bensalem. The words of Bartholomew's letter, "in the same day is come unto them salvation and peace and goodwill, from the Father, and from
Jesus"
the Lord
(NA
p.
49),
can refer not
to salvation per se but only to the
means of salvation.
however, there is mention of reading and salvation but not a word about repentance, believing, faith or conversion. Various peoples are said to have read the letter, and "thus was this land saved
In the
next
paragraph,
from
infidelity
sive religion goes
49). But receiving alone does hand in hand with the universalism of the (NA
p.
not save.
This
pas
previous
example.21
Despite the
old covenant appearance of
the
blessing
given
which
the Tirsan de
livers to
each of
his
assembled
progeny, it is
in the
name of
the
Holy
Trinity. The final words, "make the days of thy pilgrimage refer quietly to Jacob's testimony before Pharaoh that
The days
evil of the years of
of
many,"
good and
my
pilgrimage are an
hundred
and
thirty
years:
few
and
have the days
the years of my
of
of the years of the
life
life been, and have not attained unto the days my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. (Genesis 47:9)
contrast with
Jacob then blesses Pharaoh. The length

and
the Tirsan's
blessing
is in the
quality
of
life to
which each refers.
however, is
but
rather
not explained
by
the movement
The difference in expectations, from the old covenant to the new
from the
old orientation
toward nature to the new. As we see
from
22
Interpretation
of
the activities
Salomon's House
at
the end
of
the tale, it is in the hard

of
work of
experimental science
that the sons and

not
daughters
Bensalem trust for their
long
and
and
happy lives,
Ghost. The
the
blessings
all
and providential care of the
Father, Son
toward
Holy
blessing
"desire
also reveals the
difference in
of
orientation
this
world.
Jacob's people, like

a
the people
world,
sojourners who
better country; that

to making the
God, is, an
it
are pilgrims
heavenly"
in this
(Hebrews
and
11:16). These Bensalemites,
however,
are quite at
home in this
world
devote
all their national energies
state of
as comfortable and
secure as possible.
The wearing
that
of grapes
(NA
p.
63)
and ears of wheat
(NA
p.
they do, and in the context Abraham, clearly indicates an
of
the qualified references to

of
64) in the way Adam, Noah and

religion.
element
fertility
cult
in the
The
blessing
would
asks at
for
the
long
and
happy
life. Were the feast in fact
"pious,"
Christ
than serving only to color this or that hymn or blessing. Instead, the ceremony focuses upon the Tirsan. If it were pious, as the reader is originally led to expect it to be, the day would celebrate the man's
be
center rather
service to
God
by
his faithful
and righteous
life,
and not
his
service
to the state
of
by
the
his fecundity. It is
no surprise
that the reference to piety at the
beginning
pp.
feast's
account soon
drops
out and
is
replaced
by
obedience
(cf. NA
60,
61). Finally, even did so much Roman Catholic

one
"reverence"
preside"
(NA
p.
is dropped, and it is "a solemnity wherein nature 66). The extent to which the feast resembles a
pole-carriers who
mass
is interesting. The
are
hope themselves
The
day
to
be Tirsans
replaces
like
altar
boys
who aspire
to be
priests.
body
of
the Tirsan
the
body
of
Christ. The
people of
Bensalem divide.
are not
divided
of
by doctrine,
because there is
peace.
no
doctrine
on which to
Partly
because
this, there is civil Bensalem (and
But is there
made.
peace with
God? This is
a choice which
also
Bacon) has
of
Finally,
the
"Father"
Salomon's House is the he is in

not called so.
most reverend of all
the
Bensalemites presented,
that of
a scientist.
and yet
The
circumstances of and yet
his
appearance are the most religious
character of
anyone's,
his
office
is
In this way, he is the

who performs
opposite
to the governor of the

who
Strangers'
House,
official
duties though
by
Though the governor does really shed "tears of Salomon's House has only "an aspect as if he pitied (NA pp. 46, 69; emphasis mine). The secrecy which characterizes Bensalem is directed not only
priest. of
men"
tenderness,"
calling is a the Father
toward the outside

and
world
but toward the
people on
the part
of
the government,
toward the state on the part of the scientific establishment. In the land of
the unknown
knower,
the distinction between the

governor
knowers
and as
those who are
merely known is important. The
is
not a
knower,
historical
a
indicated
by
his
having
mon's
to speculate
about certain aspects of of
the
founding
of
Salo very
House. This Father be
Salomon's House is
knower. He is
also
paradoxical and
dissembling. For these

expected
reasons an examination of
his
words
and
deeds
can
to
uncover a great
deal concerning the tme
character

not
23
only
of
the
island's
is
religious
harmony
but
also of
Bensalem in
general and
the Baconian hope which it represents.
This
"Father"
no mere
scientist,
case
no mere administrator or civil servant.
He
travels "in
state,"
which
in this
is to say
with all the
pomp
which would
attend a prince and all
the solemnity which

narrator
would attend a prelate. give a
His
attire
is
rich and
fancy. The
is inspired to
procession
lengthy
account of
his
impressive dress
as well as of
his
(NA
pp.
this scientist combines both high religious

procession
and
high
political authority.
69-70). Stranger still, In the like

sheep-
two footmen precede him carrying

one a
unmistakable symbols of eccle
siastical
authority, "the
"
.
crosier, the
no
other a pastoral staff
hook
(NA
p.
70). There is
sign,
however,
of
any aristocracy in
expect
at
tendance. There is no one on horseback for the stated though unconvincing

reason of
avoiding "tumult
trouble."
and
Tumult is the last thing to
from
this crowd, which, the narrator notes, is better disciplined and

arrangement
procession alone.
ordered
in their in the
sat
than the finest

no one of
of armies. whether
Trade
social,
guilds
are
represented
but
rank,
religious or political.
"He
The Father
gives
three
blessings:
one
in
procession
to the crowds,
one
in
private audience
to the group of European strangers as a whole, and a

as
final
one
to the narrator alone

science
he
commissions
him to take the
good news of modem
to the
world.
him,
his
though
whether
The strangers, following instructions, bow low before in reverence for his religious authority or in submission to
not clear.
political
authority is
blessing,"
After the Father
raises
his
ungloved
hand "in
a posture of and
the group
tippet"
(again,
p.
under
instruction?) "stooped down,

chambers
kissed the hem is
of
his
(NA
71). In his
he
sits enthroned
on what
again called
over
"the
state."
"cloth
state"
of
his head (NA
p.
It is richly adorned, and rich also is the 71). In private audience he asks God's
blessing
gospel
on the narrator
and, in priestly
fashion,
House"
calls
him
son.
Thereupon,
is
not
however, he indicates
but "the tme
that the "greatest
jewel"
which
he
p.
possesses
the
state of
Salomon's
ask what
what
(NA
71). The
reader who
soberly follows this is forced to

speaks and what
"God"
it is in
whose name this

"God"
Father
hope it is, which this offers? blessedness, i.e., Though he claims to disclose the tme state of Salomon's House "for the love of
God
men,"
and of
the House itself takes as its end merely "the enlarging of the
Empire,"
bounds
gospel or
possible,"
God, not to the spreading of the but the dominion of righteousness only "to the effecting of all things without any word whatsoever as to moral guidance, let alone divine
Human
not
to the glory of
guidance.
This
stands or
in
contrast
to the
account of
the end
of science given
by
his
to
the ill-informed
less
and
candid governor-priest who understands
it to be "the
end of
study
the
of
the Works the
Creatures
God"
of
(NA
p.
58). Near the
relation of
activities of
religious
services
Salomon's House, the Father draws our there. Their focus is upon God's (natural)
not
attention
works
and of
men's carnal
benefits, however,
His divine
perfections or
the conversion
24
Interpretation
hearts (NA
p.
men's
83). In these House

of
"God"
chapel services
is
asked
to turn
no
the
scientific
labors
"holy"
the Order to "good and
uses,"
holy
useful
but there is in the
indication that
of comfort and
means
anything
more
than simply
provision
security to
relation
people.
The Father's into the

There is
well as
cure of much
concerning Salomon's House discloses much research preservation of health and the prolongation of life. disease, work done in agriculture, metallurgy, physics, meteorology, as
the
with particular attention resources
engineering of different sorts cations. There are also considerable

comforts and pleasures such as
to military appli devoted to the development of

perfumes and such.
foods, drinks,
cloths,
But
there is no department
of
theology,
nor of either ethics or politics.
Of the last,
however,
there is evidence throughout the book that it
the knowledge of it
tics should escape
rigorously
applied.
It
was not
is carefully studied and Bacon's intention that poli
coming within the scope of his new conquering science, seen in its triumph here in Bensalem. The authorities of Salomon's House decide
whether or not an whether or not
invention
will
or other
discovery
will
be
made
public,
and even
it
be
made
known to "the
state"
(NA
p.
82). Nor do they
appear give
to be
under
the direction of the state
in any
public notice which etc. of
they
concerning impending plague, famine, storms, Father of Salomon's House who announces the repeal
mental
(NA
p.
83). It is this
the ancient and funda

might
say,
and
law concerning secrecy and strangers, a constitutional law one apparently on his own authority or on the authority which he in the Order (NA
p.
shares
"
. .
with others
83).
22
"/
give
thee
leave to
publish
it
(emphasis mine), namely this account of the learning and activities of Salo mon's House which he has disclosed to the narrator. He does not say "in the King's
name"
or
"by
the power invested in me
by
the state of
Bensalem."
Does
the complete
conquest of nature
through Baconian science, the proper

under
refound-
ing
of all
knowledge, particularly
result
the guidance of a Scientific
Society
or
Institute,
in the
union of a
Christ
and
Caesar, Church
and
State,
neither
under the other
but both in
personal
third office which replaces the other two? Thomas
Hobbes, Bacon's
tion
for the
civil magistrate
secretary for several years, called in the next genera to be the final authority in matters of religion in
may be
called a civil
order
to ensure civil
peace.23
Christian
which
appearance conceals what
religion, a
religion
is
subordinate
to the
needs of
this uniquely scientific society. The people the happiness which those arrange
of
Bensalem
subordinate
their differences in religion to the perpetuation of the
Bensalemite
arrangements
for the
are
sake of
ments provide.
Differences
thus not taken seriously and so cannot
be
seri
ously
considered
name of
differences. Accordingly, even the religion which bears the Him who said, "Think not that I have come to send peace on earth: I
peace, but
sword"
came not to send

and
(Matthew, 10:34), is
made
civil, humane
inoffensive. Its exclusivity is nullified by its moralistic reinterpretation; the offense of the cross is removed by expunging the concepts of sin and redemp
tion.
It is
no wonder that the
only
priest
that we see appears to be out of

priestly
the
work per se.
25
There
said
are
only two instances
of worship: at
the Feast of
and at
Family,
nature
is
to preside as
represented
by
the
Tirsan,
the
other, in
Salomon's House, there is neither preacher nor priest but only grateful beneficiaries of Nature and of Nature's God. These are the faithful who need no priest but method and no prophet but discovery. It is fitting that the Father
of
Salomon's House,
and
one of
the
highest
be
officials
at
this
house
of scientific
research
development,
should
shown the greatest religious reverence
and appear alistic

either.
in high priestly fashion. Though Bacon does not originate this mor interpretation of Christianity,24 he does not simply follow the tradition Indeed, he uses it for his own purposes, no doubt enlisting the sympa
thies of
proposes
its
adherents and
invoking
its
authority.
to be Christian is nothing
which
But the morality which he Christian humanists like Erasmus and

the support of the
More
would accept.
Rather, it is specifically fashioned for
new science and
for
living
within
its moral,
metaphysical and epistemological world
limits. Thus is the hope
paraded not
only that the
may be freed from the

the
soul
miseries which religious strife over guilt
produces,
including
even strife within
progress
for sin, but also that religious authorities will no longer impede in the development of the means to happiness, i.e. in "the enlarging of
of
the bounds
Human
Empire."
IV: Civil Peace These last three

political, that
the hope
aspects of
anticipate
the
fourth,
are
which
is explicitly
of civil peace.
The
people of pure
behaved
not
because they
are
morally
are a
course on marriage. cooperate with
Rather, they
governed
"civil."
exceptionally well or virtuous, despite Joabin's dis This is to say that they easily
certain ends are greeted
Bensalem
being
in
way that has
in
view.
As the
Europeans
"on both
to
proceed
to the
Strangers'
House, they
so civil a
. .
by
townspeople
not
sides
wonder at
standing in a row; but in us but to welcome us
(NA
p.
fashion, as if it had been 41; emphasis mine). As

people who
the
travellers
appear to visitor
pass
by,
the people spread their arms in a gesture of welcome.
They lining
be very
well practiced and regimented
for
have
not seen a
in thirty-seven
company.
years.
They
is
perform
like
well-disciplined
children,
up House is
to greet
The
same
observed as a
Father
of the great
Salomon's
being paraded
through the streets on the occasion of

narrator
a royal or papal visit.
The
is
struck with
something akin to the incredible orderliness of
the crowds.
The
street was
wonderfully
well-kept:
so that there was never
men stand
in better battle-array, but every

to
than the people stood.
The
windows
any army had their likewise were

placed.
not crowded,
one stood
in
them as
if they had been
(NA
p.
70)
As the
rooms
comparison
an
in the
Strangers'
army indicates, civility implies efficiency. House are described as being "furnished
civilly,"
Thus, the i.e.,
26
Interpretation
efficiently providing for basic needs (NA p. 42). This efficiency is for the sake, not of making possible a few fine and virtuous human beings, and not of pre paring people for the kingdom of God, but of providing everyone with certain fundamental
and uncontroversial
goods, namely comfort, security
and a
degree
of self-respect.
The Adam
people suitor's
and
Eve's
pools are
"a he
way"
more civil
of
efficiently pairing
for
marriage while
avoiding the
were
scorn which one would suffer

or she
from
"familiar
knowledge"
to view and
refuse.
The
possi
bility
of
adultery is increased if a man or a woman is dissatisfied with the body his or her mate, unseen before marriage. Rather than swimming against the
of
tide of
restrain
(i.e.,
sermonizing to young people in the hope that they will themselves, these pools are instituted in order to regulate matrimonial conjugal) satisfaction in the Bensalemite way. But the institution itself is
passion
by
problematic.
Bacon
avoids
ing
tive
him
called
away
to
having to face the obvious immediately having described the

Joabin
upon
questions pools.
by
hav
For
exam
ple, he is
silent as
gender of
the
"friend"
who would
"friend,"
mate.
beloved, self. Then,

would
There is every possibility that the could deliver a false report in hopes
of
be viewing the prospec himself attracted to the

woman
of
obtaining the
saw
for him friend

bathe
also
course, there
are
the
other
men or women
whom
the
naked"
have the opportunity to view as he or she with the suitor's beloved. As the marital
them
"severally
status of
the
friend is
unstated, this too could result that Joabin

salem. never
may explicitly denies the practice of adultery and divorce in Ben Although polygamy is denied, there is no direct answer to the narrator's
in
adultery.
The
reader
at
this point notice
causing Joabin to be silent because of a crucial interruption, Bacon describes an institution designed to control Bensalem's erotic behaviour that in fact reinforces the licentious possibilities of
question whether marriage
well.
is kept
"By
choosiness, the love
of one's
peace? not.
own,
and
the desire for
more."25
Will these lusts
tear asunder the social

we are shown
Will they
of
render this people ungovernable?
What
indicates
These One
appetitive
Bensalemites
are even an extraor

of
dinarily
nature
governable people.
the keys to the political conquest

these passions
human
is, then,
also
the satisfaction
and regulation of
but
not their
suppression or
discipline. This is the "more
way."
civil people
Bacon
draws
lesson from Machiavelli. It is because the

so as
both
love
and
although
fear their Bensalem that they are the dreadful quality of the state
appears also
easily
governed.
As to the
fear,
unknown
knower has been dis in

use.
cussed, there
apparent
of
to be a
psychological science
Despite their designations

like
the
humility,
the officials
constitute a
hierarchy. The
visible
the
respective places within
it
are
intended to inspire the
sort of awe which
engenders submission.
well-regimented governor makes
We
even see
the Europeans themselves
behaving
laws,
made
Bensalemites.
reference
When, in describing Solamona's the fruit of the provision which he to

all rose
for
(NA
strangers of which p.
they had tasted, "we
up, and
bowed
ourselves"
57). A
more well-mannered
uprising there
never was!
Civility
is
also
engen-

dered through
mon's
27
Salo
explicit
we are p.
instructions. In
told: "When
as
their audience with the Father of
House,
.
we came
in,
as we were
taught,
. .
we
bowed (NA
p.
low
(NA
71); "and I,
I had been taught, kneeled down

shows more of
83;
emphasis mine).
Unlike
Machiavelli, however, Bacon

its
arrangement
love. The
people
love
their nation and
requirements and are at peace with one another
because the Bensalemite

again
the hope of science is pictured.

of one
ostensibly keeps them satisfied, i.e., happy. Here Ultimately, any hope is identifiable with
a transformed state
happiness
degree
in
or another.
The Christian hope is
of peace and
joy
which
there
shall
be "no
.
crying,
earth
neither shall
there
have
people ever
be any more pain been, in a sustained

are
death, neither sorrow, nor (Revelation, 21:4). When on way, simply happy? But, as they
more
.
proclaim
in Bensalem,
"Happy
the
Bensalem"
people of
(NA
p.
63). The
Psalms, by contrast, declares, "Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob (146:5). We, the readers, help, whose hope is in the Lord his are intended to discern new hope, seeing in it a and embrace this however,
of
Book
for his
God"
more
reasonably
to
obtainable and
immediately
satisfying
promise. or
If this felici
tous state
unique
were grounded
in
conditions which are
historically
Bensalem, it
would present no
hope. But instead, the
geographically conditions for
its
realization are
found in
a reformation of which
learning,
given
and of people's general name.
orientation toward
nature, to
Bacon has
his
Thus, they
are
widely in this world.
and even
universally
reproducible and point
toward a hope unparalleled
King
Solamona found his
realm
in
"happy
and
flourishing
estate"
(NA
p.
56). Although Solamona is
regarded as
Bensalem's lawgiver, it is
people's
not
from any
this
laws that the happiness
came.
Despite the
pre-existing
happiness,
king
was
"wholly
not
bent to
make
his kingdom
happy."
and people
(Compare
Solomon
which
who wished
is
should wish
only to provide his kingdom and people with justice, identifiable with happiness.) The meaning of this, that he simply to make a happy people happy, is that, as we are told, he wished
which
"to
give
perpetuity to that
way
of
in his time
established."
was so
happily
i.e.,
some
There
was,
therefore, something
practice or
which was
"happily
established,"
institu
tion or
life
which was sufficient
to make the people
happy.
what
Solamona's laws themselves

was
should
indicate
by
what
they
preserve
just
it
in
which pre-Solamonaic
Bensalem found happiness.

twofold: secrecy and science. The
Solamona's institutions
prohibition against
were
first is
the admittance of strangers in order to preserve the
happy
thou
"
state which existed at the time on sand ways altered to the worse,
p.
the understanding that "it

scarce
might
be
. .
but
any
one
way to the
of
better
(NA
of
56). This is the

against
negative
means,
one might
say,
preserving the grounds
happiness
corruption,
but it does
was
not enlighten us as establishment of of
to the grounds
themselves.
an
The
second
innovation
the
institute
points
of scientific research and
development
Salomon's House, every kind imaginable.
This
to a
pre-Solamonaic
technological science which was the basis of
28
Interpretation
Bensalemite happiness. Grounds for this judgment may be found in the imme diately preceding account of King Altabin 's battle with Atlantis up to 1100 years before Solamona's reign (NA pp. 52, 54). Atlantis itself and its allied
kingdoms, Coya (Pern)

Atlantis."
and
Tyrambel
(Mexico),
are called
"mighty
and proud
kingdoms in arms, shipping and riches."26 Three times Atlantis is called "the great Their naval force, which as described seemed matchless, was
of such strength as
that
they felt
confident
in
initiating
a two-front war.
But
great
they
were, Bensalem proved to be greater, so

enemy's
much so that
having
"put"
his
forces between the navy

must
navy
and
land forces,
than
without
Altabin "entoiled both their
and
their camp
with a greater power
theirs, both
by
sea and
. .
by land;
and compelled them to render
have been in A
men
whether
vaders. would
This striking numerical inexplicable superiority, staggering superiority, by or in ships, which could easily have been known to the in
themselves
stroke.
statesman
such
as
Lord Bacon
on
would
know this. The
maneuver
have been insufficient

outcome and
its
own
to
bring
the enemy to
concede.
This
some
bloodless is
to such a titanic conflict can
be
explained
astonishing,
ment
previously secret,
technology
of
or art of
only by deception. This
supported
by
was
Altabin's Coya
display
"mercy"
which
follows.
judg Having se
cured
from them
Not only
an oath of
safety."
pacified without
greater
power,
Atlantis,
was
future nonaggression, he "dismissed them all in bloodshed but the supposedly still for one hundred years prevented, presumably by itself
after which
fear, from making any
move
time it was destroyed

over
by
flood.
of
Whatever technological
that is
advantage
Altabin's kingdom had
the rest
the world, it is the capacity of that

simplest sense
enemies emphasized of
technology
and
to provide security
in its his
in this tale. Altabin does

strength of
not slaughter of
in
celebration
his
the glory
of
his
realm.
Rather, he
contents
himself
with
the certainty
and
security
both
peace and
ways
liberty
in the future. Does Solamona

comfort at and
even
develop
this in
manifold
that
incorporate death? It is
and
was
least
possible
that what
and
security against sickness, decrepitude and Solamona did was to institutionalize,

orchestrate,
whatever peaceful
thereby
promote, facilitate
security
established"
"happily
might argue
wisdom of
there already. that pre-Christian
One
Bensalem,
while
and
gentile, did
nonetheless
benefit from the be traced

the sage's
at
the Hebrew religion,
that its happiness can thus
least partly to this source. Indeed, from various references such as prayer in the presence of the miraculous pillar of light, it might even
be
said
that
they knew
the
Lord,
the God of
Abraham, Isaac
and
Israel. More
than three hundred years

miliar with the religion
before this miracle, Solamona, who himself was fa of the Hebrews, was so impressed by it that he named
after the wise Hebrew king (NA p. 58). it is disputed. Furthermore, even if the theory; Solomon's scientific interest which impressed the great
his
scientific
institute Salomon's House

governor's was
But this is only the governor is right, it
Bensalemite
king
and not
his
religion or personal piety.

established.
It
was not a rather a
house house
of
of
God, i.e.,
of
worship, that Solamona
It
was

Nature's God, the
ple's god of natural theology.
29
peo
He located the
source of
his
happiness
not
but
rather
in his
science or
in Solomon's piety, his right worship and moral obedience, in some improved form of it. He saw it in the
and not
obedience of a
the obedience of
ancient
few to nature, and thereby their command of nature, all to the God who commands. Furthermore, if the
the basis
of
in
religion of
Israel
were
Bensalem's
pre-Solamonaic would require on
happiness then, in
them to
that context,
happiness, i.e., God's blessing,

This
suggestion
so
keep
the
Law
perfectly.
may be dismissed
two grounds, however: the
first, it is impossible
Bacon The
claimed
to satisfy the
requirements of
Law,
and, second,
makes no mention of
it.
pre-Solamonaic, pre-Christian,
gospel with regard gentile
happiness
of
Bensalem
raises questions about ness.
the necessity of the
to human happi
apart
It is
interesting
Christ.
to note that Bensalem's happiness
existed
from
and
God's
covenantal grace and
roughly three hundred

the
governor of
years
before the death

House
resurrection of
Furthermore,
the
Strangers'
calls
Salomon's House, not Christ's Church or Solomon's Temple, "the noblest foundation (as we think) that ever was upon the In his explanation of
earth."
Salomon's House, the governor lomon as the "king of the namely

the
of the
Stranger's House
reminds
refers
twice to So
Hebrews."
This
the reader of a similar
title,
Jesus
King
of
the
Jews,
reader
the
superscription which
Pilate
placed over
at the cmcifixion.
The
may
legitimately
wonder where
the institution
is
that bears the
name of
this
greater
king, considering
the nation's profession of

after
Christian faith. While the house
which
the governor claims is named
So
lomon "is dedicated to the study of the Works and Creatures of it is Jesus who not only is the perfect revelation of God but also accomplished God's
greatest work
God,"
in the
re-creation of
the
world
through His redemptive
work, for which the Bensalemites be thankful.
appear
in only
small and ambiguous ways to
What
we are
told is the happiness
which covers
the land is seen especially in
a particular aspect of the civil
peace, the religious tolerance which marks the

are
island. The Jews

their
religion.
who remain
in Bensalem
words of
left
undisturbed
in the
practice of
They
are, in the
the later liberal tradition, tolerated. But the

better"
toleration is conditionally
granted.
They "may
follow their
religion
only because they

rancorous gion.
are civil about

otherwise
toward the
it. Unlike the European Jews, they are not common (and however nominal) Christian reli
concern
of
More important, right belief is of no ties provided that people "love the nation
manage to do this attempt
to the Bensalemite authori

extremely."
Bensalem
The Jews
by
means of
the "Jewish
dreams"
or apocryphal
with
tales which
and
to
reconcile
devotion to Bensalem
act of
devotion to the Lord God

a
His Law. Without this

religious principles and
reconciliation,
of
however, i.e.,
no such
compromising
of
dogmas in favor
civility,
toleration would
be
tolerated.
Thus Bensalem's
surface religious
liberality
masks a more
fundamen
tal illiberality. Bensalem finds the religious nonconformity of this people toler
able on account of
its very conformity to Bensalemite principles, i.e., because
30
Interpretation they do
their
religion.
these Jews love Bensalem and its provisions more than
Salomon's House has the

and
predominant role
in this,
but the Feasts of the

From
a
Family
to be.
the Adam and Eve's pools also make their
contributions.
different
perspective,
however, Bensalem is
even more
liberal than it
appears
While in Bacon's
day
you could not
both love England
and scorn
the cross,
apparently it is possible to separate love for Bensalem from love for the Son of God. Thus, the reduction of Christianity to a universalistic moralism with only a veneer of its exclusive and demanding original character serves the political
goal of civil peace.
In
other
kingdom
them.
of
Bensalem
and
words, it is only when men its happiness that peace on earth
shall shall
love first the be

added unto
V: Satisfaction for Ambition It
must
be
noted
in
addition
that,
while everyone
in Bensalem benefits from

personal
these four goods, there

and
are some who
look beyond them to
distinction
honor. The
recognize
authorities of
Salomon's
House,
and perhaps
the founder him that these too
self,
must
that there
will always
be
men of
ambition,
which
and
be
satisfied
in
way that removes the threat

to
of
they
otherwise present
to the perpetuation of Bensalem's institutions. For this reason, special

as well as generous rewards are given
honors
everyone who produces a significant
invention (NA
"Hall
of
pp.
82-83). The Father

which
Salomon's House describes

statua's of all principal
a sort of
Fame"
in
is displayed "the
part of of
inventors"
in
of
all ages and
from every
the
world.
To
provide
for
greater
subtlety
distinction in the
hierarchy
honors,
a
and
thus also
greater
incentive to
ambi
tious men of science, there

can
variety be made, from iron to gold. Perhaps the highest honor is to be appointed a Father of Salomon's House. We are not told, after all, how get to be What is clear, however, is that comfort and security, while they are
"Fathers" "Fathers."
is
of materials
from
which
these statues
universally desired, do not satisfy every soul. Furthermore, charity and religion are inadequate for providing incentives to discover and invent and for guiding us both in what to invent and for whom. Lastly, though it is mentioned very
infrequently
hope
of
in
comparison to personal
the
and
more
obvious
goods
which constitute
the
science,
and
honor
science,
thus an aspect of the
glory of this hope which it
sort are
offers.
just
as much a goal of
CONCLUSION
Broadly
which are
and
speaking, in the New Atlantis two competing hopes
are presented
of
based
on
competing kingdoms,
the Christian (the
kingdom
God)
the Baconian (the kingdom
of man or of nature).
We find two
references to

the
31
Christian hope. In
Strangers'
either
case, it is either the travellers
questioned or rejected.
On the
will
way to the
reward silence.
House,
assure
the
official
that God
these
acts of mercy.
The
suggestion of
heavenly
which
reward
is
greeted with
But it is
an aspect of the
Christian hope
is certainly important in
suffering through the toil and injustices of this world. Why, therefore, the si lence? Are the travellers expressing a feature of European Christianity which has never taken root in this land because of the powerful alternative hope which embodies? Bensalem, "the son of
perfection,"
Immediately
contentment or
after a reference
to Bensalem as "that
happy
land,"
connoting
to the Chris
beatitude,
pp.
there
follows
with
a more explicit reference
tian
hope (NA
46-47). The
narrator prefaces
his
question
arrival of
the gospel to that land
the recognition that both

one
. .
concerning the his company and

of
his hosts "hoped assuredly that we should meet heaven, (for that we were both parts Christians,).
these
words are spoken
day
It
in the kingdom be
noted
should
that
by
the European narrator at the
beginning
p.
of
the gov
ernor's
interview
which concludes with
the conversion of the Europeans to the
Bensalemite hope based

which
on the progress of science
(NA
60). At that point, liberation:

of our utter
divides the
work
in
two,27
the narrator declares their
We took
ourselves now
and
for free men, seeing there
was no
danger
perdition;
lived
most
joyfully, going
abroad and
seeing
what was
to be seen in
the city and places adjacent within our
tedder;
and
obtaining
acquaintance with
many
of
the city, not of the meanest quality; at whose hands we found such
and such a
humanity, bosom, as
countries
country.
.
freedom
and
desire to take in
strangers as
it in
were
into their
was enough
to make us
a mirror
forget
in the
all that was
dear to
us
our own
if there be
p.
world
worthy to hold
men's
eyes, it is that
(NA
60)
"free"
At first appearance, abroad"). This reading
Bacon's
The
word.
(e.g., "going fails, however, because they are still tethered, to use Are they merely free from fear of execution (NA pp. 43, 44)?
mean
roam
"perdition"
is taken to
free to
reference
to
suggests that
it
means more
than that,
but the
word
seems out of place.
Because the
of
narrator mentions
their fear of the sentence of
death does
(or
at
the
beginning
the series of
events which
feature the governor, it

to stay
mean at
least that. Once the Europeans have
made arrangements
realize
the possibility of staying), this no longer hangs over their heads. But that the interview begins with a reference to the orthodox
it is
significant
Chris
on
tian hope
and ends with a veiled reference
to the Baconian hope. Weinberger is

as
correct when
he identifies their liberation
"freedom from the limitations
bodily
bonds
weal that
they have known,
and
[a] corresponding freedom from the
of
divine
providence."28
grace and
The difference between the two hopes, the Christian and the Bensalemite or Baconian, is that in the latter, heaven and divine judgment have no roles. Ac indeed no transcendent standard of right to cordingly, there is no divine law,
32
Interpretation
or
trouble the conscience
to permit speculative
which
reason
the legitimate role of

could
discovering
This is
no
standards
by
human thoughts
and
deeds
be judged.
that there
should come as no
surprise,
however,
to those
who understand
liberation from
and
chance through
technology
which we
without a
corresponding and
logically
inevitable liberation from
moral principles which
do
not originate
in
ourselves,
eventually
even
those
have
created.29
not ourselves
Metaphorically, insofar as these Europeans are travellers, sojourners or wan derers, they represent Christians. Europe, in the particular context of this drama, represents the heavenly Christian hope insofar as it is the home which they long to see. Up to a certain point, it is from Bensalem that they wish to be freed in order to return to Europe ("and whether ever we shall see Europe, God only knoweth"; NA p. 43). That is to say, they wish that things were just as they were before. In due course, however, the travellers opt for Bensalem. In this way they are
travellers in
more
than one sense. Their hearts and not just their bodies
clamor
have
journeyed,
they for They merly loved in Europe. Even the Christianity which they practiced there (or at least with which they were familiar) no longer governs their hearts or their
and
they
to
stay.30
have forgotten
all
that
outlooks.
reward.
which
As
consequence,
they fear
no
divine judgment
and seek no
divine
of
This is the meaning of the reference they are freed from then on. Salvation
behavior32
to perdition, from the danger

comes neither
through
faith31
nor
through good
people should
be
so
but only from the riches blessed as to have a "divine

experience of
of a
instrument"
Salomon's House, if a like Solamona to

them forever.
bring They
it into being. This

can never go
Bensalem has
changed
back, having
tasted so much of what Baconian science
makes possible.
Their hearts
to
remain and
will ever
look
earthward.33
westward opt
and
When they
renounce
opt
in Bensalem, they
to be travellers no more, to
Christianity
its hope, thinking themselves to have found its im
mediate realization.
Like the travellers, we are intended to be converted or reoriented. We, like they, have turned from virtue (moral, intellectual, spiritual) as a broadly recog
nized goal
(in
principle
if
not always
judgments concerning it to baser ellers have been changed and are

shaped
and
concerns no
in practice) by which to order life and for bodily well-being. As the trav
our
fundamentally
in
who we are
hope in Bacon's
as a result of
sovereign
men they were, so, too, we are dependence on, commitment to by science. It is tme that the benefits which we
longer the
enjoy
this reorientation are far from trivial. The medical treat
ment, and the comforts in general, are alone worth mentioning. Bacon must not
be denied his due. His
accomplishment
is heroic
and
its
effect
humane. It is
cost
precisely because it is so impressive and so attractive, however, that the all the more difficult to see and the alternative to remember. While the European travellers
are mesmerized with
is
how
fantastically
and
33
land is, Bacon himself is more sober. This is clear which lurk beneath the surface of the tale, the dreadful inventions, the excess, the deception and the control. Insofar as this hope is a calculated to inspire visionaries, bold intellectuals and youthful adven
superhumanly
perfect the
from the dark features

"vision"
turers, it is misleading,
enterprise.34
deception
concocted
for the
rhetorical
purpose
of
enlisting the ambitious, the adventurous, the humane this great Insofar as it is not the vision, insofar
manity
which accompanies
and even the as
godly behind it is this inhu
the humane provision, insofar

and virgin and
as
the Bensalemite
falls hope
short of angelic at all and
righteousness
reason
purity,
scientific civilization
is
no
for this
not
is hidden
a
disguised.35
But the hope is

most
part, been
realized.
simply This does
hoax. The
not
expected conquests
have, for
the
fulfill
what
Bacon promises, however.

contentment. summun
In
response to are
the Christian gospel, he
promises
happiness, i.e.,
"Happy
bonum,
(GI
p.
the people of
and
Bensalem."
The Christian hope is the every human desire,

realization of
the final
deepest
satisfaction of
and
thus it is
happiness
and rest.
Bacon
promises a
worldly
this
eternal sabbath peace?
29), but is
there
finality
to his
promised satisfaction? were a
Is there
If
not, is the
promise
would
fulfilled? If the Bensalemites

be
massive
"satisfied"
people, there
layoffs
at
simply Salomon's House. Perhaps Bacon
does
not
believe that
"satisfaction"
such
is
possible.
Perhaps, like his

a summum
student
Hobbes, he believes there is no summun bonum but only violent death. If so, the greatest human hope would be a
cure existence extended of an
malum,
comfortable and se
indefinitely
with
the
hope
of resurrection
in the
event
accident, both
the
Here,
by incompatibility
artificial means.
between the Christian
and
Baconian hopes be
which would pres
comes clear once again.
For the
Christian,
everything in Bensalem points, would postpone indefinitely his passage to the blessedness
ence.
earthly immortality, to be cause for despair, since it

such
of
God's
and
unveiled
Although for Bacon
mere
life is better than nothing,

"death"
hence
perpetual perpetual
life
life
on earth without
is desirable, the Christian prefers God. The actual hope is diminished for
this hope is
with
God to
when viewed alongside
the
rhetorical promises. cause
Furthermore, Bacon's hope is less

suited are
compassionate
than
his promise, be
to
of or
the
men
whom
less than the
men who appear
be
pictured
(i.e.,
religious,
appear
lovers
of truth and wisdom).

sheep.
Most
them, though they

"humanity,"
to be men, are actually
In its humaneness
Bacon's
project
dehumanizes. Perhaps the hope
of modem science
as
Bacon intended it
exists on of
ever-increasing degree honor

and
different levels. For the many there will be an comfort and security, but not as much as expected For the
which a
ambitious
and at an unmentioned cost.
few,
only
the
knowers,
man:
there will
be
mle, but
above
not all
that
founder like Solamona

of one
would enjoy.
The
highest hope
followers
may be the hope
the man whose

of science and
are as
many
as there are practitioners and
beneficiaries
34
Interpretation
glory is
as great and
everlasting as the progress of that science. Perhaps, ultimately, this hope, Bacon's personal hope, is the only solid hope, if it is
whose
solid at all.
NOTES
and Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World, pp. 206, 208. Faulkner, Francis Bacon, p. 243. The vision of the future inspires hope. Referring to the account of the organization and discoveries of Salomon's House at the end of the New Atlantis, Farrington reports that "[i]t was in the express hope of making the vision of Solomon's (sic) House a reality that Hartlib, friend of Milton and pioneer of agricultural reform, invited the great Bohe mian educationalist Comenius (emphasis mine), Francis Bacon, (1592-1670) to visit Philosopher of Industrial Science, p. 17. 3. New Atlantis, p. 37. All further references to Bacon's works will appear in the text, abbrevi ated as follows, and, unless otherwise noted, accompanied by the page reference in the respective
1. Manuel
2.
England"
edition.
GI (The Great Instauration), NA (New Atlantis), NO (The New Organon), Works (The
accompanied and
Works of Francis Bacon). De Aug. (De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum) is book and section number; Essays (The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall), Wisdom of the Ancients) are accompanied by essay number.
WA
by (Of the
4. Weinberger, "Science and 5. Sailing here is a metaphor for

smallness of
Rule,"
p.
872. The Chinese

are characterized
science.
by
pusillanimity,
i.e.,
spirit,
one of
the
impediments
which
Bacon describes in The New Organon

can"
as prevent
ing
the
progress of
the sciences (NO 1.92).

and whatever
They
sail, "where
they
will or
(NA
p.
57). Thus
they fear foreigners abilities. Bensalem,

and
lies beyond
at the
what
they
think are the
limits
of
their navigational
the scientific civilization, can sail the world o'er. The
reach of
both its
science
naval
its
is
ships
is
universal.
Anyone
Both
time
would
have
made the connection
between
power and political rule plain
power, between sailing and rule.

generation.
Similarly,
tides,"
the connection between science and
to our
connections are plain to

of winds and
Bacon. More's Utopians "had

always
6. Despite their "good knowledge

rather
been
frightened
of
the sea, and seldom risked going on

and
it
summer."
except
between the Utopians

of useful
the European
who arrived at their
during island by the
The difference
posses
sea
is the latter's
sion of the magnetic compass
(Utopia,
p.
40). Bacon
uses
this instrument as one of three examples
inventions
as
is identified
symbol of of
"nature"
which bring revolutionary change to life (NO 1.129). In both cases the compass representing technical advancement, and, by implication, the sea is identified as a the awesome and terrible forces of nature. J.R. Hale's description of people's perception
in
general and the sea
in
particular at the turn of
the fifteenth century is illuminating:

own sake.
"Much
of nature
was, in any case, marked off from a tranquil appreciation of it for its
and
Apart from infrequent

orators, the seacoast
or
of
widely scattered communities of fishermen and isolated bands of evap Europe was deserted, its rocks and marshes a cordon sanitaire the traveller
.
trader only penetrated to embark or disembark.

a wrecker's
No holiday-maker
sought
the sea. It was
dangerous,
world, unwritten about save in the tones of
dismay,
.
unpainted save as a
background to
Fear
of
a miracle or a
covered so much of
. .
Europe
the night was
foreground to the welcoming quays of town. The forests which rarely penetrated save by huntsmen and fugitives from justice. universal. There was no movement in or out of villages, cottagers barred
were
their
doors.
Wolves
roamed
in the suburbs,
wild
boars
rooted
robber
bands had the highways to themselves.

was spent
With hearths
smothered
up the young fruit trees, and for fear of fire, outside The
appreciative eye of
the towns the night

"nature"
in
siege."
a state of physical and emotional
the vacationer or artist and the paternalistic concern of today's environmentalist are possible
only
when
because
has been tamed

a
or
defanged to the
utilitarian
extent that
it has.
Ironically, it
is only
modern science characterizes
introduces the exclusively

purely
was aesthetic
relationship between
man and nature which
it that
Bacon's revolution, there
relationship is made possible on a wide scale. Prior to nothing of the sort. Hale tells us: "It was an age, too, when health,

and sometimes
35
life, depended
'fertile'
on
the
weather
bad harvest
or
and all
but the rich suffered, the

was
very
to
pp.
poor
starved;
'infertile'
'beautiful'
'depressing'
or
rather all
than
a
the
first
reaction
landscape; humanist,
41-42).
7.
merchant, monk,
Rule,"
had
farmer's
eye"
(Renaissance Europe
1480-1520,
p. 873. Weinberger, "Science and 8. "We added, 'That our tongues should first cleave to the roofs of our mouths, ere we should forget either his reverend person or this whole nation in our prayers. Cf. Psalms 137:6, "if I do not remember thee, [O Jerusalem,] let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not
'"
Jerusalem
mends
joy."
above
my
chief
Bacon
prefers
Bensalem, his
chief
joy,
to Jerusalem and
recom
that his readers do the same.

narrator concedes that
9. The
this
island; but
name).
yet rather as angelical than
tween the powers of
indeed they did think that "there was somewhat supernatural in With this, further comparison is made be Bensalem and those of God (for angelic power is exercised vicariously in
magical."
God's
But they
are
wrong
on not
two counts.
First,
there
is nothing
supernatural about
the
powers exercised on
the island. It
is
in going beyond
and make
nature or
by
is
virtue of
rather
any
principle which
is foreign to the
course of nature
that these things are possible. It
Bensalem has been

what
able to conquer
her
her do their
bidding
by obeying nature that (NO 1.3). Second, because
they have
but it is
accomplished natural
is
other than what nature would science.

Rule,"
do in her ordinary course, it is indeed
magic
magic,
i.e.,
and
10. Weinberger, "Science

"eye"
p.
874. Education of Cyrus. After Cyrus liberal use of gifts.

to the
11. Faulkner, "Visions and p. 125. 12. The in this sense recalls Xenophon's Cyropaedia
Powers,"
or
had
"As
come
into his empire, he

himself
at all
made everyone a
'eyes'
spy
on everyone else through the

'ears'
a natural result of
this, many
also called
and
many
were ascribed
king
"
.
and
"every
one conducted
times just as if those who were within

"father"
ears of the and
king."
Cyrus is
on account of
many eyes and his benefaction. But Cyrus is a tyrant
hearing
were so
his 14.
regime as
totalitarian as a pretechnological regime could

Machiavelli,"
be (VIII. ii. 9-12).

manuscript, p. 31.
13. "Bacon's Humanitarian Revision
of p.
unpublished
Faulkner,
"Visions
Powers,"
and
124.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid. 17. Weinberger 18. It is in

part makes a similar point.
"Science
Rule,"
and
pp.
the acceptance and
blessing
of the
divines
which
876 (n.61), 878. Bacon attempts to form
secure
in
The Advancement of Learning. 19. What Bacon calls Philosophia Prima

all
or science
in its
most general
and
from
which
branches
knowledge stem, he 20. Weinberger, "Science and

of
also calls p.
Sapientia
or
Wisdom (De Aug. IH.i).

this passage also alludes, the
Rule,"
878. in Acts 2:1-16, to

which
21. In the
messengers of
account of the gift of tongues
the gospel were gifted

available
with miraculous ability.
It is
a gift of the
Holy
Spirit.
whom
By
the
definition, it is
message
only to believers. In contrast, here in the New Atlantis, those to is imparted receive the gift. The miracle is wrought through the unregenerate.
Christianity,"
p. 438. 22. Paterson, "On the Role of 23. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part 2, chap. 42, especially pp. 567-68. Farrington, among others, misses this point entirely. See Francis Bacon, Philosopher of Industrial Science (1951), p.
169,
and Francis Bacon, Pioneer of Planned Science (1963), 24. Haydn, The Counter-Renaissance, p. 38. p. 882. 25. Weinberger, "Science and
Rule,"
p.
114.
26. The relationship between Atlantis and the two states mentioned in connection with her, Coya and Tyrambel, is unclear. Are the latter two kingdoms allies of Atlantis, or are they satellites, where Coya and vassal states or constitutive parts? Atlantis may even be the region or continent
Tyrambel
are
found. Bacon
speaks as though
Atlantis
were a
kingdom
unto
itself, but it is ambig

it is it is only
uous whether
his
use of
the word refers to all three nations or just the latter two. Although
specifically Coya and Tyrambel that are said to have attacked, one the Mediterranean area and the other
Atlantis that is identified as
having
been judged for "those
enterpri
proud
36
Interpretation
with
Altabin's kingdom. This ambiguity, together

a
term which encompasses both North and South
Bacon's identification of Atlantis with America, America, leads me to favor its interpretation as a
region or continent.
27.
28.
that
Weinberger, "Science Weinberger, "Science

of
and
and
Rule,"
pp.
Rule,"
872-73.
excluding claim,
happen."
p.
880.
29. "The liberation

we
human
a
desiring from
face
of
any
we
supposed
so that
it is believed
freely
create
values, is
the same liberation in

want
which men overcame chance
by
technology-the
liberty
to make happen what
to
make
Used,'"
George
Grant, '"The
Computer Does Not Impose On Us the Ways It Should Be p. 127. 30. The reason for this may be in part their fear that if they do not stay, they will be killed, since many astonishing reports have reached Europe from the new world but nothing at all from this island. Perhaps also they saw contradictions between, on the one hand, the governor's certainty of Europe's incredulity at hearing stories about Bensalem and, on the other, the law forbidding the
entrance of strangers.
But the
references to their new

not
liberty
and
forgetting
all
that was dear
indicate
embracing it. apparently happy place, and people's desire for happiness is quite strong and wellnigh universal. The governor's offer to pay all their expenses for however long they stay and to satisfy their every request, even presumably the basest, is also no small consideration (NA p. 45).
attraction an
to
Bensalem,
just
repulsion
from the
consequences
of not
Bensalem is
31. "we desired to know
how it
reform with
[Bensalem]
his
own and
was converted
to the
faith"
(NA,
.
p.
47)?
32. 44).
[L]et
ways"
ourselves as we
every man may be at peace

.
(NA
p.
43). "Therefore, in the

eyes of
let
us so
behave
(NA
p.
God,
may find
perpetual
grace
this
people"
33. White
men
observes
that
eternal
recurrence, e.g.,
becoming
and
its
apparent
futility
direct
God, unchanging truths (Peace Among the Willows, p. 17). By locating hope, as opposed to futility and despair, in the process of change, Bacon turns This is men's sights inevitably earthward. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be not a causal relationship. One could just as well say, where your hope is, there will your treasure becoming,
also."
to that which is beyond
be
also.
34. Faulkner, "Visions and pp. 112, 124. 35. Faulkner indicates that the hope is to some extent
powers of
Powers,"
intentionally
untrue.
"Are
not
these solid
mastery in fact deceptions of the mind, that is promises of satisfaction that cannot fully satisfy, but which, like the pillar of light, can serve as baits whereby the purveyors of science can faith" (Essays #58) win people to a new (Francis Bacon, p. 253). "Of Vicissitude of
Things''
suggests that science
in its
old age can exhaust and resurrection
learning,
"giddy."
thought which can make
one
With
regard
to
texts, e.g., in science has been

reason
"Orpheus''
in particular, Bacon suggests its possibility in several immortality (WA XI). Yet it remains to be seen in Bensalem, even though Baconian
established there
for 1900
years. not
why, in principle, these things should
be
There does not, however, possible. Paterson seems

cites
Orpheus,"
appear
to be any
uncertain whether
evidence"
Bacon ultimately expected such accomplishment, though he says that Bacon at best sees it far off ("Bacon's Myth of
"undeniable textual
p.434).
and
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary
Sources
Anderson, Fulton, ed. The New Organon and Related Writings. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1960. s Novum Organum, 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Fowler, Thomas, ed. Press, 1889. Weinberger, Jerry, ed. New Atlantis and The Great Instauration, rev. ed. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1989. Works of Francis Bacon, The. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath, eds., Boston: Brown and Taggard, 1861.
Bacon'

Other Works Cited:
37
Farrington, Benjamin. rence and Wishart,
Francis Bacon, Philosopher of Industrial Science. London: Law 1951.

Row-
Francis Bacon, Pioneer of Planned Science. New York: Praeger, 1963. Faulkner, Robert K. Francis Bacon and the Project of Progress. Lanham, MD:
man and
Littlefield Publishers, 1993.

and
"Visions
(1988).
Powers: Bacon's Two-fold Politics
Progress,"
of
Polity 21, No. 1

Used.'"
Grant, George. '"The Computer Does Not Impose on Us the Ways It Should Be In Abraham Rotstein, ed. Beyond Industrial Growth. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.
Hale, J.R. Renaissance Europe 1480-1520. London: Fontana-Collins, 1971. Haydn, Hiram. The Counter-Renaissance. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
1950.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. C. B. Macpherson,

1968.
ed.
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,

Machiavelli,"
Kennington, Richard. "Bacon's Humanitarian Revision

manuscript.
of
unpublished
Manuel, Frank, and Fritzie Manuel. Utopian Thought in the Western World. Cam bridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1979. More, Thomas. Utopia. Paul Turner, trans. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965. Paterson, Timothy H. "Bacon's Myth of Orpheus: Power as a Goal of Science in Of the
Wisdom of the "On the Role
Ancients,"
Interpretation 16, No. 3 (Spring, 1989).
of
Christianity
and
in the Political
Philosophy
of
Francis
Bacon,"
Polity 19,
Weinberger,
No. 3 (1987).
Jerry. "Science Rule in Bacon's
Utopia,"
American Political Science
Review 70 (1976).
White, Howard. Peace Among the Willows: The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968. Xenophon. Cyropaedia. Walter Miller, trans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1914.
Equality, Property,
Peter C. Myers
and the
as
Problem
of
Partisanship:
The Lockean Constitution
Mixed Regime
University
of
Wisconsin, Eau Claire
From its inception, modem liberalism, like Aristotelian political philosophy, ' has endeavored to moderate the human propensity for partisanship. In contrast
to
its contemporary
variants
that attempt to
with respect
maintain
.a
a position of theoretical
plans
and constitutional
diversity of living (e.g., Rawls, 1993; Ackerman, Larmore), however,

neutrality
to
or styles of
modem
liberalism
in its classical, Lockean form
attempts
to address the problem of partisanship
by
or
promoting
a particular mode of
without
living
that is
nonetheless capable of
blending
and
harmonizing
In
doing
essential violence
to the disparate classes
interests into
which
comparison with
human beings tend naturally to divide. contemporary formulations of liberal neutralism, the Lock
of
ean approach
superior
to the problem
realism;
of
no regime can
partisanship holds the be simply neutral with
salient advantage of
respect
its
to the
character
formation
its
subjects or citizens
(Galston,
pp.
superiority tives, Locke's
of
this approach remains in question.
7-8, 79-117). Yet the From sharply differing

precisely to the
ultimate perspec
leading twentieth-century
critics object
ultimate sim
plicity, to the unwitting or disguised partiality or partisanship of the Lockean con stitution. In C.B. MacPherson's widely discussed reading, the Lockean society is
essentially an oligarchy, its justification of inegalitarian property rights discrediting its egalitarian pretensions and amounting ultimately to a rationalization of a form of pleonexy. For Leo Strauss and Thomas Pangle, on the other hand, arguing from
a more classical perspective, rights represents an
decisively egalitarian conception of natural intellectually levelling doctrinairism and thereby neglects the
distinctiveness
sufficient to combat the
Locke's
cultivation of a spirit of rational mass conformism and
dangers
of
majority tyranny inherent in modem democracies. In Locke's defense, one might find something preliminarily suggestive in the fact that such eminent critics could find evidence in support of such diver However that may be, I believe that by pursuing the objections or egalitarian partisanship and by to Locke's oligarchic and to his democratic
gent readings.
reconstructing the Lockean

appreciation
responses
to these objections, we can recover an

of
of
the
genuine
complexity
Locke's
constitutionalism,2
and
thereby
the
place ourselves
relative
in
better
position
to
judge the
merits of
the Lockean
approach,
to those of the
premodern and
contemporary approaches, to
problem of partisanship.
interpretation,
Fall 1994, Vol.
22, No. 1
40
Interpretation
Let
us consider
first the Locke
objection to
the Lockean
clear
regime as an oligarchy.
This reading may

particular,
seem
to contradict the
encourages
design
of
the Second Treatise in

principle of natural
wherein
his
readers to
take the
human equality
ever, the
the
as given or
fundamental,
of
as an axiom of
3
theology
or
something
closely approaching
scope and
of
a self-evident tmth
(II. 4-6). Later in the

this principle
or
same
work, how
tme significance
concessions to
and
appear more
limited, in
and
light
. .
Locke's
. .
"Age
or
Virtue
as
Excellency of Parts
Merit
Birth
Alliance
Benefits"
the bases of certain forms of
permissible
inequality (11.54), and especially in the light of his defense of a significantly inegalitarian property right (11.36, 48, 50). Moreover, the deeper doubtfulness of Locke's embrace of the principle of equality is evident above
all
in the
Essay Concerning
Human
Understanding,
wherein
Locke
observes
Understandings, Apprehensions, and doing injury to Mankind, affirm, that there is a greater distance between some Men, and others, in this respect, than between some Men and some Beasts. (4.20.5; cf. 1.3.24, 25, 4.16.4; CU6, 24, 34; Works 7.146)
that there is a difference of degrees in Men's
Reasonings,
to so great a
latitude,
that one may, without
Viewing this and like evidence from the perspective of social or socialized democracy, MacPherson fashions what stands for many Locke scholars as the seminal twentieth-century critique of Locke's political thought. MacPherson
in summary that Locke's universalist, egalitarian rhetoric obscures the Lockean political society, in which individuals are assigned differen reality tial political rights according to class-based differentials in their rational capaci
argues
of
ties,
with the propertied
ship in the political property in a capitalist doctrine

of of universal
excluding the laboring class from effective member society. Locke is a conservative or oligarchic defender of
or proto-capitalist political
economy, employing the
equality in
natural rights as an
ideological
rationalization
the interests of
a particular class
(pp. 194-262).
Because its
particular virtues and vices not
have
received extensive argument
scholarly
discussion,
a range of
will
here
consider
MacPherson's
in detail. (For
opinions, see Ryan; Dunn [1969], pp. 203-41; Mansfield [1979]; Tully; Wood [1984], p. 7-10; Shapiro, pp. 128-29, 137-44; Ashcraft, pp. 260-85; Cohen, pp. 304-11; Pangle, pp. 158-71.) In response to this argu ment I wish only to build upon two general points. First, though I share with
several of
his
critics the opinion
that the Lockean distributions
of economic and
significantly less inegalitarian than MacPherson main tains, I believe it important to acknowledge MacPherson's valuable service in
of political power are
drawing
Locke's
attention
to the relations among classes of subjects or members within
constitutional
design. Second, I believe that though MacPherson
prop-
Equality, Property,
erly draws
nature of
and
Partisanship
misconceives
41
the
we
attention to the
fact
of
inequality in Locke, he
it
represents
that
inequality
and of the problem
for Locke. If
primacy of political or psychological as opposed to factors in the formation of class divisions (Mansfield, 1979; Pangle,
recognize the
economic
pp.
170-
71),
of a
we come
to see both that MacPherson's

more radical
oligarchic
objection points
to the possibility
still
deeper,
quently that the considerable degree

and even promotes serves support of economic class
of material
partisanship in Locke, and conse inequality that Locke accepts
in his
constitutional
design
not as the substance and
domination, but instead
as
instrumental to his
at
and
tempt at
resisting
5
the injustice that

generate.
deeper,
more
fundamental divisions
antagonisms
tend to
In
chapters
and
of
the Second Treatise in particular, Locke gives the

cause
impression that
absent
of general peace must of nature and

well
any economically based have obtained in both the in the
for conflict,
a condition
prepolitical or prehistoric state
the early period of political society

elsewhere same work
(31, 51, 107-11). Yet
as
is
in
known, Locke
describes the
state of nature
starkly Hobbesian terms (11.13, 90, 123, 127); and when he identifies the forces that drive us out of that state into society, he makes no mention of primarily material necessity, referring instead to the partiality and baseness of human Even in
ment of a nature and chapters
the
and
degeneracy
if
not
of at
least
some men work
(11.13, 91-92, 128).
8, Locke implies
that at
the human
of
mind
"desire
having
more
a
from the very than Men
very early in the develop beginning is an expansive desire,

an
needed,"
"amor
sceleratus
habendf
(11.37, 111;
oneself
cf.
45, 115),
desire to transcend
or conquer
necessity, to magnify
power.4
by
expanding the realm of one's own

view recalls
freedom
and or
Locke's
Machiavelli's
race
observation of
the two diverse humors

classes.5
appetites that
divide the human
into two fundamental
Notwith
(1.88; also 86), standing his description of it as "the first and strongest for Locke what is truly natural to or universally compelling in human beings is not the desire for but rather an indefinite desire for wellself-preservation6
desire"
being,
desire for happiness

for
alongside an aversion
STCE 115), Locke may
whose polarities appear
to misery (ECHU 1.3.3; cf. in the Two Treatises as desires for self-
preservation and
self-magnification or
dominion. It appears, however, that
in the characteristically popular appetite or aversion a greater submissiveness than does Machiavelli, in the form either of a narrow desire for self-preservation or of an overactive desire to believe that one is not
observe
In virtually the same breath in which he declares that "The people to right, will be ready on any occasion to generally ill treated, and contrary Locke concedes that upon ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy
oppressed.
them,"
people
in
general
"are
hardly
to be
prevailed with accustom'd
to amend the acknowledg'd
to"
Faults, in
the
Frame they have been

and more
(11.224, 223;
jj 91J93, 1.33,
generally ECHU 1.3.23-27,
also 230; cf. 2.33.6-7; STCE 146,
41). 164; 0/ 34,
42
Interpretation
Especially
unity
of
with the example of
wonder what are
Machiavelli in mind, one must therefore the jural implications of Locke's implicit questioning of the
confident affirmations of account of
the human species. Despite his seemingly
the
principle of natural psychological class
jural human equality, Locke's implicit divisions in the Two Treatises

own observations nature a proud
over
raises
political-
the
question whether
according to Locke's
an
has
endowed a relative
few
with
overriding ambition, exercise of despotic power

if
not a positive suffer rather
desire
of
dominion insatiable
the
except
by
the
others,
and endowed
greater number
with,
to
desire for
subjection
to such power, at least a
willingness
than resist it whether nature thus does not mandate moral or jural but instead sanctions mle by the stronger, serving the interest of the equality, stronger. Does Jefferson's great teacher then implicitly, unintentionally support
the dismal proposition that Jefferson himself
would
memorably
reject with vir
tually
the final stroke of his pen, namely that "the

with saddles on
mass of mankind and
has
been bom
their
backs, [and]
. .
favored few booted
spurred,
ready to ride them
legitimately
(letter to Roger C. Weightman, June
24,
1826,
p.
729)?
problem of political
In the Second Treatise, the

these disparate the
principles psychological
mixing
or of
reconciling
to a common set of laws calls

of a
modernized
for the
elaboration of
grounds
principle
of republican
liberty.
cost of
Those inclined toward
contentment with
bare
self-preservation at
the
liberty
must come
to embrace the principle that
consent
is the indispensable
guarantor of
preservation, that "Freedom from
necessary to, and closely joyned with a with it, but by what forfeits his Preservation
the other
Absolute, Arbitrary Power, is so Man's Preservation, that he cannot part

and
Life
together"
(TT 11.23). On
their
hand,
those inclined to value
liberty
only insofar
as
as
it facilitates
domination
of others must come to regard

of
.^//-dominion
the fullest and only the defensive
truly desirable form

capacity to Locke's
resist
dominion; they desires,

as
must come
to
experience
the tyrannical
assertions of other
individuals,
of
and
ultimately
power.
of their own exorbitant

attempt at
the only source
tme freedom and
compasses a
expanding the desire of self-preservation defensive desire for liberty operates on both rational
so that
it
en
and sentimen
claim
tal levels. On the former

a
level, Locke
argues
that one
cannot
reasonably
right
of
life
or of self-preservation without also
claiming
a right of
of self-disposal.
Locke
of
suggests at
least
at one point that the
liberty or "strong [if not

of
natural
insuperable] desire
a
Self-preservation"
in
rational
beings is the foundation

to regard the
corresponding right (1.86;
cf.
88),
and seems moreover
primacy of our sense of self-concernment (see ECHU 2.21.11, 18, 26) as the foundation of the unalienable character of that right. Each individual must re
tain the ultimate right of judging and enforcing the conditions of self-preserva
tion, because the wills of others are ultimately opaque to us, and (to say the least) cannot be presumed to harbor a reliable concern for our own preservation
(especially
argument
11.22). The right

right of
of preservation as
becomes inseparable in Locke's
from the
liberty,
the principle of self-preservation entails
Equality, Property,
and
Partisanship
43
logically
the principle of self-disposal
or
self-ownership (II. 6, 23, 27, 44, 55,
59-60, 123).
As it is necessary, in Locke's view, for individuals not only or primarily to know, to assent cognitively to the interdependence of preservation and liberty, but
also
binding
work.
for them to feel it (11.94, 168, 225, 230), the project of practically the two principles must include an attempt at forming the passions or
well.
sentiments as
This
of a
attempt assumes various
forms
throughout
Locke's
liberty is clearly the aim, for in stance, of Locke's advice in Some Thoughts Concerning Education that chil dren be treated as rational beings long before they approach full, adult ratio healthy
desire for
nality,
or
The formation
that
they be indulged in
(STCE 81:
similar
the illusion that their activities are
for the
pp.
most part self-directed
cf.
41, 72-77, 95, 123, 148;

manifest
cf.
Tarcov,
91-93, 171-76). A
of
design is
in his
attempts via
the
rhetoric of condition
the Two Treatises at raising in
his
audience a proud contempt
for the
slavery (TT 1.1; also 11.23, 163, 239) and a righteous indignation or even hatred for the wielders and seekers of absolute, arbitrary power (TT epigraph, 11.10, 11, 16, 93, 172, 181, 228).
Of potentially far
alone as means of vation are the
greater
effect,
however,
than the Two
Treatises'
rhetoric
infusing
healthy
spiritedness
into the desire
of self-preser
Lockean
principles of
legitimacy
themselves and the constitu
flow from them. The ambiguity of Locke's account ren ders it difficult to estimate precisely the intended or likely effect, in this
tional provisions that
respect,
of
his insistence
on
meaningful,
rational practical argued
consent
as
condition as
of
governmental
legitimacy. Yet if Locke's in part,

as some
sympathies
are
demo
cratic, in the
pp.
whole or
have
(Kendall; Ashcraft; Pangle,

the poten
168-70), it
value
seems reasonable
to
suggest
that a
significant part of
tial the
a
that Locke assigns to the principle
of popular representation
lies in is
quiet pride associated with
the understanding that one's explicit approval
necessary
condition of governmental
legitimacy
157-58, 197-98, 212, 215-17, 222;

III. 15).
contrast
(see 11.141, 143, 153-54, Rousseau, Social Contract II. 1,
In any event, a clearer illustration of this aspect of Locke's intention appears of his teaching (Strauss [1953], p. 234), his in the "most characteristic
part"
discussion
of property.
Locke begins this discussion

preservation,
of
by
property in the right of for the "Support and

conceives of this right
Comfort"
broadly our being (11.25,
conceived as
grounding the the right to
right of
provide
26). Just how he

almost
becomes clearer, however, Man has
when
broadly he immediately
appro
thereafter introduces
priation.
an alternative principle as a
the basis of
own
legitimate
Because
"every
and
Property
in his
Person,"
Locke
con
tinues,
the
of
Labour
then
his Body,
the Work of
he
removes out of
the
are properly his. Whatsoever his Hands State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath
.
mixed makes
his Labour with,
and
joyned to it something that is his own,

also
and
thereby
it his Property. (11.27;
44)
44
If
Interpretation
laboring
is in itself
sufficient to create an original property
right,
then the
right
of appropriation obtains
irrespective
in the human
one
of
any purely
material
considerations,
irrespective
ory
of
of
the claimant's level of material need

end
or comfort.
The labor the

corollary
of appropriation constitutes of
only
the fundamental principle

means most
agency.
a particularly Locke's doctrine
crucial
of self-owner
ship
generally that
has
a natural right so as
one's
agency
or
action-producing
labor
on
faculty
simply to act, to employ best to secure one's own well-
being, up
to the point at
which one's actions
threaten the
domination,
an
the unjust
appropriation of the
or the
agency,
of another. protection
Locke's insistence
constitutional
for
expansive,
quan
titatively
an
unlimited right of productive appropriation represents much more
than
attempt at
ameliorating the
or at
natural
condition
of material
unprovidedness
(11.32, 37, 40-46)

material plenty. psychological
sion"
creating the
as
conditions as
for
general private
happiness in is its
Posses
owner
At least
important
its
effect on material conditions
effect; the desire in young
children
for
"Propriety
and
expresses a
"love
Dominion"
of
or of
the
power
that accompanies the
ship (STCE 105). The

tant raising
peculiar and
protection of
the
right of appropriation and
concomi with
channelling
of the acquisitive
desire
can
therefore serve
more
efficacy to cultivate in ordinary

vigilant sense of self.
of
subjects an
expanded,
assertive,
dignified,
represent
As Locke
explains
mode"
ideas
actions, the experiential data of

and
in the Essay, human agency
our "mixedor
freedom,
(2.22.8).
only
"fleeting,
transient Combinations of simple
Ideas"
But
whereas
the merely transient, momentary
existence of most actions renders
uncertain
their psychological or pedagogical power, their power to

on our
imprint
themselves
action of
memory
and
then to guide our
future actions,
the particular
appropriating represents the employment and manifestation of one's freedom to create or enlarge a visible, tangible, more-or-less enduring domain,7 and for this reason carries a peculiar power to expand the individual's con
sciousness of self.
In
tion"
insisting
not
that the "great and chief end

and
of
therefore,
of
Mens uniting into

is the Preserva
Commonwealths,
simply
Property"
putting themselves
under
Government,
their biological
integrity
or personal
comfort, but
(11.124;
also
ing
to
raise
the proper
222), Locke adopts a "forward spirit of defensiveness against tyranny
defense"
or
"of their strategy, hop illegitimacy by
expanding the boundaries of the self, enlarging one's personal domain of free dom and power and thus making more visible and more complete that which is
to be defended. Out of the common concern for preservation, the Lockean
stress on property seeks to forge a vigilant, assertive demand for preservation in freedom. In defending a natural, unalienable right of private property or appro priation, Locke defends not a sordid, mean-spirited but rather an indispensable bulwark of civil or political liberty.
materialism,8
A complementary design is evident in Locke's attempt at moderating or the desire for dominion. Just as the achievement of a taming rational, civil
Equality, Property,
consensus requires the
and
Partisanship 45
by
its
mix of
leavening
of
of the
desire for
so
self-preservation
ture with a moderate
love
dominion,
the
extreme
love
dominion
must
be
it into conformity with the imperative of preservation. Locke avoids a simple reversal of the Hobbesian priority of preservation to liberty. Alongside his declaration that "the end of Law is not to abolish or (TT II. 5-7), Locke proclaims restrain, but to preserve and enlarge
moderated to
bring
Freedom"
emphatically that
preservation"
political
power
properly
order
conceived
"hath
no other end
but for
(11.135;
dominion license
respect or or to
also
124). In
properly to
as
moderate
the desire
defend the
principle of
liberty
distinct from that

of
of sheer a
arbitrariness, Locke
maintains
the grounding
that principle in
for the enduring sway of natural necessity (cf. Mansfield [1989], pp. 181-213). But the key to the taming of the desire for dominion so that it may
the desire for preservation lies once again in Locke's defense
of
coexist with
the
right of appropriation.
Whereas Locke
vice of
associates
the desire to appropriate
or
to possess with the
covetousness,
declaring
so
it
one of the
"two Roots
Life,"
of almost all
the Injus
.
. .
tice and
weeded
Contention,
out"
that
disturb Humane
and as such to
be
"early
105; 110), he prevailing distinguishes the desire for possession from more direct expres other, carefully sions of the desire for dominion; the possessive desire to have or
of children's motivations
also
"things"
(STCE
objects at one's
be "submitted to
disposal is less surely productive of injustice than the desire to or to have actual persons at one's disposal (STCE by
others,"
105, 104). For

Education does
Liberality,"
this reason
not entail
Locke's
correction of the vice of covetousness
in the
the suppression or extirpation of the desire to acquire.
To the contrary, he recommends teaching children that one "loses nothing by his indeed that "the most Liberal has always most (110). Locke his
confirms
plenty"
his
approval of an
appropriately
moderated acquisitiveness
by
subsequent suggestion
concerning the
provision of playthings
for
children.
Lest they be taught "Pride, Vanity, and along with a perpetual, inherently immoderate dissatisfaction, children according to Locke should have few or no playthings bought for them, but should instead be required to make
them
Covetousness"
for themselves. "This

. . .
will accustom will
them to seek
for
what
they
want
in
be taught Moderation in their Desires, Ap themselves whereby they (STCE 130). plication, Industry, Thought, Contrivance, and Good
Husbandry"
The
acquisitive
of
desire is
or
not to
discipline
mand
industry
labor,
be suppressed, but instead to be subjected to the laboring, and thus detached from the desire to com
condition of
others'
as
the
its
gratification p.
(cf.
Tarcov,
pp.
141
45; contrast Axtell in Educational Writings, Tully, p. 148; Dunn [1984], p. 40).
Locke's legitimation
self-reliant of chapter of acquisitiveness
207
n.
3; Seliger
with
pp.
157-58;
and
by
associating it
liberality
creativity in the Education is in perfect harmony with the teaching 5 of the Second Treatise. Appropriation in unlimited amounts is a
right, according to the
natural,
unalienable
latter,
so
long
as
it is
accomplished
46
Interpretation
or
(directly
land to himself
mankind"
indirectly) through productive laboring. Whoever "appropriates by his labour, does not lessen but increase the common stock of (TT 11.37; also 40-44, 48). The possibility of liberality rests effec
creation of
tively
on
the
wealth,
and
thus
on
the
encouragement of productive
industry. More fundamentally, the

society,
est
establishment of
justice
as the
bond
of civil
implying
the protection of everyone's "Title to the the
product of
his hon
Industry,
requires
creation or preservation of an abundance of material
opportunity sufficient to enable all to subsist and even to profit by their own industry."9 Locke conceives of the replacement of traditional charity with mod
em
technology,
with
the development of "Invention and

of
Arts"
(11.44)
that
will
revolutionize
the productivity
of
human
of
labor,
as essential
to the solution of
this aspect of the problem
the state
nature.10
The
the
appeal of
this solution lies in its furtherance

of
of
Locke's
attempt to effect
"endowment"
justice (cf. Works 7.150),
or
in its
psychological realism. scheme
While the
of
acquisitive passion acquires
legitimacy
in Locke's
by
virtue
its
service to the cause of preservation and

remains attractive
nality, it
to the
condition of
ultimately to the cause of ratio for many individuals, notwithstanding its subjection laborious productivity, by virtue of its enduring potential for
gratifying the desire for dominion or inequality. In the course of his defense of the right of appropriation, Locke contends that "Men have agreed to dispropor
(11.50); the invention of money in particular has "introduced (by Consent) larger Possessions, and a Right to (11.36; emphasis supplied). Recognizing not only the natural differences (11.54), but also the equally important among individuals in "Parts and be credited for such human desire to distinction, Locke insists that a
tionate and
unequal
Possessions
of the
Earth"
them"
Merit"
well-
constituted political
society
must guarantee
Common,"
the rewards of superior

gave
industry.
use of
"God
gave
the World to Men in

Rational,"
but
it especially "to the
the Industrious
and
to those
who enlarge
the common stock
by
their
rational,
productive
industry (11.34;
also
37, 48).
desire for
The Lockean
constitution aims
thus to transform the
inequality
expression
or
dominion, replacing its manifestation in the "Quarrelsom and idleness of traditional upper classes with its more socially useful
the active productivity of the
modem commercial
Contentious"
in in
others."
classes, among
experience provide
Locke
seems even
to expect that the pride that the industrious
their own providence,

grounds
nature, mastery generosity toward the less accomplished. Just as he sug gests in the Education a principle for moderating the desire to possess that serves to legitimate that desire, so in this case he suggests that children should
in their
partial
of
will
the
for
a certain
leam civility or respect for the principle of natural equality in part by learning that "No part of their Superiority will be hereby lost; but the Distinction in
creased
.
. .
The
more
they have,
the better
humour'
d they
should
of
be taught to
be
(STCE 111;
also
109). The
psychological
subtlety
Locke's defense
Equality, Property,
of
and
Partisanship
in this
appears
47
the principle
of natural
jural equality is nicely

a privilege of a
exemplified
educational
stratagem: respectful assent to the principle of common
humanity
less
duty
In
than
a mark of
dignity,
seeks
distinguished
status.12
brief, Locke
as
to address the
problem of
partisanship
or of class
division
ple
it
appears
in the Second Treatise accommodating the
by designing
an egalitarian princi
that is capable
of
natural or
ineradicable inequalities
among human beings. By conceiving of human equality as grounded in the principle of property in oneself, Locke conceives of equality as a two-dimen sional principle, in which the majority can find a guarantee of the preservation
that
is their primary concern,

of rational
while
it
secures
for the
more ambitious
the opportunity to achieve at least the more civil
forms
of eminence.
minority The re
warding
ment
industry
bases
social
distinction
upon a standard of achieve
that is understandable, accessible,

remains skeptical of
and
beneficial to the
of
common majority.
Yet Locke
the possibility
perfectly
harmonizing
the
disparate
despotic
with
passions and
interests
with each other or with
the public good. The to conform
and the slavish passions cannot

of
be perfectly
rechannelled
the requirements
erced.
In Some Thoughts
justice, but must at some point be sanctioned or co Concerning Education, Locke counsels that the incul
of
cation of
"an ingenuous Detestation
this shameful Vice
will
be
better (110).
Guard
against
Dishonesty,
than any Considerations drawn from

concern
Interest"
As this
tion of
...
counsel
suggests, the
for
reputation
is to
serve as
the primary
psychological mechanism vice.
for
inculcating
to
a prerational or sentimental
detesta
Vertue
Though
reputation
is "not the tme Principle

it"
and
Measure
and
of
yet
. . .
it is that,
the most
which comes nearest

powerful
(STCE 61). "Esteem

when once
Disgrace
are
them"
relish
(56;
cf.
Incentives to the Mind, ECHU 2.28.12; also 1.3.25).
it is brought to
power, in
well-cultivated concern
for
reputation
clearly holds
in
substantial
Locke's view, to
sustain a
fidelity
to the
requirements of
justice
even at the
extremities of political
life, in
circumstances
which such
fidelity
for the
demands
ultimate
the greatest personal sacrifices or acts of
devotion.13
respect
limits
sires,
of
the
power of such a concern evident
to govern the profoundly expansive

contention not
de
however, is
in Locke's
that "the
best fence
against
mlers'
Rebellion"
or against tyrannical
designs lies
in
actual or prospective
desire to be
or to appear godlike
in their justice
of a
as well as their power

of
(11.42,
to
p.
166), but
safety
a-
rather
in the "Doctrine
a new
vigilance
Power in the People
providing for their

reduces cf.
new
by
Legislative"
(11.226). The "appeal to
heaven"
an appeal
to popular
(11.20, 21, 168, 176, 241-42;
Pangle,
204).
arms
raising a popular willingness in extreme circumstances to take up against illegitimate mlers, Locke hopes to intimidate the willful and thus
By
to diminish their
appetites
for the
sorts of actions that would
popular resistance.
A similar,
more subtle
indication
of
properly provoke Locke's aim to com

motives appears
bine
"ingenuous"
appeals
to
and more
elementally interested
in
48
his
Interpretation
stem admonition
that the penalty is
not
death"
for
a soldier's
disobedience
of even
"justly simply or arbitrarily, but "the most dangerous or unreason

and
able"
command of a superior
(11.139;
see more
of superior
In providing these internal and external force in order to ensure conformity
generally 1.92). sanctions fear of disgrace

with
fear jus
the
requirements of
tice, Locke in effect subjects governors and ordinary members of necessity in one form or another. Of course, inasmuch as
require sanctions with teeth self-interest and
alike
to the mle
all sets of
laws
for their enforcement, the imperfect

the persistence
of
coincidence of
justice
and thus
the necessity of negative

of a given political order.
sanctions raise no serious objection to the
legitimacy
may reasonably question whether the Lockean society can provide a congenial home for its various members, and in particular for its most truly ambitious members. For it would seem that the members of this class in partic
one
Yet
ular,
united
by
their common disrespect for the

reasons or ends
mle of mere
necessity,
would
require
compelling
that transcend necessity in order to
justify
their submission or self-restraint. In confining the enterprises of the most ambi
tious to pursuits that serve

of
directly
or
indirectly
preservation, contrary to the

of the majority Viewed with a
concern of
the relatively low, prosaic end MacPherson and others the Lockean
constitution appears partial
to the egalitarian
interest,
to the interest characteris
tic
rather
than that of the few.
eye toward
its
egalitarian
question:
partisanship, the Lockean

preservation
would
regime
raises
this
obvious
but important happiness human
if
itself is justified
as a
necessary
est,
condition of
(11.57),
nature
then
it
not represent
the high
purest expression of
for the truly
ambitious
individuals to
on personal
seek radical
freedom
or
sovereignty, to
and
experience all
limitations
agency
against arises a
or volition as
alienating
to harbor a radically revolutionary animus

restraint?14
any conventional or political deeper one: if it were possible for
But along
outlets
with
this question
such members
to be tamed
in
accor
dance
in the
with
Locke's requirements, to find satisfying

ends,
for their
ambitions
service of egalitarian
at what cost would
their satisfaction be pur
chased?
II
In
order to
grasp
fully
the
objection
to Locke's democratic
or egalitarian
partisanship,
we must consider
tisanship,
focusing
on
his deeper understanding of the problem of par its doctrinal dimension. In making "the weakness of our
of
Faculties in this State
Mediocrity,
theme
which we are
in in this
World"
(ECHU
4.12.10;
also
4.14.2)
a great
of
the
Essay, Locke
refers not
also
only to the
ultimately limited
reach of
the human understanding,

capture
but
to its extreme
and
fragility and Fancy of
errancy, its vulnerability to
by
the
"busy
in
a
boundless
Man"
(2.1.2).
"[Tis]
Phansye,"
Locke
observes
1659 letter, that
Equality, Property,
"is the
world"
and
Partisanship
fooleish"
49
great commander of as
the
and
that "rules us
all under
the title of
reason,"
acting 81). The distinctive
"the
great guide and at
both
of
the wise and the
(CJL No.
least in its
milder
susceptibility
as well as eties
to madness
(2.11.13, 2.33.4-5;
cf.
forms, quite common human Mehta, pp. 15-24, 80-118),

human
soci great power and
the
deeply
of
impressive
TT
diversity
of moral codes across
(1.3.4-14; LN 7;
1.56-59),
attests
for Locke the

form
disorderliness
cannot
the human imagination.

pride or a
Whether due to
. .
desire for
a certain
of
security, "most Men

or
be
at quiet
in their Minds,
and
without some
Foundation
Principles
to rest their
whatever
tion"
Thoughts
on,"
indeed "will
sooner part with
their
Lives,
and
is dearest to them, than

also
suffer themselves to
doubt,
from
or others
Reason"
to ques
the truth of those principles, "how remote soever
(ECHU
of
1.3.24, 21;
1.3.25-27). On the
and
other
hand, flattered by "the Love

it is to be inspired
and cognizant of
and
something extraordinary, the Ease the common and natural ways of

gives one man over
Glory
be
above
Knowledge,"
the "power it
another, to have the
Authority
to be the Dictator of Princi

a smaller num
ples, and Teacher
Truths"
of unquestionable
(4.19.8, 1.4.24),
ber
love
gratify their dominion (3. 10; LCT 23-26, 35, 43, 52, 55). Whereas the fundamental partisan or class division appears in the Second Treatise in the opposition be
profess sectarian
of
doctrines in
order
to further their
ambition or
tween a relatively passive majority preoccupied with their own private

vation and a
preser
minority actively pursuing their own aggrandizement, it appears in

soldiers"
Essay as a division between the leaders and the "common doctrinal, sectarian movements (4.20.18; cf. 4.19 passim).
the
of
project
of mental
reform
must
then accompany the Second Teatise's
scheme of
institutional
reform
in
order
problem of partisanship. eration and spiritedness
If
mlers and sustain
for Locke adequately to address the subjects are to achieve the levels of mod
must cease
that
legitimate government, they
to
think of their dominion and

and must come
subjection as
divinely
ordained or
naturally given,
to affirm their
divinely
granted or natural
selves
(cf. TT 11.27, 44, 123

must come no elite
with
ECHU
2.27.17-18,
and
property in them 26). This means first
that
they
to understand their religion as a simple, plain creed, re
quiring
priestly
for its interpretation

Zuckert
guiding the faithful to the
rational pursuit of
temporal happiness as the surest path to eternal salvation

cf.
(Works 7.5, 147, 157-58;

generally,
[1986],
pp.
199-202; Rabieh). More
they
must cease at
least in
public
to take their direction from any
vision of an
This
modem
explains
overarching summum bonum (2.21.55; Pangle, p. 184). in part why, as Harvey Mansfield, Jr., observes, Locke like constitutionalists in general declines to argue the soundness of specific
partisan visions of the good or of

understand
happiness, instead counseling
the claimants to
those visions reductively, as expressions of passion, and then to
rank
the
various passions
as
naturally necessary
or
priority according to their status fanciful ([1989], p. 185; STCE 106-7; ECHU merely
order of practical
in
50
Interpretation
2.21.45).
ciety
Notwithstanding the
essential
importance to the Lockean
political so
of material
improvement
generated
by
"Invention
Arts"
and
(TT 11.44),
implicit
of
one can view this aspect of

of resistance
Locke's
project of mental reform as an upon
act
to the transition that Glaucon insists
in Book 2
or
Plato's
Republic,
the transition from the necessitous to the luxurious
feverish city
(369b-373e). A harsh reality of the human condition is that given the ordinary frailty of the understanding in its attempts at governing the imagination, as our
preoccupation
intensifies
with visions of our
highest
good and
thus of our
final
liberation from necessity, our actual subjection to the mle of necessity deepens. Natural necessity remains unconquered and is in fact often strengthened by humankind's
But the
efforts at self-liberation. modem egalitarian conception of natural
right
with
which
Locke
would supplant not
the
classical or premodern
tradition of political philosophy is
itself free from potentially serious difficulties. The inegalitarianism of the Platonic tradition of political philosophy proceeds from the general conviction
that a
healthy,
well-constituted
its
various classes
involving
energizes
community features an ordering of unequal distributions of public offices,

the
serious pursuit of virtue.
rank
among
and
honors,
influence,
of
with a view
toward providing the leisure that facilitates and the love
distinction that
With this
of
alternative re
in view,
one sees more

of
clearly the significance, for

"recreation"
instance,
CJL No.
Locke's
placement
the aristocratic concept of leisure with the more utilitarian or
necessitarian concept of ate
(STCE 108,
206;
328),
appropri
to an ethic of
motion rather
than rest, of endless, industrious striving for
endless ger of
increase. One
can
thus see also the significance and the potential dan
the Lockean
education's extensive cultivation of a
heightened desire for

whether
esteem or
sensitivity to the opinions of others, raising the question
the
respectably acquisitive Lockean gentry may tend to lose an appreciation of human excellence and to value civility over independence of spirit, and there fore may lose its capacity to resist the conformist tendencies of modem egali
tarian societies (Strauss
Pangle,
pp.
[1959], p. 38; Tarcov, pp. 116-17, 140-41, 194-98; 216-29, 264-66, 272; Mehta, pp. 133-53).
classical political science's characteristic
Underlying
of virtue and
focus
on
the
cultivation
its
concomitant
insistence best
upon
viewing the question of
legitimacy
in the light
that
a
of
the question of the
regime
is
a confidence
in the
proposition
elevate
properly teleological conception of the human good can limit as well as human strivings within and outside the political arena. Classical politi in
a vision of the absolute mle of
cal science therefore culminates
the
one
best,
the possessor good,

and
of
the highest
wisdom and pmdence with respect unlikelihood of
to the human
though it recognizes the extreme
the direct mle of
the wise, it endeavors to supply the practical, constitutional conditions for the
cultivation of genuine virtue.
Again
by
contrast, Locke declines to
present
in
the classically Socratic
manner a comparative analysis of or or ways of
dialectical
confron as noted
tation among the various regimes
living, instead effecting
Equality, Property,
a
and
Partisanship
51
Machiavellian
reduction of
the
various partisan
arguments to the status of
subtheoretical
passion.15
Locke
presents a
conception of the principles of natural
relatively doctrinaire, deontological right, including an egalitarian right of

as
judging
priestly
equal
and
executing those principles, apparently,

with a view
in his distillation
need
of
Christianity,
to that
to minimizing or eliminating the
for
a class of
interpreters.16
He
accords the principle of popular consent a weight

of virtue or wisdom as a criterion
of
the principle
for
judging
governmental count of
legitimacy. Above all, Locke declines to provide an explicit ac the specifically philosophical way of living, instead emphasizing the
predominantly technological inspiration of science. The enormous power and disorderliness of the human imagination, which Locke implicitly accuses premodern political science of failing to govern and
even
dangerously flattering,
the claims of
greatly magnify the enduring

to the
unwise and
problem of authen
ticating
wisdom
therewith
intensify
life,
the
need
to
distance philosophy
essential
as well as revealed religion
from
political
to
deny
for
practical purposes that wisdom as such
has any
special
legislative
claim.
The
danger is that Locke
prescribes a
remedy that exposes us to alterna
tive,
to
perhaps more vimlent strains of
the fundamental disease.

and
Acutely
only
sensi
tive to the human propensity toward partisanship
thus especially
not
concerned rational
formulate
an effective principle of political
mixture, Locke
"socialized"
izes religion, but
also sets
forth
a civilized or
conception of ratio
nality (Pangle, p. 272). But in levelling reason's distinctiveness or blunting its divisiveness by subjecting it to the mle of necessity (Mansfield [1989], p. 208),
within
Locke risks obscuring the grounds for the principle of the sovereignty of reason the human self or soul, upon which his doctrine of justice ultimately
reason
depends. If Locke teaches

requirements of
to subordinate
its
peculiar
imperatives to the
reason's capac
civility
or social
stability, he risks undermining
irrationalism that constantly ity threaten political societies. Further, if Locke abstracts too completely from the ultimate ends of rational action, if he too thoroughly ostracizes philosophy from
public
to stand in independent resistance to the tides of
life, his
attempt at
advancing the
cause of
reasonable, nonarbitrary
gov
ernment through a more egalitarian conception of natural right

perverse effect of
of willfulness
ever
appeared
may have the supporting more extreme and self-consciously arbitrary forms at best accidentally supportive of political equality than had in the corrupted practical products of premodern political
that Locke's lowered conception of reason, his attempt
challenge of revelation as well as
thought.
It is
at
most probable
diverting
it from the
summum
from its
preoccupa
tion with the

subordination
of
bonum, does not represent an intentional, theoretical reason to the human will, but instead forms a part of his
to advance the cause of reason
our
career-long
of
struggle
"only
Star
and com
pass,"
(TT 1.58; ECHU necessity "our last Judge and Guide in every danger of the arbitrariness in its theoretical or doctrinal as 4.19.14) against
Thing"
52
Interpretation
its
political expressions.
well as
Pangle
suggests that
Locke's
attempt at
fur
thering
the cause
need
from the
essentially in an attempt at liberating reason to defend itself against its nettlesome traditional antagonists an
of reason consists
attempt, according to part, insofar

threaten
as
Pangle,
that is shortsighted or
precipitous
on
Locke's
its
controversies with various theological-political authorities
provide an essential condition
for
philosophy's
very existence,
even as
they
it (pp. 273-74).
philosopher"
It may be somewhat harsh thus to suggest that a certain softness, "an im detestation of his necessarily embattled situation as a leads Locke to neglect the conditions required for the cultivation of reason;
moderate
Locke's divergence from

proceed
classical political
less from
passion or with
philosophy in this respect appears to inattention than from a considered, empirically
grounded
disagreement in the
the proposition that the
imagination, in its longing

natural
to transcend the human condition of mortality, is as Pangle puts it "the

sublime"
partner of reason
pursuit of
the
(pp.
274, 214;
cf.
148). Yet if
we can sympathize with
Locke's doubts
nourish
as to whether a culture of enchanted

alone of reason
reverence able
is
more apt
to
the growth of philosophy, let
fanaticism, the Locke believes that his lowered, specifically why

generate ception of reason can generate and sustain a
politics, than it is to
question persists
concerning
reason
utilitarian,
complaisant con
the degree of respect for
that
healthy
or
legitimate
political
society
requires. of argument char
If Locke's
assessment of
the danger inherent in the forms
acteristic of premodern political
philosophy justifies his

of
presumptive claim of superior reason to public
honor any sovereignty (cf. TT 11.54), it

refusal
to
certainly does
not
ean political society.
justify a neglect By the very
the cultivation of reason within the Lock

of
fact
its
ostracism
from
public
life
of
the
claim of wisdom requires
proper, Locke's liberal
a respect
for the sovereignty

private pursuit of
of reason at
members, both in the
society all the more firmly least among its ordinary happiness and in the act of consenting
political reason while somehow us
to governmental authority. The central dilemma of Lockean liberalism appears
to lie in the twofold imperative of ostracizing
cultivating
while cul
it
of
ostracizing the
reason
that
distinguishes
rational
from
one
another,
tivating field [1979],
the reason that distinguishes
from
subrational
beings (cf. Mans
pp. 33-34). Moreover, if Locke is skeptical of the capacity of the large majority of human beings ever to become fully rational, if he expects the persistence into an indefinite future of some division of humankind into a more
truly
ian
is
rational
few
and a
less
rational
majority, then his
promotion of an egalitar
conception of
contented
rationality must involve the cultivation of a rational elite that to hide its character as an elite, at least with respect to matters of
direct
political or of
legislative
significance.
Mindful
the
peculiar requirements of political
legitimacy
or political ratio
nality, Locke
exposed
suggests that whereas
it is
unsafe
for philosophy to
appear
fully
in
public
(ECHU
2.21.20),
it may be
safer and even
salutary for it to
Equality, Property,
appear as
and
Partisanship
or at p.
53
least
in
public
"Under-Labourer"
partially exposed, as the new "natural to the same (ECHU "Epistle to the
philosop
Reader,"
10).
By
honoring
as an
"Master-Builders"
the work of the
new natural philosophy's eminent
poses
exemplary employment of human reason, Locke advances his public pur in the following ways. He establishes a prominent public model of devo
and
tion to reason
rational
truth,
of openness
to the persuasive power of evidence and

a
argumentation,
and at
the same time honors
form
of
reasoning
or of
the pursuit of truth that promises to generate very substantial utilitarian benefits
carrying in itself no significant legislative aspirations. immediate attentions toward the rather than the
while
"how"
Directing
of
their
"why"
nature, the
Lockean intellectual elite, at least in their publically influential prepare the augmentation of human power over nonhuman nature capacity, without supplying rationalizations for the partisan domination of some human
members of a
beings
by
others. seems to calculate that
Locke
the
pursuance of
this strategy will serve not
only to facilitate the production of at least that level of material abundance required for the establishment of a general, societal consensus on the protection property rights foundation for the
of as a
basic
principle of
justice, but
for
also
to
lay
the public
promotion of a societal respect
reason
in the
most gener
ally accessible manner. It will tighten as it lends greater visibility to the bond between truth and utility, encouraging a conception of tmth, if as a means, then as a means barely distinguishable from an end, indispensable for public and
private
happiness.
Moreover, just
as
it
grants
"tme Power
Honour"
and
to the
of
"wise
his
godlike"
and
prince who protects and promotes
the productive
industry
subjects
measure of
(TT 11.111, 42), so the Lockean society promises some such honor or admiring gratitude for the "generous
substantial
Pains"
(ECHU
scien
4.3.
16)
of
that class whose active technological providence is equally necessary
to the prosperity of the whole society. For the Lockean
society to honor
of
tific
explorations of some
the infinite mysteries of material nature should therefore
provide
publically beneficial direction for the indulgence
the
more mini
expansive yearnings of the
intellectually
refined or sophisticated
class; in
mizing his ostracism of the latter, Locke minimizes the potential for cultivating enemies from within, and further reinforces his claim to have identified as the
basis
of rational consensus a principle of
justice that
the
would
be both least dan

this casting
mech
gerous and
fairest to
all concerned.
The
of
question
persists,
however, concerning
extent
to
which
philosophy in the
role of underlaborer or
handmaiden
of an
essentially
anistic or nonteleological natural science can promote
among the most intellec
tually
adept members of
reason or
society the requisite devotion either to the principle of to the Lockean regime. Insofar as the desire for foundations fre
quently overpowers the desire for rational foundations, Locke has reason to believe that many even of his society's intellectually elite members will es pouse some version of his rationalized Christianity or of his workmanship argu-
54
Interpretation
the
principle of common
ment and with
human
rational
dignity
the
that he
associates
either,
and
that others more

of
secularly inclined but

of reason and
perhaps chastened
grotesque extremes
by
to
his insistent illustrations

which
the
fragility
fanciful
as
visions of
dominion
or completion can
of
carry
us will
find in his
the
utilitarian argument an adequate
justification
suggest
the same
egalitarian principle. unaware of
Yet just intrinsic

to
it
strains
credulity to
that Locke himself is
weaknesses of such who after all
Locke,
to
respond
of
charges of
arguments, so it is equally implausible to attribute is repeatedly compelled by contemporary critics to Hobbesian skepticism and nihilism, the opinion that none
cognizant of great
his
readers would view of
be
those weaknesses. And
it is further im
plausible, in
Locke's
tibility
to
disorder,
few
with of
to suggest the
sensitivity to the human mind's suscep that he could simply fail to consider the possi
bility
that a
most ambitious and
intellectually
radical of
his readers,
dissatisfied
the sober, prosaic quality of the Lockean ethic of rational

would
industriousness,
find in his
utilitarian relativism or
his Baconian harness

reduce
ing
and
of science
to the
pursuit of power an
implicit invitation to
justice to
sheer willfulness
and
thus to
isms,
In
secular visions of part
human
this
completion
morality formulate new, modem sectarian or liberation (cf. ECHU 4.4.9).
Locke
addresses
difficulty by
the desire for truth
with practical
appealing to the very alignment of interest that generates the difficulty. Thus he
those occupied
with
presents the thought and speech of
life,
even of
the ignorant
or
unschooled,
as models
the ordinary affairs of for imitation by their sup

.
posed
intellectual
superiors.
Just
. .
as
.
"ignorant Men
than those
and
can more
nicely distin
guish
[things] from
so
their
uses
learned
quick-sighted
look
deep
into
them,"
so
"Merchants
Lovers, Cooks
and
Men, who Taylors, have
Words
wherewithal
Philosophers
and
understood"
clearly 555-64).
tween rationality
raise at
ordinary Affairs; and so, I think, might Disputants too, if they had a Mind to understand, and to be (ECHU 3.6.24, 3.11.10; cf. 3.10.8-13; Zuckert [1974],
reinforce
to dispatch their
In attempting thus to
and
the linkage between truth and utility or be

of
the industrious pursuit
happiness, Locke
attempts
to
least in his nonelite,
nonspecialized readers a certain
commonsense,
pragmatic, moderately
reductionism that and tolerance that commonwealth veyors of
anti-intellectualist mistmst with regard
to the theoretical the

vitriolic
wares of professional vendors of
ideas. This intention helps

of
explain
Locke
evidently reaching the limit

against
the civility, modesty

a
he
recommends as conditions of
membership in
and of
Lockean
pur
deploys
the school philosophers, those willful
"artificial
Ignorance,
and
learned
Gibberish"
bringers
of
"Confu
sion,
Disorder,
and
Uncertainty
into the Affairs
Mankind"
(3.10.9,12;
3.10.6-13). As in the Second Treatise the threat

spirited,
of armed resistance
Fence"
by
freedom-loving
tyrants
populace represents
so
the "best
against rebellious
would-be
(226),
in the
Essay
a commonsense suspicion
that grand
legislative
moral visions
function
often as
the
decent
drapery
of
baser interests
Equality, Property,
serves
and
Partisanship
55
to
deter Locke's
Perhaps
audience
few
partisans.
by
from assenting to the domineering designs of a propagating a Baconian conception of science or by

reduction of
encouraging the interpretive

removes
thought to interest Locke thought

and action
weakens or relative
the
moral constraints on willful
for those
to
few
attentive
to the radical implications
of
that reduction;
but
if so, then
by
the
same means
he
also prepares
the majority
and
of society's members
recognize
assertions of willfulness as
such,
consequently to resist them.

popular mind
is only part, and not the more important part, of Locke's remedy for the mental disease of parti sanship. It can only be a partial remedy, both because of the imperfect align
reduction of opinion
But the
to interest in the
ment of
interest
with
justice,17
and also as
because interest is in itself

the
powerful
an unreliable
predictor of
human action, insofar

all
desire for
theoretical or
doctrinal foundations interests into the 27). Once again,
too
frequently
sweeps people against their
fundamental
1.3.21-
service of one or another partisan enthusiasm

our
(ECHU
signs of partisans must
interest in resisting the be reinforced by our

the Two
fanciful, implicitly
pride.18
tyrannical de
men and other sectarians provoke
In the Essay, the school denunciations similar in spirit to those di

not
rected against
tyranny in
Treatises,
only
or
rhetorical obfuscations conceal an antisocial
interest,
primarily because their but because their domi
neering designs constitute an affront to the pride of independent, self-disposing rational beings. The doctrine of a property in oneself, to which we gain an
effective
title through
and
a sense of respect of a rational political
for
our own rational
liberty
and
for the
"Dignity
mate
Excellency
Creature"
(STCE
of our
31),
serves as
the ulti
partisan
guarantor
in Locke's
thought
resistance
to
schemes.
Undeniably, Locke's
educational regime
involves
a certain
paradox,
in its
sure
attempt at
forming
their
an
independent-minded love
populace
in
substantial mea
by
nurturing its
upon
members'
of esteem and
therewith their sense of
dependence
are
fellows;
the members of the Lockean gentry
in
particular
to be bred to
consider
themselves estimable insofar as

proprietors.
they
are
rational,
self-disposing, self-providing, independent
This
returns of a
account of the
formation
of a popular spirit of
independent
resistance
us,
however,
to the question that Pangle raises concerning the formation

elite.
Lockean intellectual
Because
a respect
for
reason or rational
liberty
is
hardly
cators
natural, according to
extensive educational
Locke, but is instead the product regime (cf. Tarcov; Mehta, pp. 119-67),
of a subtle
but
a class of edu
is
required
to transmit across generations and across classes the respect
for reason, the linkage of pride with rationality, that is necessary to the health of a Lockean political society. In Some Thoughts Concerning Education and in
other major works as
well, Locke
offers
his
services as
the
educator of educa
tors,
although even
reserve
in this capacity and even in the Thoughts, he that he believes appropriate to a liberal elite.
maintains
the
As
vice
with
his
advice
to
natural philosophers or
to
educators or
to those primarily in
charge of
scientists, in offering his forming the opinions
ad
and
56
Interpretation
political
habits fundamental to
morality, Locke
presents
himself
not as an au
thority
or a possessor of completed
wisdom, but instead
as an underlaborer. of
In
part this means that
Locke
"rubbish"
endeavors to remove the
false
p.
moral
opinions and pedagogical principles
(ECHU "Epistle to
Reader,"
the
10);
the
properly disciplined Lockean understanding dismpts by the harsh light cal reason the recurring dreams of human completion or finality that
our minds and parents
of criti
enchant
lives. More affirmatively, it means that Locke shows how to habituate their children to a love of rational independence and
trouble
our
self-government,
while
he
persuades and exhorts
his
adult audience
similarly to
their
own
assent to no principle and
in
particular no moral principle without

Beings,"
examination,
"the
great privilege of
finite intellectual happiness
and
thus to
conduct
pursuit of
"tme
solid"
and
with
the care and constancy
befitting
be
ings thus
of
privileged
fostering a pride ing and exhorting his readers to the practice of reasoning. Locke acts as a judicious educator by imitating nature as he conceives of it, impressing upon his readers both the necessity and the dignity of a rational life, respecting their rational independence and raising their rational industry by providing only the
scattered materials or seeds of arguments
(ECHU 4.12.4, 2.21.51-52). It is in keeping with the aim in rational liberty that Locke confines his appeal to persuad
happiness. The
political
task
of
the
philosophic educator
pointing toward the nature of human involves the cultiva
tion of reason in nonphilosophers
primarily by the limited means of encourag supplying the rationale for the political protection of, their own active, industrious reflection on the nature of a life well lived.
ing,
and
By limiting
rational elite
and
in his
obscuring the legislative activity of the philosopher or the constitutional design, Locke may well intend not only to
support the
integrity
of
ciated with
of the majority of members, but also to preserve the itself against the flattering, corrupting temptations asso philosophy ruling others. The forbearance of present gratification required of
independence
all members of a emplified at straint of
Lockean
commonwealth
(especially
the
will
highest level in the Lockean

to comprehend
and
scientific elite's
STCE 38, 106-8) is disciplined
ex re
its
to promulgate the
human telos. The fact in
remains,
however,
that in requiring a class of educators to transmit a pride
reason or rational
liberty,
manner
even the
Lockean society
or of
cannot altogether escape
the need for the

still more
mle of
philosophy
serve
indirect
than that proposed
something closely akin to it, if in a by Platonic political philosophy.

effectively, the
merit or
In
order
for
a noble
lie to
its
purpose
the principle it serves must

nesses.
be
evident to those cognizant of
nobility of its literal weak

of
Insofar
as
they
recognize
the theoretical weakness or
incompleteness
the various appeals, taken in

the public mind the
themselves, whereby Locke

of
seeks to establish
in
legitimacy
the Lockean regime, those expected to propa their
gate such appeals must recognize
deeper,
more
defensibly
philosophical
justification, lest those

more
appeals
radical, allegedly
more
be contemptuously debunked and replaced by coherent ideological constructions. Despite his
Equality, Property,
visible ostracism of
and
Partisanship 57
of philoso
compelled
the claim of
wisdom
to legislative authority
phy in the complete, Platonic logic of his own argument to philosophy itself, at least in character to appreciate
and
sense of concern
the term
Locke is
by
the
himself
with
the cultivation, if not of
of an
what of
intellectual
dignifies
or
leadership
justifies
a pride
sufficiently philosophic in human reason
thus makes it worthy

arbitrariness.
defending
against
the recurring danger of
its
col
lapse into
Herein lies the ultimate, decisive question for the Lockean experiment. Al though Locke clearly intends to preserve a space for religion in the constitu
tional order he envisions, it is
circumscribed
a space
for
reformed, rationalized, politically

guide
religion, a
religion whose
function is to
to contain
its
adherents
to a
reasonable, mainly tion (cf. Zuckert [1986]; Rabieh).
secular pursuit of
happiness
as the proper avenue to salva
Seeking
not
its mentally
the serious
a
and politi alternative con
cally
disordering
effects, Locke does
treat
religion as
to reason, energizing and elevating reason
by drawing
the
it into
of
dialogue
cerning
such ultimate
issues
as
the existence and nature
God,
the soul, and
the good, and
above all
by forcing
its
it to
scrutinize
worth of
the rational life
itself. Reason is to in Locke's design,

the
acquire
self-awareness and
its
measure of on
self-respect,
rather
by
setting its
sights at
least
initially
the low
than
high,
on power rather
than the good, on
happiness
than
excellence
(cf. Tarcov,
171-73)
by deriving
pp.
or utility rather than its initial inspiration from an
experimental,
religious ableness
mechanistic natural science rather or revelation
from
a confrontation with
wisdom or reason
faith
of
(cf. Pangle,
274-75). The
Locke's departure from
premodern political
philosophy depends
ultimately
upon
ence to point
power over
the capacity of the non-Socratic beyond its preoccupation with the
means of modem natural sci experimental augmentation of
nature, to facilitate
or engender a more
properly Socratic
apprecia
tion of the worth of the rational
life.
Whatever
the
else
he may have in mind, Locke
insistently
directs the
readers of
Essay
toward technological
or power-oriented rather
than toward contem
plative pursuits
(cf.
ing
of
to "the
charm
1.1.5, 2.23.12-13, 4.12.10-12). If it is to avoid succumb of (Strauss [1959], p. 40), lapsing into a state
competence"
intoxication
by
its
own unprecedented of
technological prowess and ultimately

as
its ability to conceive power, the Lockean society
losing
reasoning
anything
other
than an assertion of
must preserve a societal consciousness of
human
limits,
rooted
in turn in
a consciousness
grounds of
the
principles of
among its intellectual leadership of the human freedom and dignity that its political and
recognize
technological
power
is to
serve.
For this
sions of
reason above
all, it is important to
that Locke's profes
humility as the animating spirit of the Essay (e.g., 1.1.4) are neither fundamentally disingenuous nor inconsistent with a proper pride in reason. In
his
support of modem natural science and
persists a certain
in his
critical assessment of
its
pros
pects, there
Socratic
element capable of
supplying
a crucial
58
basic
Interpretation
moral orientation.
Within
present
confines, it is impossible to discuss in
detail Locke's
complicated critical account of natural science.
The
of
point worth
emphasizing here, however, is

conversation
that
especially
viewed
in the light
his
ultimate
preference of the modem natural scientists to the theologians or the
faithful
as of
partners, Locke's
enterprise carries
repeated emphasis on
the inherent limitations
the
formers'
potentially
of
great significance.
Whereas the
natural
pro
gressive experimental
discovery
the powers inherent in
substances
holds the Baconian
enhancing human power to harness the forces of nature, it is at least equally important that insofar as the precise natural es sences of things are ultimately unknowable, the powers of natural substances in
promise of principle
infinite
in
and
the uses to which
they may be
"that
put at
best
imperfectly
iron
conceivable
advanceas cf.
the case
Mineral"
of
one contemptible
illustrates (4.12.11;
nature edge.
4.6.11)
Locke's
utilitarian rationale
necessarily
reinforces our awareness of
for the study of the incompleteness of our knowl

the benefits of such
upon our
The
continuation and enhancement of our enjoyment of as we can acquire
knowledge
capacity to
depends, in Locke's
argument,
abiding
pre our
awareness of
the mysteriousness of the whole of
being
and therewith upon our
resist
the temptation to order or reorder our condition
in the
sumption of the completeness of our
continuing
pacity to
within
enjoyment of
knowledge. More affirmatively stated, the benefits of our knowledge depends upon our
the
ca
sustain a proper sense of

of a condition of of nature
dignity
of our
ongoing
rational
striving
the limits
"Mediocrity"
(4.
14.2, 4. 12. 10)

best partial,
that yields us
experimental
no
final knowledge
or
creation, but
at
knowledge distrustful
"partial knowledge
pp.
parts,"
of
if in
a manner more
consistently
of the classical principle of
be (cf. Strauss [1953],

can
we
teleology than Plato's Socrates appears to 120-26; [1964], pp. 19-21). Only through the
of
acceptance and affirmation of the

achieve
necessity of the life full self-possession. Modem natural form

and
disciplined striving science represents in
Locke's
rational of
account that
promise of power
in
power-seeking which, by holding before us the only in reason, best or most safely energizes our
of
us a respect
striving while teaching human wisdom and power.
for human
reason and
for the limits
Ill
If it is
theless
appropriate to the nature of
the problem that he addresses, it is

that
none
a source of no small
difficulty
Locke
makes no attempt at
demon
strating that the grounding of the culture of his intellectual elite in modem natural science will have the desired pedagogical effect. In the course of the
foregoing
argument
I have tried to
show
that whereas
moderately inegalitarian property right holds the
key
to
Locke's defense his attempt at
of a
managing
Equality, Property,
the
and
Partisanship
59
directly
political problem of class
division
or
partisanship, the
principle of
property in oneself in which that right is grounded amounts to a principle individual moral self-disposal and therefore requires the partial ostracism
self-concealment of ular with respect to
of
or
the intellectual
leadership
In
of
the Lockean society, in
partic
its capacity to
provide public guidance
for the
members of
that society in their
moral reasoning.
insisting
upon
the partial hiddenness of
his intellectual elite, Locke

of
appears to accept as a
licensing
a radical and
inherently
unstable
necessary risk the possibility egalitarianism, in the light of

appear
which all conceptions of
happiness
least
and moral
judgments
equally defen
sible or
indefensible.
provides at
clear
Yet Locke
son.
suggestive
hints
of a
broader
conception of rea
In making
his
appreciation of
the theoretical limitations

of reason and readers
of modem own
natural
science, in affirming the
dignity
maintaining his
to the pursuit of
genuine
rational
devotion to the truth, and in exhorting his happiness, Locke lays the foundation for
tme,
an ascent
from the narrowly
scientific perspective openness of the order of
to a fuller, more specifically philosophic reflection on the human understanding to the ultimate mysteriousness of the nature, and on the significance of that openness for guiding and elevat
ing
to
the
rational conception and pursuit of mind's errant
happiness. Ever
seems
mindful of
the need
discipline the
as much as
imaginings, Locke
to calculate that
he
is necessary or prudentially advisable, in preparing but only the preparing way for a continuing reflection on the limits of human science and power, leaving the true legislative task of moral reasoning to the delibera does
tions of individuals in
private. render a
At this
Lockean
point
it is difficult to
definite judgment
on
the
power of
the
constitution
broadly
of
conceived
to preserve
its
moral
foundation
against
the various forces that threaten to fracture it. One may
well sympathize with
Locke's
assessment with
the
general
practical
failure
of premodern
summum
political
thought,
problem some
its
explicit orientation moderation and
toward some form of
bonum,
to
promote political
Locke
sets
for himself
and
legitimacy. Yet the very difficulty of the the delicacy of his approach to it warrant
doubt concerning his
prospects
for
success over the
long
term. It requires
after all a
same
very subtle, precisely

and
calibrated appeal
in
part
to ostracize and at the
time to cultivate reason, to sustain the soundness of private reasoning

virtue
about
about
tme happiness
while
them. Locke seems to expect
maintaining a general public silence the intellectual leadership of the society he

more
envisions
to know more, and somehow even to transmit
concerning the
willing
unam
tme basis of the
dignity
in
In
of
human
reason
than
or
its
members are of
biguously
itself
to
explain
public.
Yet the fact

resistance
likelihood
this expectation
of
is
significant.
view of
his
to the extreme
implications
the
modem conventionalist conception of reason that
he himself develops in the

the dependence
of
Essay, it
health
appears most
likely
that Locke is
republic on
fully
aware of
the
of the modem
liberal
its
preservation of some element of
its
60
Interpretation
inheritance (cf. STCE 185-86;
also
premodern
Locke's 1697 draft letter to the
Countess
of
Peterborough,
and
"Some Thoughts
pp.
Concerning Reading
395-96,
may
399-400).
and
Study
this
for
Gentleman,"
a
current
Educational Writings,
marked
In the
intellectual climate,
more
by
deepening
obliviousness
of
dependence,
in the
the recovery of such an
awareness
well require a some
what more pmdent
explicit,
forceful
expression which
than Locke believed necessary or

wrote.
climate of opinion of
in
he
At the
same
time, Locke's
should
clear appreciation earn
the dangers of partisan,
moralistic
enthusiasms
him
to
a me
sympathetic
hearing
seems
that the
continuities
among contemporary liberal audiences. It between the Lockean and premodern tradi
our most careful
tions of political tempt to
rationalism
deserve
consideration, as we at
manifestations of a prob
understand and
to
address
the contemporary
lem, the mind's seemingly constant susceptibility to partisan or irrational devotions, with which Locke was centrally concerned. For the aim of a sound liberalism, as Locke sees it, is not to achieve the liberation of the will or the final, theoretical resolution of the problem of partisanship by perfecting an egalitarian, morally neutral mode of discourse, but instead to nurture effec
tively
the
power of
reasoning
and
the
respect
for it
by
which alone we
become
capable of self-government.
NOTES
1. This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington, D.C. I am grateful to Professor Michael Zuckert for his helpful comments on this paper and to Professor Zuckert and Professor Thomas Engeman for their
comments on
the larger argument of which this article
constitutes a part.
2. I employ the term

arranging which he
offices or
"constitutionalism"
to
refer not
only
or
distributing
governmental
powers, but more
primarily to Locke's manner of broadly to the design according to

compose a
seeks
to form and arrange the various elements or classes of people that
healthy
be
political society.
3. Citations
cited as
,
of
Locke's
works will appear as section number.
follows.
Of the
Conduct of the
Understanding
will
CU followed
by
cited as CJL, followed by letter number. An Essay ECHU, followed by book, chapter, and paragraph numbers. A Letter Concerning Toleration will be cited as LCT, followed by page number from the James Tully edition. Questions Concerning the Law of Nature will be cited as LN, followed by question and page numbers from the edition of Robert Horwitz et al. Some Thoughts Concerning Education will be cited as STCE, followed by paragraph number. Two Treatises of Government will be cited as TT, followed by treatise and paragraph numbers. Passages drawn from The Works of John Locke will be cited as Works, fol
The Correspondence of John Locke will be Concerning Human Understanding will be
cited as
lowed
by
volume and page numbers. chapter
4. Locke introduces this desire abruptly in

stage of expansive
5, apparently
the
to mark a transition from one
the prepolitical state of nature to another. He suggests that "in the
beginning,
before"
this
desire "had
altered
the intrinsick value of
things,"
right to
appropriate was
limited to
what one could
directly
or use
use or consume
(11.37,
or
emphasis supplied).
Strictly
speaking,
however,
desire 11.111
Locke
refers
to a condition before desire beyond necessity had a specific effect, namely the alter values; he makes
and
ation of
intrinsic
implies
no comment
concerning
whether such
were present
in the
beginning
simply
otherwise
focused.
Similarly, Locke's
reference at
Equality, Property,
to a golden age seems to
were not
and
Partisanship
61
mean that in an age of tribal, patriarchal monarchy, antisocial passions simply absent, but instead typically directed externally, against other peoples, rather than
internally
against one's own.
5. "For in every city these two diverse humors are found, which arises from this: that the people desire neither to be commanded nor oppressed by the great, and the great desire to com
mand and oppress
the people.
From these
two
diverse
chap.
appetites one of p.
three effects occurs in cities:
principality or liberty or 6. In view of Locke's Cox

exaggerates
license"
(The Prince
9,
39).
estimate of
the power of the expansive, fanciful
desires, it
appears
that
in ascribing to Locke the opinion that there exists "a discernible natural hierarchy is primordial, universally operative, and the among the desires; the desire for self-preservation desires" most powerful of all (p. 88). Goldwin exaggerates similarly: 'The desire for preservation
. .
can
power"
or cajoled, but there is no way to diminish or eradicate its overwhelming (p. 484). Were this simply true, the law of nature would be far less than it is for Locke (see LN 1.111, 2.135, 10.217), and the need for him to write books like the Two Treatises
be
diverted, directed,
"hidden"
much
less
urgent.
7. Polin (p.
6)
compares
Locke's
conception of of
property to that
of
Hegel, observing
that prop
erty for Locke "is the external manifestation existence for and not only for others.
others,"
his
liberty by
the
domination,
the
freedom, its expression and its very concrete "Every man, being equal to every other, manifests (p. 6). Similarly, for Rapaczynski ownership of his
property"
Lockean "appropriation is the fundamental activity which ment from the natural environment and to achieve his
conception of
permits man
to
overcome
his
estrange
autonomy"
(p. 180). The
difficulty
in this
appropriation, taken to its extreme, is implicit in Strauss's observation that

nature"
labor, for
Locke
sive"
for Hegel, "is a negative attitude toward (1953, p. 250). 8. The general thrust of MacPherson's reading as well as his employment of the term "posses to describe Lockean individualism appears to carry this connotation. Yet even MacPherson
as
explains
that he refers
also
fundamentally
pp.
to a doctrine of possession of self or of

qualified objections
individual autonomy
(p. 3). Contrast
Fukuyama's only mildly

xvii,
commanded
to the spiritlessness of Anglo-
Saxon liberalism
(especially
his Reason
153-61, 186-95).
9. "God
of
and
[Man]
to subdue the
Earth, i.e. improve it for

labour"
the benefit
(11.32; also 34, 35). something upon it that was his own, his Locke's ambiguous argument in the First Treatise that charity, if not justice, accords the needy a to another's surplus (42) implies that the destitute have in the extremity of their condition a Life,
and therein
lay
out
"Right"
Natural necessity or the natural condition of (32; cf. 35, 37) confers upon us not only the right but also the obligation to labor productively, in order to lay the foundation of justice or civil concord by eliminating the need for charity in either its traditional
right to theft
"penury"
or even robbery.
or
Lockean
variant.
Cf. Strauss (1953),
p.
239n.,
and
Pangle,
p.
.
144. Contrast Dunn (1968).
if rightly directed, may be of 10. See especially ECHU 4.12.12: "The Study of Nature greater benefit to Mankind, than the Monuments of exemplary Charity, that have at so great Charge This emphasis in the Essay and been raised, by the Founders of Hospitals and Alms-houses. the Two Treatises on the technological overcoming of the need for charity represents Locke's resolution of the problem of scarcity that he had formulated in the early Questions Concerning the
Law of Nature, 11.245-49. 11. See STCE 207; Works 5.54, 64, 72, 163; CJL No. 1693, January 19, 1694; King, pp. 98. Wood observes aptly that in "Locke's vocabulary, labor, industry, perseverance, sobriety,
usefulness replaced aristocratic
"
97and
honor,
pride,
dignity,
non-utilita
spirit,
and
the
(1983,
p.
148;
also p.
128).
such an appeal also to those adults who are animated
"Prince"
12. Locke directs

or
by
the
highest
ambition
the most
profound
and encouragement
narrownesse of
desire for dominion, suggesting that that to the honest industry of Mankind against the
not
who secures
"protection
the
oppression of power and
Party,"
only "will quickly be too hard for his especially

and
neighbours,"
truly legitimate
vulnerable and
government
by
prerogative
power,
at
times
when
but in preserving a legitimacy is most
esteem,
becoming
arbitrary the "wise
absolutism
therefore most
inviting
would earn and
the highest distinction and
godlike"
bearer
of
"true Power
Honour"
(11.42, 111, 166).
62
Interpretation
13. "Laurels
Honours,"
and
Locke takes
care
to affirm, "are
always
those
who venture
their Lives for their
Country"
(STCE 115). In his "the Hurons
justly due to the Valour of diary entry of December 12,

Canada
with
1678, he
such
remarks on the power of this
desire to
make
and other people of p.
torments"
constancy
pp.
endure such unexpressible
(in Educational Writings,
153n.). See Hor
witz,
136-41.
great fear of Burke, of course, who sees in the French revolutionaries an intoxicated lust for innovation for its own sake, a radically negative, destructive willfulness that is the direct consequence of the theoretical doctrine of natural freedom as pure negation or indeter
14. Such is the
minacy (Reflections on the Revolution in France, passim). The failure to take fully seriously the naturalness of the ills of the state of nature accounts for the partiality in the reading of Locke as a
teacher of individual moral autonomy. In his otherwise admirable
moral
dimension
of
concern with our

and
attempt at revealing a genuinely Locke's thought, Rapaczynski tends, for instance, to underemphasize Locke's natural alienation from other human beings, not merely from nonhuman nature,
political
thus to underemphasize the essentially defensive character of Locke's
thought (pp.
9,
difficulty in this reading lies in the fact that an unmixed emphasis on the aim of pure moral, that is, individual autonomy would ultimately undermine any limitations on the assertions of individual wills, and thus exacerbate precisely those natural ills that the Lockean
regime
113-217). The basic
is intended to
overcome.
Cf.
note
above. of reduction still
15. Locke
supplies
the basis for pushing this process
further, in suggesting
that the passions themselves are
further
reducible
to the status of simple ideas or sensations, thus
implying
the radical malleability of the desires and the possibility in principle, through a grand,
re-education, of resolving once and for all the partisan differences among humankind (cf. ECHU 2.20 with 2.21.45-46, 69; also 3.9.18-19). As Pangle acknowledges, however, Locke makes this suggestion only tentatively and does not pursue its
comprehensive scheme of education or extreme
implications (pp. 212-14).

attempt at
16. Cf. Hobbes's

even
formulating
the rules or laws of nature in a manner

p.
"intelligible,
capacity"
to the meanest
(Leviathan 15,
order
214).
and
17.
Surely
Locke is
aware that although
his "Merchants
get what
interest in communicating clearly in easily

move cause of
to
they
want
them to communicate untruth as truth. In such

upon the vigilance of certain
in particular may have an from others, their interest could as cases the attachment of interest to the
even us often enough
Lovers"
truthfulness depends
those
with whom one communicates
including
ourselves.
oneself, if it be true that
forms
of
felt interest lead
to deceive
18. On the
Such is the limited utility of Locke's appeal to interest. interplay between pride and interest in American constitutionalism,
chapters
see
Mansfield
(1991), especially
and
7.
REFERENCES
Ackerman, Bruce. Social Justice in the Liberal State. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. Ashcraft, Richard. Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Ed. Thomas Mahoney. Indi anapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955. Cohen, Joshua. "Structure, Choice, and Legitimacy: Locke's Theory of the Phi
State."
losophy
and
Public Affairs 15 (1986): 310-24.

Theory."
Cox, Richard. Locke on War and Peace. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960. Dunn, John. "Justice and the Interpretation of Locke's Political
Studies 16 (1968): 68-87. Locke. Oxford: Oxford
Political
University Press,
1984.
Equality, Property,
and
Partisanship
63
The Political Thought of John Locke. Cambridge: Cambridge 1969.
University Press,
Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History

1992.
and the
Last Man. New York: The Free Press,
Galston, William. Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. In Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, eds. History of Goldwin, Robert. "John
.
Locke."
Political Philosophy. 2d.
ed.
Chicago:
University
of
Chicago Press, 1972.

of
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Ed. C.B. MacPherson. New York: Penguin, 1968. Horwitz, Robert. "John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty: A Perennial Problem
Civic
ville:
Education."
University
and
In The Moral Foundations of Press of Virginia, 1979.

and
the
American Republic. Charlottes
Jefferson, Thomas. The Life

Koch
Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Ed. Adrienne
William Peden. New York: Modern Library, 1944. Kendall, Willmoore. John Locke and the Doctrine of Majority Rule. Urbana:
of
University
Illinois Press, 1941.
King, Peter, The Life and Letters of John Locke. London: Colburn and Bentley, 1830. Larmore, Charles. Patterns of Moral Complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Locke, John. Of the Conduct of the Understanding. Ed. Francis Garforth. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1966.
The Correspondence of John Locke. 8
vols.
Ed. E.S. De Beer. Oxford: Claren
don Press, 1976. The Educational Writings of John Locke. Ed. James Ax tell. Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1968.
..
An
Essay Concerning Human
Understanding. Ed. Peter Nidditch. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975. A Letter Concerning Toleration. Ed. James Tully. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983. Questions Concerning the Law of Nature. Ed. Robert Horwitz, Jenny Strauss
Clay,
and
Diskin Clay. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press,
1990.
Two Treatises of Government. Ed. Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1960.
The Works of John Locke. 10 vols. London: Thomas Tegg et al., 1823. Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Ed. Harvey Mansfield, Jr. Chicago: University
..
of
Chicago Press, 1985. MacPherson, C.B. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
to
Locke.
Mansfield, Harvey, Jr. America's Constitutional Soul. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni versity Press, 1991. In Alkis Kontos, ed., "On the Political Character of Property in of Toronto Freedom. Toronto: and Press, 1979. Powers, Possessions, University 1989. Prince. New York: Free the Press, Taming Mehta, Uday Singh. The Anxiety of Freedom: Imagination and Individuality in Locke's Political Thought. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
Locke."
..
Pangle, Thomas. The Spirit of Modern Press, 1988.
Republicanism. Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Plato. The Republic of Plato. Ed. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
64
Interpretation
Freedom."
Polin, Raymond. "John Locke's Conception

Locke: Problems
tianity."
of
and
Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge

of
In John Yolton, ed., John University Press, 1969. Chris
Rabieh, Michael. "The Reasonableness
Locke,
or the Questionableness of
Journal of Politics 53 (1991): 933-57.
Rapaczynski, Andrzej. Nature and Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987. Rawls, John. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On the Social Contract. Ed. Roger Masters. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978. In C.B. Martin and D.M. Ryan, Alan. "Locke and the Dictatorship of the Locke City: and Berkeley. Garden Doubleday, 1968. Armstrong, eds., Allen and Unwin, 1968. London: Martin. The Liberal Politics John Locke. Seliger, of Cambridge Univer Cambridge: Ian. The Evolution Rights in Theory. Liberal Shapiro, of 1986. sity Press, Strauss, Leo. The City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Bourgeoisie."
Natural Right
and
History. Chicago:
University
.
of
Chicago Press, 1953.
Glencoe, Tarcov, Nathan. Locke's Education for Liberty Chicago: University

1984.
What Is Political Philosophy?
IL: Free Press, 1959.

of
Chicago Press,
Tully, James. A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Wood, Neal. John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. The Politics of Locke's Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1983.
Zuckert, Michael. "Fools

Discourse."
and
Knaves: Reflections
Religion."
on
Locke's
Theory
of
Philosophic
Review of Politics 36 (1974): 544-64. In Robert Horwitz, ed., The Moral "Locke and the Problem of Civil
Foundations of the American Republic. Charlottesville: 1986.
University
Press
of
Virginia,
Women in the Novels

Jeffrey J. Poelvoorde
Converse College
of
Nathaniel Hawthorne
.It
somewhat startled me to overhear a number of
appearance, proposing to
assume
fling
with
their gowns and petticoats
ladies, highly respectable in into the flames, and

and
the garb, together

sex."
the manners,
duties,
offices,
responsibilities, of
the opposite
"Earth's
Holocaust"1
Near the
middle of
Nathaniel Hawthorne's first

a tale
major and most successful
novel, The Scarlet
Letter,
ostensibly
concerned
primarily
with
the private
and public consequences of
adultery,
guilt and
revenge, the
reader encounters
this remarkable
passage:
Indeed,
the same dark question often rose into her [Hester
Prynne's]
mind,
with
reference to the whole race of womanhood.
Was
existence worth
accepting, even to
the happiest among them? As concerned her own individual existence, she had
ago
long
decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation, though it may keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad.
She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her. As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew. Then, the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified, before
and suitable position. woman can
be
allowed
to assume
what seems a
fair
Finally,
all other
difficulties
being
obviated,
woman cannot undergone
take advantage
of
these
a still mightier change;
preliminary reforms, until she herself shall have in which, perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein
evaporated.
she
has
these
her truest life,

problems
way.
will
be found to have
woman never overcomes
any If her heart
by
exercise of thought. chance to come
They
are not
to be solved, or only in one

vanish.2
uppermost,
they
And,
after
near
the
end of events
the novel, Hawthorne that form the

of women core of
relates
how Hester, many

advice and solace:
years
the tragic
the narrative, would attempt to
assuage
the broken hearts
coming to her for

best
Hester
of
comforted and counselled them as
she might. when
She
assured
them,
order
too,
her firm belief, that,
at some
own
brighter period,
a new
the world should have
grown ripe
for it, in Heaven's
time,
truth
would
be revealed, in
to establish the whole relation

mutual
between
man and woman on a surer ground of
happiness. (P. 240)
interpretation, Fall
1994, Vol. 22, No. 1
66
Interpretation
These
passages suggest that
Hawthorne's interest in
laying
before the
of
public
this sad
story
and
of sin and persecution transcended the
exploration
the emo
tions of guilt and revenge, or even the
exploration of
the American polity's

spec
founding
transformations.3
The
above glimpses
into Hester Prynne's

point
ulations provided
by
the
sympathetic narrator
Hawthorne
to his widest
intention in revealing her suffering and thoughts: the promulgation of a new order between the sexes in the world. Moreover, the themes of the respective
characters of the
sexes, their
proper are
relations, and the desirable

concern of all
political and
legal
context of
their relations
out a
the abiding
his
novels.4
Haw
lay teaching is a feminist one, in so far as he wishes a world which is vastly different from the traditional world around him, one which, with certain exaggerations, is also the world which produced
thorne's novels
teaching: that
Hester Prynne's
which
suffering.
In the
world
governed of
by
the "new
truth"
with
Hester
soothed
the feminine
wounds
would enter
into the
wider stream of
her contemporaries, women human life beyond the domestic sphere,

governance and even securing their degree. Their domestic relations, too, with their husbands. In sum, the gen
assuming
economic
would
a voice
in their
at
own political
independence,
least to
to
some
be founded in
an equal
friendship
eral subordination of women
men as a political class and
the specific subor
dination Fuller
of wives
to husbands
would give
way to
an arrangement more
firmly
grounded
and
in Nature. With
others, Hawthorne
Mary
saw
Wollstonecraft, Abigail Adams, Margaret and welcomed the change in the status of
women
in the
world as part of was
the ever-increasing awareness of natural rights
and
equality that
of a resort
embrace of
revolutionizing the human condition everywhere. Yet his feminist transformation, like his embrace of revolutionary changes
to
bom
Nature,
was
warning.5
If the overcoming
of subordination would
significantly tempered and accompanied by a free women from the tyr
anny
of
men,
it
could also
destroy
the proper foundations

was a cautious one. rooted
of social
happiness in the world, let alone life. Although Hawthorne was a feminist, he
women's proper relations of the sexes was some of which stemmed quest
His teaching regarding the

of
in
a vivid presentation and some
their
differences,
In the
of
from Nature itself

cal
from
convention.
for
social and politi could
equality, those
at
differences (regardless
their provenance)
only be
ignored
the psychic peril of women and men and the larger justice and stabil
ity
of society.
As
we shall
see, the relations between the sexes,
more than
any
other
issue in human life for

and
Hawthorne,
of
raised
the question
of
the character,
about
strength
women's place
pervertability in the world

without
the
passions.
Hawthorne's teachings
are an attempt to create a
truly happier
and
juster
place
for them
destroying
provide clues sidered
and attitudinal changes he con necessary to women's "fair and suitable We shall trace through his five major novels, beginning with his first novel, Fanshawe, and
position."
Without presenting an elaborate for constructing the institutional
possibility of happiness and justice. program for reform, Hawthorne's novels do
the
Women in
concluding
tions.6
Hawthorne'
Novels
67
with shall
We
The Marble Faun, his view of the sexes then be in a better position to consider
and
their proper rela
whether or not
Haw
thorne
ing
has anything important to say to men and women in the present regard the best direction for the ongoing revolution in "the whole system of
society."
FANSHAWE
Fanshawe, Hawthorne's first

a
novel
and
first,
anonymous publication
is
clumsy blend of adventure story and character study. There is no comprehen sive look at the place of women in society, but the novel does examine the relationship between men and women, presenting themes that recur through
Hawthorne's later
reclusive and gland
and more successful works. student at
It is the story
of
Fanshawe,
hardworking
Harley
College (a
second-order
New En
Ellen Langton, the beautiful ward of the president of Harley, Dr. Melmoth. Ellen, who has fallen in love with Fanshawe's spirited friend and fellow student, Edward Wolcott, is about to be
college),
who almost marries
deceived into
but
marriage
by
a sinister
stranger,
Butler, bom
and raised
in the
locality away for many years in questionable pursuits. When his deceit fails, Butler abducts Ellen, but Fanshawe rescues her. From gratitude, Ellen
now
to marry Fanshawe. Out of nobility or friendship or a simple recognition Ellen's love for Edward Wolcott, he demurs, paving the way for Edward and Ellen to marry. Fanshawe eventually studies himself to death at the age of
offers
of
twenty,
marriage
while
Ellen
and
Edward
spend
the rest of their lives together in a
powerful
"uncommonly happy": "Ellen's gentle, almost imperceptible, but influence drew her husband away from the passions and pursuits that
with
would
have interfered
domestic
felicity;
him"
and
he
never regretted the
worldly
distinction The
women,
couples
of which she
thus deprived
(p. 80).
men and
novel and
is really about successful and failed pairings between what happens to men when they fail to marry. There in Fanshawe: Dr.
and
are three
contrasted
Crombie (the former Widow Hutchins) and (and the two potential couples of Ellen-Fanshawe
these couples, the female
real world. offers
Mrs. Melmoth, Hugh and Dame Ellen Langton and Edward Wolcott
and
Ellen-Butler). In
each of
stability,
rootedness and connection with spiritual and
the
In the
case of
Dr.
Melmoth,
good-natured,
ineffectual,
something of a shrew at the beginning of the novel. As the story unfolds, however, and Dr. Melmoth is called upon to act to aid in Ellen's rescue, it is Mrs. Melmoth who directs him and initiates his move
wife presented as
his
is
ments; he is utterly
recognizes
at a
loss
as
to how to
proceed
practically,
and
actually
Har
her "common
sense"
and
"firmer
mind"
(p. 47).
Hugh Crombie is the innkeeper
who often plays
host to the
students at
ley. He is
remarkable
in the story
not
only for the
role
that he plays in enabling
68
Interpretation
out certain aspects of
Butler to carry
the two
quency.
his
plan
to marry
Ellen, but
in
also
because
were companions
The two
stand as
in their youth, often contrasts: both started up

so.
associated
pranks and
delin
crimi
out
down life's
the
other
path
into
nality, but only Butler
ended
Crombie,
on
hand,
married
the to
Widow Sarah Hutchins

enlist
and underwent a transformation.
As Butler
attempts
him in his scheme, he finds that his former friend has become honest, law-abiding and even soft-hearted, so much so that he is forced to ask: "Why,
Hugh,
worse
what
has
come over you since we
last
met?
Have
we not
night?"
deeds
of a
morning,
and
laughed
over
them at
done twenty Crombie replies last two

years"
that
his "conscience has

and
grown
unreasonably
and still
of
tender within the
(p. 31). Butler, too, pathy bitter
once
had,
has,
occasional
bursts
of
sadness, sym
pass
longing
in it to
to join the ranks
society, but these
moods
usually
in
loneliness,
outweighed repent.
much evil
by his opinion Nothing or no one

in his
youth.
that his life already contains too
has
ever entered
his life
since
he
deserted his
widowed mother
His
plan
to entrap Ellen Langton in
only from the desire for wealth and respectability, and the pecu liar opportunity that her father's status as a seafaring merchant affords him. Edward Wolcott, the man whom Ellen finally marries, is a handsome, spir
marriage stems
ited, but
proud and
hot-tempered young
and violent
man.
Because
of
his hurt vanity, for
example, he becomes drunk
damaged pride, which Crombie
almost entangles
rescues
in Crombie's inn, and, to assuage his himself in a pistol duel with Butler (from
him). He eventually leams to govern his temper and restrain his easily-awakened jealousies, primarily in response to seeing the ef fect that his behavior has upon Ellen. And, as mentioned earlier, Ellen ties him
down to
Ellen
domesticity by
urge
the end of the novel, which
more
than compensates
for
his incipient
for worldly distinction. Langton, the central female character of the novel, is the only daugh ter of a merchant father absorbed in the pursuit of wealth, who realizes, too late, that his wealth means nothing compared to the potential marital bliss that
he has
resume
sacrificed
in the
pursuit of
his
career
(p. 6). Before he
can return
to
his
paternal
relationship
with
dealings in
country and asks her.7 Ellen is extraordinarily but accessibly beautiful, attractive sibility for without being intimidating. Most important, she infuses everything around her
with
another
Ellen, though, he must finish his business Dr. and Mrs. Melmoth to assume respon
sunny
is
not
enthusiasm and a good-natured
devotion
and skill
in the domestic in the liberal

as
arts,
arts
all wielded with attentive
love. Moreover, her

men at
own education
inconsiderable,
attracted to
as
the young
Harley
have discovered
they
try is, however,

promised to
to attract her attention
with sweet verses
Edward
by
virtue
when
in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. She of his handsome features, which
be
"manly
dignified"
and
fully
adult, his
"respectable"
char
his gentlemanly disposition. But the novel is named for Fanshawe, so his dilemma is the one that Haw thorne wishes to focus his attention upon. Fanshawe is introduced into
acter as a scholar and
readers'
Women in
the story
as a
Hawthorne'
Novels
69
shy, retiring, young man,
barely
connected with the world except
through his studies. Although his health is in

so
that Dr. Melmoth has instmcted him to take

possessed of a
decline from overwork, so much daily horse rides to improve it,

Nature bestows
all potential.
he "was
face
and
form
in
such as
on none
but her
gifted
favorites"
(p. 11). Fanshawe

cannot actualize
is,
other
words,
Although
by
nature, he
those gifts in adult human society. He is "uncon
nected with
the world, unconcerned in its

and
any
of
his
pursuits"
through
his
studies.
feelings, and uninfluenced by it in led on, in fact, by the desire to attain immortality Hawthorne reveals to the reader, disclosing the part of
hidden
even
Fanshawe's "inmost
heart"
to
himself,
that this
fame"
longing
for immor
tality is actually a concealed "dream of undying desires the goods of the world, but cannot attain them
tween what
(p. 14). He
perhaps
deeply
because his
imagination is uncontainable, therefore setting up an unbridgeable distance be he desires and what he can attain. On meeting Ellen and Edward
riding one day, he falls in love with her, although never entertains any hope of fulfilling his longings. Although galvanized into heroism by the threat to her,
he
relinquishes the
possibility
of
marrying her
and returns
to his fatal
studies.
Fanshawe is
hood.8
an adolescent who never makes
the transition into concrete adult
Longing
abstraction and seem
its goods, but lost in unfocussed passion, imagination, he passes from its precincts. Although he would
world and
of
for the
to be the opposite
Butler, he is
Butler
as
as unrooted
and
just
as
lost
and
wandering in the realm of like and unlike Fanshawe

same
self and selfishness. or
And
each of
the other males, as
they may be,
would
have
suffered
the
fate
as these two
had he
not married. out most of
In Fanshawe Hawthorne lays

nate
the major themes that will domi
his
subsequent
important both
fiction.9
The
relations our
between
men and women
are central society.
to understanding
of
our
happiness,
psychology
and our
fates in
men and
Because
natural potential and conventional each other and need each other.
shaping,
women are
different from in the
The
major psycho
"abstract,"
logical traits
given to
of men and women

world
fall along these lines:

and under
it.10
men are more
living
and
of,
the sway of, society's external opin
ion
and the unfocussed passions attached to
Women
are more
tied with the
internal
world that
the domestic, with sympathy and concrete reality. Tme, the social forms the background of the novel is the traditional and conventional
worldliness and
world of male
female
outward
domesticity
dependence
women
and goes of
uncriticized
upon males
in
Hawthorne's treatment. Yet the subtly

and
females
is
ironically
reversed. and are
Although the
live in their
roles shaped
therefore ostensibly dependent upon them, it is dependent upon the females. Women give actuality to the truly men's capacity to live fully in the world, and a man who fails to connect his life with a woman's either falls into a deformed masculinity, untouched by
by
male
expectations,
males who are
reality or sympathy, or a deficient masculinity, incapable of playing a man's role in the world. Without the specific, concrete tie to a particular female, men
70
Interpretation
become
cents,
ineffectual,
ethereal, superficial, wandering,
boyishly
selfish
adoles
unable
fully
traits that are

even
into the world, or, if doing so, fail to develop those respect for others or necessary for entering into it with honesty,
to enter
for
society's conventions.
THE SCARLET LETTER
The Scarlet Letter

nize
was
the
first
major work
in
which
Hawthorne did
scruti
the social environment

themselves."
of men's and women's
relationship
as
as much as
the
relationships
The Puritan community, both

as
the environment of
Hester Prynne's story and as the forerunner of nities (see note 3), is vividly portrayed, not only
public realm and
visibly.12
subsequent
American
commu
the community in which the

men mle
practically chases out the private, but where It is a community that provides neither
abolition of public and private
completely
refuge
voice
nor
to
women. gender
The
is tantamount to the
eradication of
distinction,
are
the attempt to conventionalize the heart.

major
There
four
female
characters or sets of
characters, representing
different degrees Mistress Hibbins

of
of
the "conventionalized heart": Hester

the Puritan
Prynne, Pearl Prynne,

in the
and
Women, primarily
its
end.
portrayed a
beginning
of
the novel, but also
briefly
at
There is
within
spectrum
among them,
moving from those

of
women who stand
firmly
the circle of society
the male society of the Puritan fathers
to those
who stand most

women
firmly
outside
it,
nay, actively
seek to
destroy
it. The Puritan

at
in the
the
crowd of
spectators
watching Hester's humiliation

men on which
men
the
beginning
of
of
novel are
dis
tinguished from the
the platform meting out the punishment only
in the
severity with they fault the
they
would punish
Hester. Devoid
for
being
too merciful;
they
would
pity or compassion, inflict either branding or
death. Save for the young woman clutching her child who senses Hester's pain (and who subsequently dies), there is no tenderness among them, no identifica
tion with the movements of the
"socialized,"
as we would
them; Hawthorne's
They are women who have been fully fully integrated into the male community around implication is that they are fully At the
say,
"masculinized."
heart.'3
other end of the spectrum
Bellingham, tionship
and are
who
is Mistress Hibbins, the unmarried sister of Governor frolics in the forest as a self-proclaimed witch, expressly
of
devoted to the worship
the
Devil. Under the

she
protection of
her
sororal rela
to the community's
leader,
(almost) openly
women at the
rebels against
its law
denies its beliefs. Close to the Puritan

the women at the end, still
seek out
beginning
of the novel
firmly
within the
law
and power of
the
commu
nity, yet forced to
Hester's
so
consolation and advice
(resituated in her
years of
cottage at the edge of the
Puritan
settlement
for the remaining

and
her life),
"demanding
There is
no
why they
were no
wretched,
what
the
remedy!"
(p. 240)!
institution,
person, clearly within the
fabric
of
Puritan life that
Women in
can
Hawthorne'
Novels
71
satisfy the ache of their feminine hearts. Hester, ironically, has almost become a part of the Puritan community, performing a function which perhaps prevents more women from joining Mistress Hibbins in the forest. In the mid
dle
of
the spectmm are Hester and Pearl.
Hester,
of
at the
beginning
of the
novel,
is inside the community but is pushed outside remain on its periphery. Pearl is bom out of it
then raised at the edge of the
forest),
to eventually (actually born within its prison, then through the novel moves into it.
and chooses
it,
Hester, Dimmesdale
first
end. at night
and she stand as a complete

middle of
family
in the
middle of
town,
in the
she and
the narrative, then eventually in daylight at its
Although
eventually finds her life in
Europe,
the
she
lives
out
her life
conventionally
happily
as a wife
presumably
are
happy
and
balance between
Roger
Chillingand
living
within
the
law
and outside of
it.
between Hester
marriage
The two
worth and
"marriages"
most critical and
Hester
Arthur Dimmesdale. The
between Hester
law
and
Chillingworth is the
the
"marriage"
"unnatural"
marriage sanctioned
by
convention;
between Hester
and
Dimmesdale is the
"natural"
marriage un
sanctioned
by
law
and convention. of
The
presence of passion one should
is
what
determines
the
"naturalness"
the
relationship.
Rather,
most
say that the proper

a marriage's
existed
balance
of
friendship
at
and passion
is the
important factor in
naturalness,
least
and
as
Hawthorne
(pp.
suggests
in The Scarlet Letter. What
between Hester
admiration and
Chillingworth
was an unnatural mixture of
convenience,
119, 127-28, 186-88). Chillingworth, though, had expended most of his passion on his studies all his life, and only in his old age had he finally desired an insulation against his own loneliness; perhaps,
friendship
too, a bit of envy had evidently been

intellectual
at
the happiness had
by
other men of
had
overcome
him. He
and
attracted to
Hester because
her youth, her
beauty
her
gifts and
character.14
But why did Hester marry Chillingworth? Perhaps with her speculative bent (intensified, but not generated by the experience with the scarlet letter) and her
talents,
she saw the
possibility
raised,
of
enlarging her
world
beyond the
small
English
village where she was
or perhaps
she saw the
possibility
was
of marital
friendship
with
Chillingworth,
whom she viewed as
scholarly, kind and just. At

without
any rate, both

without passion
of them seem to admit that the
marriage
love,
perhaps even without consummation.
Chillingworth
admits
unnatu-
having wronged Hester in marrying her. Moreover, he intensifies the ralness by sending her on to America from the European city where they
to
had
of
been living. Without financial pressure,

the contemporary
reasons
without religious
zeal,
without
any
why
people
wanted
to begin their lives anew in
America,
Chillingworth in
effect annulled their marriage.
Hawthorne does
not
specify his motives;

temptation to Hester
obtain
one can
of
the
objects
of
only speculate as to his in an open city with too many opportunities to passion that he was unwilling to satisfy, and therefore
reasons:
Did he fear the
living
hope to
place
her in the
relative
(and ostensible) austerity
of
the American
72
Interpretation
community?
Puritan
Did he weary
of
the necessity of providing her marital
companionship, her very reminder of his inability
youth and passionate character or unwillingness
serving as a constant At any rate, al husband? her to be

with
though Hester does consider her relationship
Dimmesdale to have
sin.15
wronged
Chillingworth,
consider
she
does
not
consider
it to be
Perhaps
she
does
not
her adultery a sin because she does not Chillingworth to have been a genuine marriage.
consider
her
prior marriage
to
Leading
benefit
of
a celibate
life, immersed in
a science
intended to
expand
his
own
reputation and power
humanity
in the world, even if initially undertaken partially for the (p. 186), has misshapen Chillingworth 's soul as much as On
his
To
body
was misshapen.
discovering
Hester's
ignominy, he desires
participation as much as
neither
to pardon nor to step forward to claim his

acknowledge
of
rightful
him
in her
would
shame.
his
marriage might embarrass as
it
deprive
him
the opportunity of revenge; he is
dependent
upon public opinion and
approbation as
pose of
Dimmesdale.
"fiend,"
And,
after seven years of
living
for the
sole pur
avenging himself, he has completely fallen

a
has become
his latter life
human sphere; he a devil. His former life set him up for the deformity of Chillingworth essentially sets himself up as G d, as the
out of the
of
Avenger/Segr-cher
hearts
which
the Puritans hold G

recognizes no
d to be
and as
their
commumtvrtries to
be,. Like them, he

and
be1
sanctity to the
power.
rightful
but
sphere of
privacy,
therefore,
no
limit to his
of
heart, no But, ironically,

out
believing
god a
himself to
beyond the tyranny
passion, he turns
to be no
devil,
find
and ends
up
the
misshapen victim of
his
own passions. also stem
Dimmesdale's
progressive madness and
loss
of
vitality
from his
him
inability
preacher.
to
rootedness
in feminine
tragically
and
unsuccessfully to exhaust his

"marriage"
domesticity identity solely
or sympathy,
driving
in his
public role as
Ironically, his
to Hester derives
from the
same source as
Chillingworth 's avoiding of natural marriage: leading one's life as if the private and the feminine were negligible. Like Chillingworth, he had devoted his life
to his studies and to his public mission, even coming to the Puritan community
Hester, the potential joy of experiencing natural love and its own snapped the restraints of his at possessing tachment to the law and the faith that grounded his public identity. Because he has no real private identity to rely upon, unlike Hester, to whom nature had
unwed.
met
When he
passion
"consecration"
granted the natural effects of their passionate union,
Dimmesdale
can never
publicly munity only

his
as
confess
his
sin.
In Hester's
no
punishment
he
sees
that the Puritan com
around
him has
tolerance for lapses in the

therefore
no
private realm
(seeing it
that he
the
realm of
sin),
and
forgiveness. The only way
can remain a
status as
Puritan in the Puritan community, by confessing, would a Puritan. As a result, the acclamation of the public
destroy
once
source of sweetness and strength
becomes
public
increasingly
with
poisonous as
it forces
him to face his hypocrisy. his community,

and
Only
on
in the forest
Hester,
outside the eyes of

of experienc
in death
the
scaffold, is he capable
ing
peace.
Women in
Hawthorne'
Novels
73
which
Persecuted for claiming the rights of womanhood in the face of a convention has no opening for womanhood, Hester is subordinate without being
resistant without
subordinated,
being
rebellious.
As
opposed to
Mistress Hib
bins,
who reduces
her
nonconventional womanhood to willful passion
by
ex
pressing it in acts of animality in the forest, Hester transforms an act of passion into devotional love through motherhood, and still does so within the law; she
does,
bines
after
all, raise Pearl to be a
pious
Christian. In
life
doing
so,
she
lays the
foundation for Pearl's

natural
resumption of normal
within a marriage
that com
passion, affection
and conventional
legitimacy,
as
Hawthorne's
reported mmors about
her
subsequent
tme that Pearl's

vate
redemption cannot occur until
life testify at the end of the novel. It is her father demonstrates his pri
love for her

could not
this
by acknowledging their natural relationship in public, but even happen without Hester's willingness to live partially within the
her,
law that
But
on the fringes of the community that scorned her. Hester to survive, to transform the opprobrium of the community into admiration, and even to effect the internal change from Adul teress to Able to Angel is not only her defiant proclamation of her motherhood condemned what
enables
to the Puritan community,

economic self-sufficiency.
with a
child,
would
but primarily her art. First, her art generates her Without a husband to support her, Hester, burdened have to fall upon public charity an unlikelihood given her
art
public
stigma.16
Second, her
as
does
as
create a public
identity
that carries her
beyond her definition

life
of a man.
"woman"
Although the
male on
being only fills out the private leaders in the Puritan community attempt to
the
who
foster her
a
public
identity
solely
gives
the basis
of
their stigmatizing her adultery as the meaning of the symbol.

with a
sin, her art eventually
her mastery
over
Originally
over
this is evident in her embroidering the letter
trim of gold,
but
the years, the gold trim proves to be prophetic. Even the final transforma
tion of the letter that Hester achieves,
primarily through her art,
from her
least
employment of
from Adulteress to Angel, is it for charitable

the
public
effected
purposes.17
Without her
Hawthorne's
curred.
assumption of at
some of
dimensions
of
identity
oc
that would normally be reserved for a man, in the Puritan community and in
own
world, the
essential
drama
of
the novel
could not
have
What
a world
places
the above passages regarding Hester's hopes for the creation of
in
which women
have
"fair
position"
and suitable
at
the center of The
Scarlet Letter
through her
as opposed to the
"A"
mentioned, the
comes
periphery is the scarlet letter itself. As already to have multiple meanings in Hester's lifetime and
one
final meaning to the letter beyond what Hester can attribute to it, for the world in which she lives is not ready for it, and the sorrow of her own life rendered her unable to perform it in her time:
actions.
But there is
Apostle.
mission,
Only
one
Hawthorne
can
invest the letter

places
with
its final
"A"
and most
important
that begins as he first

against
the faded
and
that he has discovered

mystical
in the Custom House

power.
his
own
breast
feels its searing,

"history"
In
revealing through his writer's art the
surviving
of
the Puri-
74
tans'
Interpretation
persecution of
this woman,
woven
together
with
the
private sufferings of
her heart
and
the private speculations of her mind, Hawthorne
is
not
only
re
porting her sorrows, but completing her triumph.
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
ancient
In The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne presents the story of two families whose fates have been intertwined by an injustice and a curse.
aristocratic
The
Colonel Pyncheon in
colonial
times
had desired the land
of
the
insignificant
plebeian
Matthew Maule.
Arranging by deceit
was
and manipulation of managed
the law to have the latter executed as a witch, Colonel Pyncheon

acquire
to
his land. But
as
the hapless Maule

will give
dying
on
the scaffold he uttered
the prophecy: "G
him blood to
drink!"
property, Pyncheon built his
spacious seven-gabled architect
After seizing Maule's mansion on the spot, iron
ically
designed
by
Maule's
son, Thomas. Throughout the centuries,
both families
Pyncheon
the ancient
nursed
their respective animosities.

all
family
has
In Hawthorne's time, the but dwindled into nonexistence. The last inhabitant of
is Hepzibah Pyncheon, an elderly spinster finally forced because of poverty to support herself by opening a penny-shop in the mansion. Although the major theme in the novel is the decay of an aristocratic family
mansion
against
the background
of
the
growth of
America's
commercial
democracy,
the
place of women and
their
The
and
with
major contrast
relationship in the novel with

the young
enfeebled
with men are also examined. respect
to
women
is between Hepzibah
Phoebe
Pyncheon,
and
cousin
Hepzibah
her
from the country who comes to live brother, Clifford. In Hepzibah, Hawthorne
has
conflated
his
criticism of
traditional
of
woman's role.
aristocracy and of an exaggerated version of the Hepzibah has barely gone out of her house for most
idleness,"
her life.
Finally,
do:
after
"sixty
years of
world
she must
do
what all natural

starve"
beings but
must
make
her way in the
"earn her
own
bread
or
out of shame and
imbecility
can
final throe
gion
after
of what called
itself old
gentility.
hardly bring herself to do it. "It was the A lady who had fed herself from
and whose reli
childhood with the
it
was
that a
shadowy food of aristocratic reminiscences, lady's hand soils itself doing aught for bread
this bom
lady,
narrowing means, is fain to step down from her pedestal of (pp. 265-67). As narrator, Hawthorne's voice is that of the imaginary third-person observer. He is speaking as an American to an American audience ("In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life
sixty
years of
rank"
[ibid.]). Unlike The Blithedale Romance, where his distance from the narrator expressed through palpable irony, here it is plausible to conclude that the contemporary American stance of the narrator is Hawthorne's, and that the mixture of sympathetic pity and contemptuous laughter is his own judgment. Hepzibah 's plight is not just the result of an person caught in a way of elderly is
Women in
life
superseded
of
Hawthorne'
Novels
a
75
false
way her to
by changing times. It rests upon life. The American environment that has
is better, truer,
as passive more natural.
illusory
premises; it is
enveloped
her
not
and compelled
change
The falseness is
cratic assumption of unequal ranks and congenital
only the aristo it is also a femi privilege, "the tme New England
ninity defined
dependence.
Phoebe,
on
the other
a
hand, is
an
example
of
woman," activity"
possessing be said, to seek her fortune, but with much benefit as she could anywise
much
"genial
"which impelled her self-respecting (p. 287). Her
forth,
as might
purpose
to confer as
receive"
character
is
not so raised
the result of
being
overly
shaped
by
a set of conventions as
being
In
in
society
where natural comment
femininity
grows
relatively
a
unobstructed.
response
to Hepzibah 's
that Phoebe is not
lady
in the
aristocratic
sense,
Hawthorne the for judgment
narrator responds
that the question "could
hardly
only
have
come
up
the
at all
in any fair
and
healthy
mind."
She
not
possesses
natural prettiness and grace of a
bird, but
the sweet energy
of sunshine.
Haw
thorne
adds:
Instead
regard
of
discussing
her
claim to rank
Phoebe
as the example of
among ladies, it would be preferable to feminine grace and availability combined, in a

where
state of society,
if there
were
any such,
even the
ladies did
not exist.
and
There it
should
be
woman's office
to move in the midst of practical affairs,

were
to gild them all,

with an
the very
homeliest,
it
atmosphere of
loveliness
and
scouring joy. (P. 291)
of pots and
kettles,
practicality at the core of Phoebe's character comprises domes ticity, but is not limited to it. She has been saleswoman and schoolmistress and has acquired the knack of dealing with others in the wider world of human
The
energetic
affairs,
shop.
as shown she
by
Yet,
still
her easy infusion of profitability into Hepzibah 's retains an intimate connection with nature and
penny-
natural
beauty. Her ability to bring the mansion's garden and its creatures into harmo nious fruitfulness culminates in her gift with flowers, which Hawthorne identi fies
as a
feminine
trait:
This
affection and endowed
Men, if
sympathy for flowers is almost exclusively a woman's trait. with it by nature, soon lose, forget and learn to despise it, in
their contact with coarser things than flowers. (P.
331)
Hepzibah, representing "a fair parallel between new Plebe(p. 291), are the two possible contemporary versions ianism and old in Hawthorne's America of an earlier Pyncheon woman, Alice Pyncheon, who
Both Phoebe
and
Gentility"
had died tragically and unjustly in her youth, and whose ghost is believed yet to haunt the mansion. Hawthorne employs Alice Pyncheon 's story to link several
critical themes
in the story, in
particular
aristocracy
and
gender,
and
to tie the
breach
between the previous Pyncheons and Maules with the
contemporary
76
Interpretation
reconciliation
between the two families in Phoebe and Holgrave's relationship. Alice Pyncheon had been brought under the fatal spell of an earlier Maule's
mesmeric
use
ability, who, in
to
collusion with the woman's

secret of
her
as a medium
discover the
attempting to the Pyncheon family's lost claim
father,
was
to vast wealth in property.
Maule had completely subverted her will and was capable of ordering her to do anything, causing her the loss of her dignity. On his wedding night, he forced Alice to attend his bride. Because of the storm in which she was forced to walk, she became ill and died.
In the novel, this tale is
written a
by Holgrave,
the descendant of the Maule
family
man
who
now resides as
boarder in the house. It is

"haughty"
woman.18
wreaked
by
a resentful commoner upon a power over a
story of revenge aristocrat, but also of a

a
wielding total
a
social classes expressed
in the story
overcome
of
Not only is the tension between the by Holgrave's eventual marriage

men's and women's
novel.
to
Phoebe, but
new
understanding
emerges
from the
occasion of
the story's recital in the
relationship As Holgrave is
reading the story to Phoebe, he notices that she begins to nod as in a trance. The events parallel the story; once again, a male Maule is about to bring a
female Pyncheon
To
a
under
his
power.
But,
at
the last minute, he holds back:

active, there is no
disposition like Holgrave's,
at once speculative and
temptation so great as the opportunity of acquiring empire over the human spirit;
nor
girl's since
any idea more seductive to a young man than to become the arbiter of a young destiny. Let us allow him integrity, also, forever after to be confided in; he forbade himself to twine that Phoebe
of
indissoluble.19
one
link
more which might
have
rendered
his
spell over
The
same a
kind
democratic
culture which
has
allowed
Phoebe's father to
"commoner,"
marry
that will allow Phoebe to marry Holgrave and end the
centuries of also allcw
injustice
and recrimination
truth"
bom
of the
falseness
of
aristocracy,
will
the "new
in the
relations
between
men and women wished
for
by
the
women
in Hester Prynne's
day
of
to emerge.
Holgrave,
the frank and open

of
experimenter with
different kinds
a
lives
and
the product
that democratic
or own
culture, is
literally
his
the new man, who does not
desire to dominate
them.
women, but to share

emerges out of
prizes
himself.20
life in
respect
for her
friendship individuality
in the book
with
His love for Phoebe

the same
i.e.,
thing
that he
in
The
other
two
male characters
are examples of who
deformed
and
deficient
masculinity.
Clifford, Hepzibah's brother

Judge
had been imprisoned

manipulation.21
falsely
Pyncheon for the his uncle, has recently been freed by the same Clif ford's congenital "love of borders on effeminacy and renders him al most incapable of moving in the world. After decades of imprisonment he has
by
the manipulation of their cousin
Jaffrey
murder of
beauty"
become feeble
restore
infantile. Phoebe's him to health. After the crisis

and
influence, however, gradually begins

of
to
Judge Pyncheon 's
attempted
further
Women in
exploitation of
Hawthorne'
Novels
77
Clifford,
with
preventing the Judge from

plete recovery.
hereditary apoplectic fulfilling his plans, Clifford

the
death ("Maule's
Curse")
achieves an almost com
Jaffrey Pyncheon,
ernor
the grasping and insensitive judge
who would
be
gov
contemptuous of women and knows nothing of the heart nor, therefore, any limits on his own ambitions. Not only does Hawthorne employ him to demonstrate the distortion of an exagger ated masculine character, but also the potential falseness of the public world of
man who sympathies of
is the
is
the
politics, business
and reputation
in
general.
Judge Pyncheon is
at the zenith of
his
public
career, the
object of wide admiration and respect.
Yet, Hawthorne
adds
these reservations:
So also,
as regards the
Judge Pyncheon
of
to-day,
neither
clergyman, nor legal
critic, nor inscriber of tombstones, nor historian of general or local politics, would
venture a word against this eminent person's
sincerity
as a
Christian,
or
respectability
as a
man, or
integrity
his
as a
judge,
or courage and
faithfulness
as the
and
often-tried representative of
political party.
But besides these cold, formal,

and which
empty
words of
the chisel that
inscribes,
the voice that speaks, and the pen that
writes, for the public eye and for the distant time,
much of were
inevitably
doing,
lose
there
their truth and freedom
by
the
fatal
consciousness of so
traditions about the ancestor, and private diurnal gossip about the
accordant
Judge,
remarkably
in their testimony. It is
often
instructive to take the woman's,

(P.
the private and
domestic,
view of a public man....
316)
Dimmes-
That the
outer man and
inner
man can
diverge is
lesson that Arthur
dale's suffering has already taught, but Hawthorne has another insight in mind here. Dimmesdale 's wretchedness was caused by an unnaturally stem public realm that caused him to despise what was naturally good in himself, the at
tempt to
cultivate a
rich inner life

allowed
of private connectedness with a woman. passionate
The
Judge, in
contrast, has
the pursuit of public goods in

public man.
He
suffers no
life to wrap itself solely around his inner life; he is the quintessentially inner torment, only moral deformation and the loss his
neglect of
of a sympathetic conscience. pursuit of

pose a
Hawthorne's warning is
the
wider world per
not
directed
against
the
the
external goods of affairs of
se, but that those goods

will enlarge
danger. The
the
public world
in any society
and expand
the abilities, but
they
the
possess an
pursuit of
inherent
and unavoidable
tendency
to shape the
character toward
externalities,
a man
or woman
can or
honor. Wrapped up in the pursuit of allow the gulf between the public image
understand
and private self to overwhelm
his
her integrity. In Hawthorne's
ing, this is a particularly feminine insight, but not only because women in his day found their completion particularly in the private realm and would therefore
see what the wider world
ment with
does
the
not.
Women, because
of
their natural
involve
nurturing
and
physical
and emotional realities of

and move outward
motherhood,
world.
live first in the internal
emotional
life
into the
They
78
are
Interpretation
the first to
see
and
to
suffer
from the deformation life

can
of
heart. An individ
nor
ual without a
rich, inner,
discounts
or
private
be
neither
truly happy
be
neither
just;
society
just.22
which
devalues that
realm can also
happy
nor
Nevertheless, The House of the Seven Gables is an optimistic book, even than Fanshawe, whose hero, after all, dies prematurely. As opposed to the grimness and suffering of The Scarlet Letter, the personal failures and bitter irony of The Blithedale Romance, and the dark undercurrents of The Marble Faun, in the story of the Pyncheons and the Maules Hawthorne suggests that
more
the past can be overcome, ture of

genuine
even
America, it
implies for
portrays a
completely erased. Moreover, as a pic society far from perfect but one pervaded by
not
if
improvement.
And,
as an
image
of
the place of
women
the
novel
that the question that Hester had the happiest

of women can
asked
whether
in the world, life was least
worthwhile
even
be
answered at narrative
leaning
be
the
to the
affirmative.
While the
truth"
world portrayed
in the
ripe
fully
for the "new
that Hester and
her
contemporaries
may longed
not yet
for,
mutual
happiness
of men and women
does
appear a
little
surer.
THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE
In The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne

characters against
places
the private affairs of
his
main
the
most explicit attempt
to
create
the
new world world as
dreamed
by
Hester (regardless
of whether
it
would
actually be the
she would
dream it). Here, Hawthorne shows Hester's desperate speculation: "the

and
anew."23
men and women who

whole system of
really take seriously society is to be torn down,
built up Blithedale is the pure community purged of all the ten 71sions in traditional society, even in Hawthorne's America (Zuckert, pp. 75). The competition in commercial society is replaced by common ownership
and
harmony,
rank
laced
with male
is abolished, domination and
and
finally,
the erotic
war
between the
sexes
exploitation of
on
the female
by
the
the
male
is
re
placed with a new
friendship
not
based
respect.24
munity,
however, does
novel
endure;
neither
equality does it
and mutual provide
The Com
vehicle
for the
the
novel's main characters
to find their happiness.
The
poses
two
female
characters
against each
other:
Zenobia,
proud and
dramatic
onym;
and
Priscilla,
feminist, known only in the novel by her public pseud Zenobia's half-sister, submissive, passive and meek. Al
striking
though both women present strikingly attractive aspects of femininity, Haw thorne draws both of them as too flawed to be emulated. The most
aspect of
Zenobia's
presentation of self
in
addition to
her
abundant natural
beauty
and
force
of character a
is her
"flower."
No
matter what
the weather or
season, Zenobia always has

of greenhouse cultivation
ravishingly beautiful flower in her hair, the result Zenobia's rheto(adding to its inordinate
expense).25
Women in
ric of
Hawthorne'
Novels
79
self-presentation, the foundation
of
her
public
persona,
exalts
the full
into society, the breaking down of tions between the sexes. But as she moves through the world,
emancipation of women
unwillingness
"artificial"
distinc
an
she
belies
to abandon the peculiar hallmarks
torn because she is
gram of emancipation calls
psychologically unprepared for. Because she is

in
contrast
femininity. She is tragically to do what her intellectual pro

of such a vital example of natural
femininity,
cates.
she stands
to the tepid
social
life
of
the Blithedale Com

which she advo
munity and, in
fact,
to the
image
of the masculinized
female
Yet,
as the novel principles
embody the
unfolds, her course in the world increasingly comes to of the deformed masculinity portrayed by Butler, Chill and, in The Blithedale
ingworth, Jaffrey Pyncheon
Romance, Hollings worth.
She eventually becomes a coconspirator with Westervelt to exploit Priscilla in order to remove her from Blithedale so that she can have Hollingsworth for
herself. When Hollingsworth
abandons
her for Priscilla, Zenobia has nothing to

moral
live for.
either
Having
abandoned
her capacity for
sympathy,
she receives none
(although the
potential extender of
the sympathy that may have saved her

and
life is the
problematic
narrator,
Coverdale),
pawn
destroys herself
in reality,
the physical
consummation of
her
precedent spiritual self-destmction.
Priscilla,
the "Veiled
the passive
Lady"
feminine becomes
in the novel, has
a public
persona, too:
who
a profitable
tervelt's
world
professional
mesmerism.
Wescommodity under Professor So distant from the active currents of the
"blooms"
is she, as a result of the truncated upbringing of her failed father, that she in the fairyland environment of Blithedale. It is her lack of a substan
renders
tial character that
her
perfect
for
Westervelt'
s
life."
hypnotism;
she
has
nei
ther a genuine "inner

she
life"
nor an
"outer
Although it
would appear
that
is
a successful character
by
the end of The Blithedale Romance (Of the
four
is the only one who could be considered "happy"; Ze nobia is dead, Hollingsworth is shattered, and Coverdale wallows in self-con temned mediocrity.), she is in reality a failure, too. She spends her life drifting
major
characters,
she
like
a ghost with
the psychologically
emasculated
Hollingsworth deficient
in effect, his
and
nurse
for life.
and
Coverdale
masculinity.
Hollingsworth
the
are
both
examples of
deformed
Coverdale,
with, is
poet-narrator whom
Hawthorne
mocks as well as
sympathizes
a self-described of
and self-indulgent
sterility
unhappy bachelor. Weary of the gentle his life that no longer inspires poetry, he goes to
hoping to reconnect with the natural springs of inspiration. But per haps the Community appeals to him for other reasons. His bachelorhood is the life rather than living it, of direct result of his preference for
Blithedale
"observing"
watching
others thrash out

particular
their loves
rather
than
loving. He
appears
incapable
human being, of extending himself beyond himself and of loving any bonding externally to a woman. Blithedale is the secular monastery where tra ditional pairing will either be superseded by brotherly friendship or lighter and
more transient versions of marriage.
Perhaps he
was attracted
to a human
com-
80
Interpretation
where
munity
tions
of
pairing would no longer be necessary, where the private revela the heart would not have to occur, and where he would not have to
support a
which provides
family. Like Zenobia, he is an advocate the basis of the relations between

the passionate reformer
who
of the
feminism
of
the
day,
the sexes at
Blithedale (pp.
509-11).
Hollingsworth,
sion and
longs to
replace conventional
prisons with rehabilitation
centers,
appears to possess great qualities of compas
heart, but
these eventually reveal themselves to be false. He is fanat

public
ically
ble
friendship only to those capa in his scheme. Moreover, he is agreeing participating to resort to deception (his intention is to subvert the Blithedale Commu willing nity by turning the farm into a penal experiment) and raw exploitation. Inter
program,
or
devoted to his
and extends
of
with
his ideas
in Zenobia only for the wealth that she could potentially devote to his plans, he abandons her for Priscilla when their father Moodie transfers Ze
ested nobia's
inherited
wealth
to the
latter. His
"philanthropy"
is
"self,"
all
as
Ze
nobia accuses
him.26
For
a man who seeks
to reform the deformed heart of the
criminal, he
suicide.
shows
himself to
possess a criminal
heart,
revealed
in Zenobia's
Like Dimmesdale, he cannot forgive himself for the discrepancy be tween his public mission and his private hypocrisy. He spends the rest of his life in broken-down self-pity, supported emotionally by her ministrations.
The Blithedale Romance
that
presents a
financially by
Priscilla'
money
and
the relations between the sexes
by
failed community that seeks to reform ignoring their differences and the passions
bind them (Zuckert, pp. 73-75, 81-83). Like the Puritan community that preceded it, but without the spiritual discipline and abstemiousness of the for
mer, there is
replaced with
no private realm or
independent sanctity
of the
heart. Love is does
dalliance,
and,
as a
result, the main characters possess no moral

who possess
integrity. Unlike Holgrave in The House of the Seven Gables,

such
integrity, they
cannot summon
the respect for
each other
to
refrain
from
exploiting demands only

and
each other.
In
place of moral
integrity
failures
as
the
Community
encourages or
"niceness."
Moreover, Priscilla,
the main characters are
all
as men and women.
Zenobia
especially,
present
themselves
two extremes of potential femi
nine response to the modern world, neither of which Hawthorne advocates. Zenobia completely embraces the public world of masculine values; Priscilla retreats into an unworldly and otherworldly femininity serving only the pur poses of men. Of course, both of these possibilities are cast against the example
of the man
in The Blithedale Romance
whom
Hawthorne
uses to characterize
the spirit of the Blithedale
Community
and
ing
modem world:
Professor Westervelt.
upon
the probable character of the emerg Although the Professor espouses the
amiable
new era
blend
that
of
spiritualism/materialism of the
Community,
would
and speaks of
"a
was
dawning
the world; an era that
link
soul to
soul,
and the present
life to
what we call
futurity,
with a closeness
that should
finally
Women in
convert
Hawthorne'
Novels
(p.
81
great, mutually conscious he is willing to exercise that complete mesmeric domination

spirit
both
worlds
into
one
brotherhood"
557),
of a
woman's
that
Holgrave is
not.
THE MARBLE FAUN
".
The
world
is
now!"
sadder and
exclaims the expatriate
American
sculptor
Kenyon in Hawthorne's last
by
the greater materialism and
sobriety
sprawling novel, The Marble Faun. Touched of the world, he fears that the aggregate
diminishing.27
capacity of humans to enjoy themselves may be Faun is Hawthorne's attempt to lay a rather full
American
public:
The Marble
menu of
issues before his human

of
the nature of guilt and redemption, the power of religion and
the relative merits of Catholicism and
Protestantism,
the emergence of
ity up from original transformation, and,

neity rial and
Three
and
nature with not
the attendant liabilities and
benefits
that
least,
Laced
the necessity of art to
sanctity
of
the heart
in
an age rendered
help preserve the sponta increasingly barren by mate

is the issue
of women
social progress.
with all of
these
concerns
and men. of
The Marble Faun is the story

them
of
two couples,
beginning
as
friends.
(Kenyon, Hilda, Miriam) are artists; one is a young, innocent, handsome Italian count attracted to Miriam, Donatello. Kenyon and Hilda
eventually marry; Miriam
murder which
and
Donatello
spend their
lives in
penitence
for
they jointly
of
commit.
set in a setting within a setting. The in mid-nineteenth-century Rome, a bi
The drama
action of
these
intertwined lives is
place
The Marble Faun takes
zarre mixture of
contemporary liveliness
un-American of
corrupt, vibrant, traditional,

the
midst of
autocratic and
this most
poverty and ancient ruins and art, dominated by the Church. Yet, in environments is an international commu
and
predominantly American artists, theme of this community is the friendly
nity
of
floating
in
and around
the
city.
The
a
professionalism of the artists.

welcome and
It is
community but
without
to
sexes participate.
equally It is, in other words, a form of the Blithedale the latter's urgent reformist impulses. Yet the genial
also proves
which men and women are
in
which
both
Community,
friendship
of
this community
of
insufficient to satisfy the longings

and
or spiritual needs
the
main characters.
main
The two
female characters, Hilda
versions of womanhood
confrontation of good and evil spiritually.
in the world, and, in all of us. Hilda is

New England Protestant
our
contact our with
Miriam, represent two different indeed, two different versions of the

a
virgin, both actually

who
and we
She is
a tme
Puritan,
believes that
can
sullied and
(and must) lose

artistic and
control
our
purity
in the world, or else become human goodness. She is the greatest

evil
"copyist"
in the
community; because of her

world of
ability to
enter of
totally into
the
imag
ination
emotional
the
master painters
the great art, she can
82
Interpretation
perfectly.
imitate them
Able to
when
summon great
with
friendship,
she
is incapable
of
love (pp. 659-60). Yet, ing of Miriam and

can give
faced
her
own spiritual
crisis, her
she with
witness
Donatello'
s murder of
Miriam's persecutor,
discovers
that her Protestant upbringing, her self-contained relationship
d,
her
no peace or consolation.
Only
most reviled cism
(from the
The
standpoint of
availing herself of one of the Protestantism) institutions of Catholi

after
the confessional
world. of
is
she capable of
life in the
and
reliance on another
resuming her artistic and emotional human being's sympathetic hearing,

proves to
sharing
the burden of
human guilt,
be the only way to
experi
ence
love,
which, it turns out, is
what she needed more than
anything (pp.
794-800).
Miriam Schaefer is
part a painter of vague and unspecified
international origin, Tormented
Jewish, Catholic, English, Italian,
aristocratic,
a
plebeian.
by
the
by shadowy figure who could her and min she craves expose the sympathy of her friends, but can never her, overcome the barrier of friendship to confess her crime to them and win their
unresolved guilt of a past
crime, threatened
understanding. wishes
On the
one
hand, because
of
of
her
friendship
on
with
to unburden
herself
her kind
guilt with
of
them;
the
other
them, she hand, because

same
she
fears
that the degree and
the guilt
would
destroy
the
friend
had
ship,
she refrains.
Only
when she on
only previously dallied worse crime, does their

and another of
implicates Donatello, with whom the basis of his infatuation with her, in build
a prior
she
an even
shared guilt and penitence
bridge between her

to the occurrence
human. Hawthorne has her say to Kenyon
the
murder:
"It is
a mistaken
idea, least,
which men
especially
prone to throw their whole

no more
generally entertain, that nature has made women being into what is technically called love. We
have,
to say the
else to
nothing
do
with our
necessity for it than yourselves; only we have hearts. When women have other objects in life, they
can think of
are not apt to
fall in love. I
science,
many
who
women
distinguished in art, find

good
literature,
and
and multitudes whose
hearts
and minds
employment
in less
ostentatious ways,
lead high,
lonely
(P.
lives
and are
conscious of no sacrifice so
far
as your sex
is
concerned."
659)
needs the support
What Miriam
and atello and
releases
comes to
discover is that her
sex
desperately
understanding
of men.
The tme love that eventually
grows
between Don The
her,
even
though
by
the end of the novel unfulfilled in marriage,
her from her dreadful
insularity,
and
which
her
art never
tmly
can.
virginal self-containment of of
Hilda
Miriam's
attempt to solve the struggles
give way to a more complex but deepened involvement in human life through sharing their lives in serious love with a man. Although Hawthorne uses two female characters to bring this lesson forward, the men in the novel demonstrate the need for sexual love as a form of redemp tion, too. Once Donatello loses his boyish innocence in the commission of the
the
burdened heart
of
the stream
Women in
crime,
which opens
Hawthorne'
Novels
83
up the darker but more adult world of guilt and moral he can responsibility, only escape from self-pitying torture by sharing his guilt with Miriam. Kenyon, the sculptor, begins to lose his ability to create art until
united
in
marriage with
Hilda.
presents
In The Marble Faun, Hawthorne

a profession that comes as
calling.
both
men and women who
follow For
and
close, perhaps,
as a profession can
to
a spiritual
He implies that
art
has two
critical
functions,
and
personal and social.
the artist, art gives vent to passions,

"sadder"
both joys
agonies,
of the
heart,
therefore generates both relief and redemptive awareness.

ages of
And, in
the coming
crucial
technological, masculinized, sterility,

and private.
art
may play the
function feminine
of
expressing
the
and
preserving the experience of the sentimental, the In the story, both genders express themselves suc
cessfully in this realm, but they discover that art finally cannot completely fulfill the passionate and emotional needs of the heart. Both men and women, Hawthorne suggests, love. The pleasures
purpose),
need
must of
find
worldly
achievement
balance between worldly identity and familial (even if graced with high social
are as real
reputation and
friendship
are
to women as to men, just as the
for love
and connectedness are as real
to
men
as
to women,
although
Hawthorne implies that there
differences
must
of emphasis
in
either realm
for
both
genders.
Even the artist, in

the
order
however,
finally
experience
public.
private realm
to express it convincingly to the

to embrace this
reality in the The implied

and
conclusion of
will return
novel would seem
idea: Kenyon lives
Hilda
to their native America and resume their

of
as married
artists,
contributing to the unfolding
the common life of the republic of the future.
CONCLUSION
Hawthorne's teaching about the men and women, like his teaching
proper about
ordering
of
the
relations
between
the proper character of the political

complex and sketchy. concern
world of which sexual relations are a
part, is
He does
not
lay
a political program
order
before
us.
His direct
the institutional
that
governs
society, nor even
is not, strictly speaking, the proper laws that might he does

speak
shape the realm of sexual relations more
justly,
although
to
these. With
seems
"political"
"institutional"
respect
to the
and
question, Hawthorne
to have
enough
settled on
the imperfect institutions of the commercial republic.

measure of
Close
to nature to secure that
tional aberrations, yet freed from the
reformists'
equality freed from conven desire to overcome all tensions
in society, the
of
commercial republic
is
at
least
amenable
initially
to the reform
the
private realm through a reformed attitude of are
institutions
as
actors. snuff
flexible
enough would
to
accommodate
heart. Moreover, its the entry of women into them

the
Hawthorne
temper and moderate the reformist urge, rather

as portrayed
than
it
out.
That
urge
has its dangers,
in his tale
of
the first
84
Interpretation
attempted
American community and parodied in his sketch of an American community, one in which he himself had
spect, Hawthorne was particularly keen-eyed would have a peculiarly emphatic impact upon
the
contemporary
participated.28
In this
re
to see that the reforming urge

relations
between the sexes,
in
fact,
His
that this issue
would
be the entry
point
for many
of the reformist urges
into American life.

is essentially Tocquevillian. Not only is his concern with properly speaking, but with respect to the overall construction of society and the particular question of women, his teaching approximates that of Tocque In perceiving that the coming centuries might produce a masculinized
stance
ville's.29
"mores"
world ence
all monomaniacally Zenobias? by spouting spirituality to their tender domination, he, too, hoped to preserve the integrity of the justify private, the sentimental, the feminine.
combining Roger with Hollingsworth 's
Chillingworth'
s proud and
relentlessly inquisitive
moral
sci
ambitious and
reformism,
governed
Professor Westervelts
and
If Hawthorne
were
to be located on a spectmm of thought

of
today, he
would
probably fall into the camp
feminists
inists,
as opposed
to
"sameness"
loosely feminists. Contemporary feminism,

as
designated
"difference"
fem
least
at
the dominant strain

gender relations
from the early sixties, tends to resolve all into ones of power and individual freedom: i.e. has
questions of what
kind
of
social arrangements can guarantee that no one man

particular
more power
than any
woman,
or
that men have collectively no greater power over women
than
nism
women
have
over men.
Hence,
"reform"
the primary theme of
of
femi
has been the
levelling
of power
in the Nature
name of equal which
individual liberty.
to this aim,
Hawthorne's
art presents a picture of
is
sympathetic
as, indeed, it is the founding image of Nature undergirding the American re gime. Yet his picture of Nature suggests that Nature lays a far more compli
cated set of
issues in front
of us
than
just the
maximization of our
individual
liberty. The terrifyingly

natural
complex passions
ness are as much a part of us as our
for love, sympathy and connected longing to be free. And it is the female as
concerns of
creature, in
addition
to whatever focus that nonperverted convention
her character, that particularly bears these human life.

gives to
Nature into
Hawthorne
and
could view
with approbation
whatever reformation
of politics
economy is necessary for women to become actors in the wider currents of human life beyond the domestic realm. He would consider this both good for
society
cause
and
also
women's powers of
naturally just, for they would assist in the developing of intellect and reserves of independence and action. But be
Hawthorne domestic
to
would not agree with

realm
Mary Wollstonecraft
slavery
or
Betty
Friedan
the
that the
is in itself "the
or
more specious
which chains
very
soul of
women"30
"the
camp"
comfortable concentration
that compels
women
forfeit their
selves,31
he
could not advocate women
losing
their stron
we
ger connection
to that realm and to the
sanctity
of
the private
heart. As
have
Women in
seen, he is too suspicious
exhaustive
of
Hawthorne'
Novels
85
as
of
the public
realm of career and and
statesmanship
the outlines
foundations for human identity

suggest a
happiness.
So,
the "new
truth"
public realm and more
society in which women are more involved in the independent in the private without the loss of the private
"ethereal
natures."
or
the evaporation
of women's
done? And
what must
be done politically
with
and
That is the task; Can it be juristically to achieve it? We
ourselves are still generation of self
struggling
this question
of
after a
century
of suffrage and a
the attempted
androgynizing
But
what
the
workplace.
Hawthorne him
does
not answer these
questions,
other than
hinting
add
at potential resolutions whatever
in his
characters as models.
he does
is this:
must
political,
legalistic If
or economic truth we attain or

natures.32
embody, it
first be
grounded
in
the psychological truths of our

we were
to transform this question into the question of which of Haw

characters
thorne's female
he
would wish
to stand as an example to contempo

complex and
rary women,
we would
have to say that Zenobia,
intriguing
as she
is,
and as
modern
and
Apostle for the
women of
contemporary as she strikes us, is not Hawthorne's today. Zenobia's fate is truly tragic, brought on by a
that
self-consuming and self-destroying wish to be included in the world on terms deny her identity as a woman. That Apostle is, rather, Hester Prynne, even
more
than the
never
indefatigable Phoebe
or the reflective
Hilda. Defeated
as she
is,
she
is
broken.
Discovering
indomitable
wellsprings of strength
in her his
heart's
and
attachment of
to her child, she proudly resists and yet teaches the mlers
inhabitants
to the
her
sterile society.
offers
lonely
woman who could not
In redeeming the pledge be the Apostle to the

prophetess
which
art
world around ages:
her, Hawthorne
the
allows
Hester to become the
for the coming

endure
mother whose embrace of motherhood enabled
her to
everything
with which a man's world could
burden her.
NOTES
1. "Earth's
Holocaust,''
from Mosses from
an
Old Manse, in The Complete Short Stories of

novels
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Garden City: Hanover House, 1959), p. 404. 2. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 182. All quotations from Hawthorne's
Selected Tales of Nathaniel Holmes Pearson (New York: The Modern Library, 1937).
are
from The Complete Novels
and
Hawthorne,
edited
by
Norman
3. The Scarlet Letter
as a whole,
including
the
"The Custom
House"
introduction,
the
contrasts three
different
eclipsed
"Americas"
with one another: with
Puritan origins, in
which
public realm
has
all
but
the private realm

and the
individual
the
bodily;
come
the
(attempted) triumph of the common and the spiritual over the present Salem, in which the public realm has all but disappeared as
the
common
has
to
serve private
interest
as
and
demonstrated
the
by
the spoils system and the
animality
of the occupants of
"mean"
the Custom
House;
description
of the
Salem
of the
Revolu
tionary
period, a
between
public and private
goods,
alive with a
balance
of commercial
energy and patriotic devotion. 4. Nina Baym, 'Thwarted Nature: Nathaniel Hawthorne as Revisited: Essays in Feminist Criticism (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1982),
Feminist,"
in American Novelists
also views
p.
62. Baym
"the
86
Interpretation
women"
question of work vated
as central
through his
own confusion and guilt.
in Hawthorne's work, although primarily from his own attempts to Because Hawthorne had artistic sensitivities that ele
his awareness above men of his time, yet portrayed women as victimized according to the reality of the times (perhaps even pandering to the desires of his male readers), he, his characters and his readers are "obsessed by their fantasies of women, controlled by them (and, as controllers
of
women,
they
engulf women
in their fantasies
Hawthorne'
well)."
as
But
see also
her very fine,
somewhat
more sober and straightforward account of women

"feminist"
in his
whole
literary
career,
which argues
for his
The Shape of s Career (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976). Aesthetic Headaches: Women and a Masculine Poetics in Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne, by Leland S. Person, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), likewise argues the centrality of
sympathies:
the question of gender in Hawthorne's works. Person argues that,

and
although and
Hawthorne's (and Poe's
Melville's) writing occasionally
suffers
from
"phallocentric"
"narcissistic"
Hawthorne genuinely tried to incorporate a feminine perspective into his "masculine 4-7). Yet Person suggests that Hawthorne's interest is primarily psychological
whereby
women
poetics"
tendencies, (pp.
or
aesthetic, to embody
women."
in his fiction
writers was
are employed to work out
his
own
internal
struggles or
the artistic tensions between objectification and subjective experience: "None of these three [includ
ing Hawthorne]
I
would argue
very interested in examining the social and political status of that Hawthorne is more self- aware of his own internal reality, of the psychology
of
his
the
readers and
certainly
aware of
the profound political and social issues
which contain and shape
problem of gender
than these accounts give him credit for.
Moreover,
as
Catherine Zuckert
n.
has demonstrated, the foundations
and configuration of politics are central
for Hawthorne (see
below),
a conclusion and
that more satisfyingly explains his preoccupation with gender. Freed from the
"feminist"
conceptual
jargonistic
excesses of overall
criticism,
however,
and
the above accounts often

aspects of the particular
provide valuable works.
insight into Hawthorne's
intentions
many
5. See Catherine H. Zuckert, Natural Right
and the
American Imagination: Political Philoso
phy in Novel Form (Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1990), for an elaboration of Haw thorne's complex use of Nature as a standard for social life, especially pp. 90-92. Zuckert argues
that
Hawthorne's At the
overall
teaching regarding
nature and convention
is that human happiness,

balance.
given
re
the complexity of the passions, requires a delicate balance of natural ends and conventional
straints.
core of
Hawthorne's
moderate
feminism is the
same
6.
By
stories are
confining myself to Hawthorne's novels, I do not mean to imply that his tales and short devoid of guidance as to women's identities and the problem of gender; indeed, there are
often remarkable passages substantial suggest attempt
bearing
on
this
issue
contained
in
them. But the

more
"novel"
is
a more
to recreate and imagine the world,
with
far
character
development. I
that it is in
his
novels
that Hawthorne primarily elaborated his major themes,
including
the
place of women.
7. Although Dr. Melmoth
consents so
unhesitatingly,
as men,
"
having
bestow
always
desired children, Mrs.
Melmoth
affections
resists:
"for
women
cannot,
readily
upon
the offspring of others those
intended for their own (p. 8). 8. Although, as Nina Baym points out, it is an unusually passive heroism. Butler meets his death accidently when he falls from the cliff where Fanshawe has been standing and staring at him (The Shape of Hawthorne's Career, p. 29). 9. Moreover, the characters in Fanshawe prefigure the great characters in the subsequent
that
nature novels.
Aspects
and
of
Fanshawe
can
be
seen
in Arthur Dimmesdale his

vital
Chillingworth, buried in his

domination
revenge,
studies until
could
be
what
Pyncheon is
successful
a more mature
and reflective
and Miles Coverdale. Even Roger juices nearly evaporate, save for the love of Fanshawe might have become had he lived. Phoebe Ellen Langton. Judge Pyncheon is an older and more
Butler,
rapacious
for
wealth and
position,
and
willing to
reduce women
to
instrumen
self-cen
talities of his ambition.

tered otherness
Hollingsworth himself is
and ruthlessness
an odd combination of
self-deceiving,
(Fanshawe)
(Butler).
10. This
point
The Bosom
Serpent,"
is subsequently and clearly developed in Hawthorne's short story, "Egotism; Or, from his collection published in 1846. Mosses from an Old Manse. The main
character, Roderick
Elliston, is
redeemed
from the
"serpent"
of
his self-absorption
by
the return
Women in Hawthorne's Novels

and
87
forgiveness
him.'
of
his wife, Rosina. Elliston
cries out:
'"Could I for
one
instant forget myself, the

that has
engendered and
serpent might not abide within me.

nourished
It is my diseased
husband,' '"
self-contemplation
'forget
347).
yourself
'Then forget yourself, my said a gentle voice [Rosina's] above him, in the idea of another (The Complete Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne, p.
years
11
when
During
the twenty-two
published
between the both
publication of
Fanshawe
and
The Scarlet Letter,
Hawthorne
his
short stories,
individually
of
increasingly to social also lived briefly in
criticism and
especially to the issues
in collections, he began to turn social reform. During this period he

and
the socialistic experiment at Brook

Hawthorne'
Farm,
2
then subsequently
married.
See
Baym, The Shape of 12. The Scarlet Letter,

Hawthorne
says of
representative of a
Career, especially
chapters
and on
3.
the platform of her
p.
122.
Describing
its
Hester's judges
"He
disgrace,
and
Governor Bellingham
and the others: origin and
was not
ill fitted to be the head
community,
which owed
progress, and
its
present state of
develop
so
ment, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood, and the
sombre
.
sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined The other eminent characters, by whom the chief ruler was surrounded
men,
and
hoped
little
were,
doubtless,
good
just,
and sage.
But,
out of the whole
human family, it
who
would not
select the same number of wise and virtuous
persons,
should
be less
capable of
have been easy to sitting in

sages
judgment
of
on an
erring
woman's
heart,
and
disentangling
its
mesh of good and

face."
evil, than the
rigid
13.
aspect s
towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her

pp.
See
also
Baym, The Shape of
Hawthorne'
Career,
126-28, 141-42.
be hushed into
silence by a man standing by who is shamed by their harshness (The Scarlet Letter, pp. 114-15). 14. The Scarlet Letter p. 128. Chillingworth to Hester: "But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many
They
must even
guests, but
wild a which
lonely
and
chill,
and without a
household fire. I longed to kindle

I was,
and misshapen as
one!
It
seemed not so
dream,
is
p.
old as
I was,
and sombre as
I was,
that the simple
bliss,
scattered
far
and wide,
for
all mankind
to gather up, might yet be

great elements.
mine."
The Scarlet
thou met
Letter,
wasted
187. Chillingworth to Hester: 'Thou hadst better love than mine, this
nature."
Peradventure, hadst
good
earlier with a
evil
had
not
been. I pity thee, for the
that has been
in thy 15. The Scarlet Letter, p. 128, Hester to Chillingworth: "I have greatly wronged thee"; p. 200, Hester to Dimmesdale: "What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said so to
each other!
Hast thou forgotten
it?"
result of
16. Contrast Hester to Zenobia in The Blithedale Romance; Zenobia's self-sufficiency is not the her art, even though her art does give her a public identity, but of her inheritance. It is an for it is
illusory independence,
and
her independence (and her
finally taken away from her by Moodie's shifting of it to Priscilla, desirability in the eyes of Hollingsworth) evaporates. Like the
subject
original
Zenobia, her
power
vanishes,
of
to
male whim.
17. True, the deepest meaning

men and women who
Angel that
she achieves
is
as confessor and consoler
to the
bring
their private heartaches to her.
interesting, and probably misguided, interpretation of this incident. Alice primarily as the result of her unabashed expression of admiration for his masculinity, for which he feels compelled to arouse her sexual desires, then frustrate them, pp. 68-69; see above, note 4). Baym's account therefore her ("Thwarted
18. Nina Baym
sees
gives an
She
Maule's
anger at
"desexualizing"
Nature,"
completely abstracts from the aristocratic component of this story. The most Maule takes offense at Alice's admiration of his handsomeness is that this is
ness."
plausible reason
that
part of
she
her "haughti
She has the freedom to

cannot reciprocate.
express
her
admiration of
his sexuality because
is his
social
superior; he
He
understands
her
"natural"
reaction, which, under other social
would be a token of equality, to be a confirmation of his inferiority. 19. The House of the Seven Gables, p. 370. This is the temptation that may have seized Fanshawe, had he lived, and certainly seized Roger Chillingworth, Matthew Maule, Professor
circumstances,
Westervelt
and
even, to
a certain
extent, Hollingsworth.
20. Hawthorne
uses the comparison of
Jaffrey
Pyncheon
with
his ancestor, the
original
Puritan
88
Interpretation
judgment
Colonel Pyncheon, to bring forward a glimpse of the likely private lives of the men standing in over Hester in The Scarlet Letter: "The Puritan, again, an autocrat in his own household, had worn out three wives, and, merely by the remorseless weight and hardness of his character in
the conjugal relation, had sent them, one after another,
broken-hearted,
a single
to their graves.
Here the
or
parallel, in
some
sort, fails. The Judge had
wedded
but
wife, and lost her

such we choose
in the third
to
consider
fourth
year of their marriage.
There
was a
fable, however,
for
it,
that the lady got her though, not impossibly, typical of Judge Pyncheon's marital deportment, death-blow in the honeymoon, and never smiled again, because her husband compelled her to serve him with coffee every morning at his bedside, in token of fealty to her liege-lord and (The House of the Seven Gables, pp. 316-17). Although Jaffrey Pyncheon has learned to wield power over his fellows through democratic means (see below), his relationship to his wife is the same as
master"
his
ancestor's.
21.
Among
other
purposes, the
character of
Jaffrey
Pyncheon
serves to remind
that even the
reasonably democratic society of Hawthorne's period is not free from corruption born of inequality of power. Because of his wealth but more because of his ability to manipulate the people Judge Pyncheon can commit the same kinds of injustices that his ancestor the Colonel could in aristocratic
times. It is less
capitalism as
likely
that this is
Hawthorne's jeremiad form

of
against the class oppression
inherent in
society is free of injustice. 22. See Gordon Hutner's study, Secrets and Sympathy: Forms of Disclosure in s Novels (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), for a persuasive discussion of how Hawthorne
sober reminder that no
Hawthorne'
it is his
employs the
Romantic technique
readers.
of
withholding
secrets
in
order
to generate the capacity for affec

selves"
tive
sympathy in
characters
Hawthorne, in
reader
other words, quite and
deliberately
creates "private
unravels.
in
his
which
the
only gradually
sometimes
never
Although
analysis occasionally grows tedious, overwrought and wrong-headed, he has, I think, successfully linked Hawthorne's teaching with his writing strategy. The reader learns experientially the many levels of privacy and the necessity of developing sympathy. Hawthorne also thereby demonstrates the questionable nature of the public face of an individual or event.
Hutner's
23. Hawthorne
seems anxious
to draw the two novels together not only

resonance of names
with a
continuity
of
theme, but in many details, too: e.g., the

worth,
with
Hollingsworth),
the overlap of scenery and events
(Dimmesdale, Coverdale; Chilling (Eliot's Pulpit, Dimmesdale's meeting

original
Elliot). The
participants
in Blithedale
even
feel themselves to be re-enacting the

men and women
settlers'
intentions in remaking society. 24. There is a vestige of division of labor between

though. Zenobia
in the
will
founding
be
of
the
Community,
by
individual talent desires

are
does, however, (The Blithedale Romance,

suggests
"indecent"
promise
pp.
that eventually labor
assigned
only
part
447-48). is
a self-conscious recognition on concealment
25. Catherine Zuckert

that her
that Zenobia's flower
her
and
therefore
require
beautiful
tragic
(p.
96,
note
31). I
believe,
view
rather, that her
self-adornment
p.
is the
result of a
lack
of self-consciousness.
26. The Blithedale Romance,

a
567-68. Hollingsworth
replies
to her: "This is a
woman's
woman's,
whose whole sphere of action
is in the heart,
and who can conceive of no
higher
one!"
nor wider
p.
27. The Marble Faun,

to require an object
which can
727. Hawthorne the in life. It
narrator continues:
"It is the iron
rule
in
our
day
and a purpose
makes us all parts of a complicated scheme of progress,
only
result
in
our arrival at a colder and

.
drearier
region than we were
born in. It insists We

all go wrong,
on everybody's
adding
somewhat
to an accumulated pile of usefulness.

right."
by
too strenuous a resolution to go all
28. "And in
tion
spite of all
the to-do to the contrary, he
[Hawthorne]
was
possessed a
strong
predilec
for the kind
of reform which was
based
on
the broadest human experience. He
quizzically in
reform
hung
back
all matters of
'theoretical
nonsense.'
But he
ready
enough
to subjoin himself to a
that was "natural
sensible,'
and
reform that
took into account in its program of
improvement
to cause
with
the motley and
contradictory
realities of men's existence.
Such
reform was not
its
likely
cure effects which might prove more

disease"
original
deleterious to the general happiness of mankind than the (Lawrence Sargent Hall, Hawthorne: Critic of Society [Gloucester- Peter Smith
1966],
p.
30).
Women in
Hawthorne'
Novels
89
by
29. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, translated by George Lawrence and edited J. P. Mayer (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), Volume 2, part 3, chapters 9, 10, 12. 30. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights Carol H. of Women. 2d edition, edited
by
Poston (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1988), p. 144. 31. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1983), chapters 11 ("Prog ressive Dehumanization: The Comfortable Concentration Camp) and 12 ('The Forfeited Self), not merely as the means of biolog especially p. 333: "One sees the human significance of work ical survival, but and human Zenobia's
as
the giver of self and the transcender of self, as the creator of human
identity
of one
evolution."
Hawthorne
would more
interiority, sympathy
of
and
heart. Or,
find Friedan's understanding accurately, he would see it as
of
"self to be deficient
a statement
lifted from
published
tracts.
32. Even assuming that I have correctly drawn Hawthorne's understanding of women (and men) and successfully located it in his view of Nature, one can certainly quarrel with that understanding.
Many
of our
contemporaries, standing in the same "State of

of and
Nature"
tradition as Hawthorne (or at

would claim
least the Rousseauian branch Hawthorne has

makes a sought
it)
and which
many
would more
ostensibly reject,
that
as
Nature
only found
Society;
accurately, only so much of
Society
Hawthorne feel
of
comfortable with what
form
ideology,
his
as
steeped more or
he is seeing in Nature. In other words, his novels are less in patriarchy or bourgeois self-satisfaction. Or some might
represents a consciousness
claim with
that
complex view of
shame,
sexuality his partially heightened

objectification of
sensitivities
have
enabled
wallowing in rectitude doused him to see the exploitation of
women
but his
4
phallocentric
art would
be the
masculinity hangs like a seductive web of distortion over his eyes. His his internal (partially unconscious) wrangling with his confusion
aware of
on
(see
note
above).
Maybe. But Hawthorne himself is certainly
the
Nature/Society distinc
for society,
tion and the necessity/difficulty of sorting the two, especially thorne does believe that Nature
and
the question of women. Haw

source of standards of
is the necessary, if
last thinker to
not
sufficient,
the
he
was neither the
first
nor
wrestle with
issue
Nature. In his works, this

and conventional passions.
concern
usually
surfaces as an attempt
may reliably know to distinguish between the natural how

we and
See, for
and
example,
his
short
story, "The New Adam
Eve": "We
who
are
born into the
world's artificial system can never
and circumstances
is natural,
how
much
adequately know how little in our present state is merely the interpolation of the perverted mind and
heart
of man.
Art has become
a second and stronger nature; she
is
stepmother,
whose
crafty
tenderness has taught us to despise the bountiful and
parent"
wholesome ministrations of our
true
(The Complete Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne, p. 327ff.). The value in reading Hawthorne's works is that the questions he raises are still the ones that twenty-first-century human beings need
to think about.
The Wisdom
of
Exile:
Country"
Edward Everett Hale's "The Man Without

Colin D. Pearce
The Heritage Foundation
a
When
someone reproached
Diogenes
with
through
that,
you miserable
fellow,
that I came to
his exile, he replied, "Nay, it be a
was
philosopher."
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers
INTRODUCTION
No
man was a greater
American
patriot
than Edward Everett

of
Hale,
figure
who concerned
himself
with
the formation
pulpit
American
citizens and who exer
cised a
broad influence from his

short
in Boston
a
and via
his
voluminous writ
ings. His
an
story "The Man Without American classic. Within a year of its

sold a
Country"
publication
is universally regarded as in the Atlantic Monthly in

at as
a
1863, it had
once
half
the
a million copies.
remorseful
As John R. Adams notes, "Almost
Philip Nolan,
exile, became as clearly defined

or
figure
Washington Irving's
ognizable as an
Rip
Van Winkle
character
Ichabod
Crane;
and
he
was more rec
American Poe's
than the
protagonists or
the antagonists of
Hawthorne's One books
or
tales."1
might think that
this short story

of most of
which was so successful
in
civics text
would go the
period and
way be forgotten almost

relevance
the patriotic writings of the Civil War

silenced.2
as soon as the cannons were
But the
tale's enduring
is
attested to
by
its
continued
success.3
In Francis R. legal
Gemme's view, Hale's story, if
approached
in the
tradition of Aristotle and
Donne,
remains
"highly
relevant
in this
modem age
in
which questions of
and moral
dissent
abound."4
Briefly,
young
died,"5
the tale is
narrated navy.
by
a certain
Ingham,
who
had known Nolan
as a
officer
in the
He
was moved
obituary
of
notice can
in the
newspaper
by reading Nolan's in 1863. If Nolan "was near eighty when he

to tell his story
must
we
conclude period
that
he
have been bom
during
the Articles
in the early 1780's. Nolan would have been about ten years old when the United States Constitution came into effect in 1791. in the Nolan's life was thus roughly parallel to the birth of the "New
Confederation
Nation"
1994, Vol. 22, No. 1
92
Interpretation
and
American Revolution 1860's.

The decisive
conspiracy.
event
met
its
"death"
in the American Civil War in the early

Bun-
He
his involvement in the Aaron Burr in Louisiana in 1805 and was court-martialled in 1807 in Nolan's life
was
in the
remote western outpost of
Fort Adams for his

as
connection
to the
Bun-
scheme. when
Nolan
enough"
was
"guilty
him
at
far
as
the court was concerned,
but
the
judge
a
asked
the
close of
the proceedings
"whether he
wished
to say anything to show that

cried
of
he had
always
been faithful to the United States he

wish
out, in
fit
of
frenzy: 'Damn the United States! I

again!'"
I may
never
hear
the United States
(p. 11).
the court, "Old
Morgan,"
The indignant
president of
then decided to give

sentenced
Nolan, like Midas before him, everything he

man
wished.
He
the
the young
arrange
again."
to be taken away and, "subject to the
President,"
approval of
ments would
be
made
"that
you
never
hear the for the
name
United States
Nolan
was
then taken onto a
Navy
ship
and
remainder of
his life
cmised
the oceans on United States
vessels under speak or
the care
of officers and crew who
forbidden to mention, relevant to the United States

were
convey any fact, information or detail whatsoever. "From that moment, September 23,
never
1807,
till the
day
he died,
the
May 11, 1863, he

he
of an
heard her
name again.
For
that half century
country"
and more
was a man without a
(p. 12).
Ingham
explains
improbable story
American
seaborne outcast
by or
if
we
in terms
ment.
of
the
indifference, secrecy
men who
and cowardice of
the United
States
govern
It
was certain
that President Jefferson
approved of
the sentence
may "believe the
say they have

the
seen
his
signature"
(p. 14). The
Secretary
ence
of
the
Navy
also signed off on
the orders
when
for Nolan's "mild

to
custo
(p. 16). In later
life, during
1830's,
he thought he had "some influ

earth"
in
Washington,"
Ingham tried to "move heaven

get a ghost out of prison.
. .
and
free Nolan,
was no
but "it
such
was
like trying to
They
pretended
there
man,
and never was such a man.
It
will not
service of which the government
Department knows
nothing!"
be the first thing in the (p. 36) The conduct of the

to some extent the young
in his
own case would appear to
justify
Nolan's initial
attitude of contempt
for the United States.
[A]fter 1817, the position of every officer who had Nolan in charge was one of the delicacy. The government had failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him. What was a man to do? What then, if he were called to account by the
greatest
Department for violating the order of 1807? Should he keep him? What then if Nolan should be liberated some day, and should bring an action for false
imprisonment
or
kidnapping
against
Secretary
you
always said, as
they
so often
every do
man who at
had him in
charge?
...
the
Washington,
you will
that there were no
special orders to give, and that we must act on our own
judgment. That means, "If

be
disavowed."
succeed,
you will
be sustained; if
you
fail,
(Pp
40-
41)
The Wisdom of Exile When he

was a
93
showing the kind

patriotic
young soldier the adventurer Aaron Burr won Nolan over by of interest in his particular case which his own government
show once of
completely failed to
he had become an aging exile. Whatever the Hale's story, and its lesson that the United States is wholly worthy of the loyalty of its citizens, the story also shows us that the government of the country is surely capable of unconstitutional behavior, cow
intention
ardice and
incompetence. Loyalty
government.
to the United States does not
imply
unlimited
tmst in
its
THE EDUCATION OF AN OUTCAST
The
grown
circumstances
up in
fellow"
young the Devil

copied
.
Philip Nolan's upbringing were singular. He had the West during the 1780's and 90's. This "gay, dashing, bright was immediately captivated by Aaron Burr when they met, "as
of
would
.
have it
at some
dinner
party."
He "wrote but
and rewrote and
long, high
letters"
worded and stilted
to Burr
received no reply. sacrificed
"The
other
boys in the for
garrison sneered at a politician the

jack"
him because he
which
in this
unrequited affection
gohela, sledge,
him,"
and
high-low
they devoted to Monon(p. 10). When Burr returned to "seduce

time
he
was
"enlisted
was
body
a
soul"
and
in the
conspiracy.
We
see
then
from the
and
start that
Nolan
character
whose
guiding
passion
was
ambition
honor,
may
things
which
he
expedition"
associated with the
"dashing
and
of
Burr.
Nolan's
"formal"
education
had been irregular
"un-American,"
if
we
speak anachronistically.
He had been
officer or a perfected once spent
educated on a
French
merchant
in
commercial
where the finest company was a Spanish from Orleans. His education, such as it was, had been expeditions to Vera Cruz, and I think he told me his father
plantation,
hired
an
Englishman to be
private tutor
for
a winter on the plantation.
He had
half his
youth with an older
brother, hunting
horses in Texas. (Pp. 11-12)

more
Nolan
word, to
seems to
have
grown a
up in the West
citizen
like
And
a wild cavalier of
republic.6
aristocratic
Europe than 'United
steady
was
of a a
democratic
"[I]n
him,
States'
reality."
the army as a young the 'United

west ment
States'"
man
he had
sworn
scarcely "on his faith forth
yet when
he joined
as a
Christian to be true to
(p. 12). Aaron Burr's dream

and called
of a new empire
in the
south
fired Nolan's imagination in

a
"flesh
blood"
and
commit
United States did not. way that his situation in the forces of the timeand spirited Nolan then was of a more daring type than the usual
servers great
in the
services.
But
at the same
on
time,
as a man of
high
ambition and
daring, he
comrades.
was
dependent
needed
society
more
than
his
more average or con virtues
tented
He
it
field"
as a
"playing
for his
in
way they
94
did
Interpretation
not.7
Exile
with
its
permanent
obscurity
more
difficult to bear for
someone of
out.
or privacy must therefore be all the Nolan's type. The pain he goes through
during
his banishment bears this
NOLAN'S NEED FOR SOCIETY
Nolan's know
exile meant that
and understand
the political
own country. cut off all
"No
of
mess
satisfy whatever desire he had to developments as they were unfolding in his liked to have him permanently, because his presence
he
could never
talk
home
or of
the prospect
of
return, of politics, or
men
letters,
at
of
peace or of
war,
cut off more and
than half the talk
like to have
sea."
Hence Nolan "ate

never on matters
drank
with
alone"
(p. 16). Conversations Nolan did along been

symbols
have, but
for"
to do
at
his
own country.
all
But life
as we
leam
the end of the tale, Nolan had

room
"living
the United States. His

map,
was
and
decorated
concern
with
the
of
American
flag
to
and so on
his
to know how his country was

means of
developing,
of
know
and
of
the
new
states, "of emigration, and the

of
steamboats,
of
railroads, and telegraphs,

and
inventions,
and
it, books, and

was great
literature,
ability to be
most.
the
Colleges,
it. He
West Point,
and
the Naval
School,"
(p. 45). His interest in the fate

a part of
on was
of country was in inverse proportion to his deprived of the thing he came to hunger after
Only
man some of
the details
his deathbed does Ingham's friend Danforth convey to the old of American history from 1807 to 1863. But Danforth
not make
explains that
he "could left
up my
mouth
to tell him a
word about
this
infernal Thus
rebellion"
(p. 46).
with
we are
the unmistakable
impression that Hale
wishes
to teach
through his story the human need
group
of
for community and membership in a larger human beings joined together by mutual trust and a common dis
provide and
course, or, in his words, to
landighams 40).
Tatnals
of
to-day
of what
"a warning to the young Nolans it is to throw away a
and Val-
country"
(p.
The harshness
life
of a
"man
pale of civic
Nolan's fate indicates clearly Hale's point in describing the which is to say the individual outside the life. Hale is implicitly addressing the liberal doctrines of the State
of
country,"
without a
of
Nature
or
making story
an exursion
into "social
than
theory."
contract
But the fact that
Hale
gives us a
of exile rather
of man alone
in the
wilderness shows
his basic
rated
civil
that the individual can be sepa from the community to some degree, the idea of human existence without community where Hobbes said his life must be "solitary, poor, nasty,
would allow
short"
standpoint.8
While Hale
bmtish nity is
and
is
unthinkable
social
with
to
him.9
In the State-of-Nature doctrine the

of
individual
antedates
the
contract, but in the thought

the
individual.10
Hale the
commu
prior
to or coeval
The Wisdom of Exile
95
Thus, in comparing Hale's description of "The Man Without a with Hobbes's State of Nature, we notice some basic differences. Nolan has food and lodging supplied, his jailers are basically well disposed towards him,
he leads
a
Country"
highly
Nolan
civilized
on
life in
some
respects,
and
he lives to the
man
ripe old age secu
of eighty.
his ship has

of
all that
Hobbesian
desires. He has
yet
rity
of
body
man.
and possessions as well as private
liberty. And
he is
not a
happy
him."
His loss
the
"fellowship"
of others
is
a great catastrophe
for
We
said
are not surprised
to leam then that Hale disagrees
with
Hobbes,
a
who
that nature
"dissociates"
human beings. For Hale himself from the
man
is
"gregarious he is
an of
animal."
"[A]ny
one who separates moment
race of which race
organic
part, at that
death begins. 'The human many

separate
race
is the individual Hale
which men and women are so
cells,
or
organs.'"12
makes apart
these remarks in
likening
the human
to the
bees,
who cannot
live
from the hive. He

with and
presents man as a
higher bee. He thus
implicitly
takes
issue
Hobbes, Ants, live sociably

same."13
who allowed
that "It
one
is tme, that certain living creatures, as Bees, with another, (which are therefore by Aristotle
but
who
numbered amongst
Political
creatures;)"
insisted that "Mankind
cannot
do the
Thus it
against
appears
from
a certain angle
Hobbes.14
that Hale takes the side

some sense this
of
Aristotle
over
the "first
liberal,"
In
is tme,
as
Hale implic
starting point for reflections on the human condition. But as we shall see, it is not that simple. Aristotle's case for the naturalness of the city hinged on the highest end of the city, which is philoso phy, which is to say the fulfilment of human nature in a self-sufficient, self-
itly
denies the State
of
Nature
as a
absorbed, purely truth-seeking, apolitical way of life. Hale does not believe in the desirability or even the possibility of this justifying of human com
"telos"
munity.
To
appreciate this aspect of
Hale's thought
In
we need to
look
at
at
his
more on
general statements of principle. politics and the
particular we should
look
his thoughts
"life
mind."
of
the
EDWARD EVERETT HALE'S PURE AMERICANISM
In
an
address
entitled
"Democracy
and
Liberal
Education,"
delivered in
the distin
1887, Hale
guished
attacked
the then President
of
Princeton
University,
in
a was of
Scottish
academic
James McCosh, for his
remarks
lecture to the
in
education as
...
Exeter
Academy.15
his
pedagogical
Hale argued, in effect, that McCosh purposes because he defended the idea
of
"un-American"
liberal
creating "a
separate class
men,
sort of a
of
supply letters
our and
lack
of a political
body
book-made aristocracy to noblemen by an aristocracy founded on

explained, McCosh was
learning."
In
so
doing, Hale
drawing
on
96
Interpretation
"as
Plato."
analogies
a man
old as
"They
are analogies which come most

social order.
naturally to
ought not
trained among well-defined classes in

sustained
But they
p.
"elitist"
to
be
long
among
of
people who
have been
trained
in the
social order of a
democratic
overtones.
republic"
Education,"
("Democracy
liberal Liberal
education
and a
Liberal
have
no
43).
or exclusivist
For Hale the idea
education should not seek
scholars.
does
"to
make
Indeed, "a
people
. .
tme republic expects, in the end, to give
any class of liberal education to

all"
all
its
the republic regards a liberal education not as the good fortune of a
governing class, but as the privilege, if you please, the necessity of pp. 44-45). In the final analysis Hale blurs the line between civic
education completely.
sense as
(ibid.,
liberal
and
Moreover, he defines liberal

with
education
in Tocqueville's
conditions.16
incompatible
older
the American regime and American
Hale's
or, in the
particular concern
is the
"intellectuals"
corruptive effect on
"sophists."
terminology,
o'clock
society of These he defines as those to bid him before two to

write
whom one
might send
"at ten
. .
to-night,
and
up for
you
Bulgaria.
have demanded
One thousand words, two thousand, ten thousand words, as you and are willing to pay But these modem equivalents of
for."
the Athenian sophists ultimately have nothing to say. "And for any uplifting mankind, for guiding life, for helping society, of the money paid for the ink with which it
what
was
of
is
written
has
not
the
worth
done!"
("Democracy
and a
Liberal
Education,"
p.
48).
as
Philosophy
helps society, primary
object.
or
liberal education,
Hale defines
it,
uplifts mankind
and
not as an
ancillary "[T]me literature

of
consequence of
and
its
pursuit of need
truth, but
as
its
tme philosophy
...
to be the
fed, in every
people's
hour, by
fed
the tides
the people's
life
on
the other
hand,
life
quickens, enlarges,
and with a new which
dignity
controls
history
and
nature, as it is
by
the
daily
other
phy."17
In
people to attain
from Science, Literature, and Philoso words philosophy both springs from the people and helps the its ends. It is not fundamentally at odds with society. Hale food it
receives
makes no mention
in his lectures
of
the
execution of
Socrates.
conception of
Hale therefore has very

cation's
"enlightenment"
much an
liberal
edu
relationship to society. Liberal education illuminates the

that
all
social world
in
order
its it
members
may
see and
on
stains the panes;

and
can
paints the
frescoes
There
the walls,
live better. It "lets in the light; it while it gives its strength

"In
tme literature and
symmetry to the be known should be

are no
whole."
are no
dangerous tmths for Hale. All that

see.
available
for
all to
all
science, there
patent.
secret medicines or private paths. and what a man
Everything
'Noblesse
oblige'
for
good"
universal
(ibid.,
p.
50).
discovers, Moreover,
he dis-covers: he
is really opens it
The
an
man
best fitted
American
citizen
The
people can
his education to do the manly and godly service expected of is not, by that fortune, in any jot separated from the people. lead him quite as much as his books can lead the people The
by
men of
letters,
the
men of
liberal education,
are not to
hold themselves in any
sort
The Wisdom of Exile

as parted
97
from
other workmen of the uttered no matter

or
dainty
advice,
truth for
itself,
learn for
mankind.
literature, or (Ibid., pp. 61-64)

careful
Distrust the country or superior to them how gracefully, that you study science for herself, philosophy. You study each and all, whatever you
. .
Hale is, to be sure, demagogue who tries to

does
to
add a
make science or
warning against the "quack or the literature popular, by making either of
them superficial, petty, or in any jot

not
small"
(ibid.,
p.
imply
that the political

education.
world
is
inherently
problematic
65). But in saying this he from the point
of view of
liberal
Hale
stays within
the framework of politics alto
gether when
discussing
the requirements of education.
EDUCATION: CIVIC AND LIBERAL
Part
of
Hale's
concern
is to
make sure
that education in America
is,
unlike start
that which the young Nolan received,
ing
point
Hale's tmly "American is the fact that "there is such a reality as American thought,
which are and
education."
[and]
there are certain principles which

certain
a
feelings
belong experienced by
a nation
to the American
none
Government, [and]
America is
pp. 71-
but
an
American."18
"pure
democracy"
"is
72). The term "The

tion. This
"We"
People"
different from any in America designates the

and
other"
(ibid.,
is
"We"
in the Constitu
"is
not a
class; it is the whole,

which speaks
sovereign
this
whole
Hence "with
us
any language
treason against the
sovereign"
(ibid.,
p.
contemptuously of this People is 72). Thus for Hale the "trenchant sat European
schools"
ires lack
upon
democracy
...
of almost all the

people
derive from their

a
of appreciation
that the
For Hale American "difference he

of
education
is the community not the rabble (ibid.). cannot be European in nature because of
the people with one motive;
another"
principle."
"We
educate all
they
what
educate a part of their people with

sees as a needed reform
(ibid.,
p.
81). In
"one
discussing
is for
in American
college
education,
endow
which
some
public-spirited soul of wealth and

ship"
benevolence to
special professor
in every first-class college "which should be the professorship of Amer Hale reveals the thought behind his conceit of having the young Nolan educated a Spanish officer, a French merchant and an English tutor. The
ica,"
by
training
of
American
youth should no
longer be
skewed
by
its
confinement
to
"English
newspapers, French novels, German philosophy, and,
lately, Prussian
could
religion"
(ibid.,
p.
82). An "accomplished
that the Fathers
ever
man
in
college"
each
"show
men"
young men and for government

and that
women
of a
century
ago
had the
one
greatest genius
which
has
been
seen at one
time, in
"the
morals of
Zola,
and
the dreams of Tolstoi and
company of of Turgenef, do
not
fit in
In
with
what
American
then
character and
(ibid.,
p.
83).
which
is the intellect of the American sovereign, will be trained firstly in the history people, to be trained? It
is to say the
of the people
itself,
98
Interpretation
of
in the understanding
mutual
its it
government and administration,

crops
recognize genius when
help
and
tolerance."
up in its midst This training "will

or
and not
in "the
in the capacity to great lessons of

make
try
to
merely
a student of
language
indeed
of
any
one science.
There
will
[the pupil] be phi
lologists enough,
prince with
and men of science enough. and
We
shall not crowd
him,
as a
Latin
Greek,
"had
or no
Sanskrit."19
The American
model
shall
be but
George
who
Washington,
who
knowledge
of
any language but his

of
own"
"gained
style of
by
writing"
easy
training (ibid., p. 114). All

and
quite unlike
that
the
colleges
strong
and
this is to happen through such agen
cies as
tion,"
reading circles, Chautauqua

today.20
university
extension
"adult
educa
say say that Hale saw very clearly the tension between the the American republic and the implicit effects of liberal We
can
we might
principles of
education;21
but he
resolves this tension

rather
in favor
of the
democratic
or civic side of ends.
liberal
education argues
than in the direction of its philosophic

"threat"
While Tocqueville
that the
was
to
liberty
the
and civilization
is
no
longer from the
old order which
dying, but from
new
democratic
a
system which was
Hale
still speaks as though
there is
danger from
"feudalism"
gathering strength, or "caste con-
CHRISTIAN LIBERALISM VERSUS PAGAN ETHICS
We
understand
more
clearly
there is
now
Hale's for
vantage
point on
the American
of
civic condition and
his
concept of
American
citizenship. a
In his interpretation
the
American
republicanism
no room
lofty
distance from
regime.
popular
concerns and
democratic
purposes of the
American
We
observe
then
that Hale's
republicanism
is
not to
be
confused with and
the tradition
of aristocratic at
republicanism
emanating
above
out of
Greece
Rome. This difference is his interpretation
the
root
of
Hale's
moral and political views.
To
understand
Hale's fundamental
of
stand
point we and what
must,
all, take into
account
Christianity
republican
it
meant
for the
political world.
For Hale,
short, for
and
with
Christianity
is the fundamental
of
event which
divides the for
tradition of the
United States from its

the advent
or
antecedent
in the
classical world.
In life
Hale,
tme virtue,
had the
effect of
Christianity bringing
it is to be
reconciled once and
all vulgar public
together the sphere of
the sphere of genuine truth.
Whatever Hale takes to be the

part of
of
precise charac
of
ter of American republicanism,
the "New
Civilization"
Christianity
Thumb-Nail
rather
than the "Old
Civilization"
"paganism."23
This is
made
most apparent
Sketch."
in his little essay entitled "The Old and the New Face to Face: A The scene Hale wants us to envisage here is the "cul
of
moment"
minating
the
of
the
old pre-Christian
order.24
At this
"moment"
we see
faith,
courage and
morality
of
St.
Paul,
side
by
side with
p.
"the
moral results
civilization"
the ancient
represented
by
Seneca (ibid.,
74).
The Wisdom of Exile

Hale
man
99
Ro
the
says of
Seneca's
"system"
that it
indeed
still
. .
represented
"the best
of was
morality bravest of the
and
Greek philosophy, [but]

the old civilization
more with
it
.
was mean.
His
daring
p.
men of
Seneca dared say

man"
no more
to
Nero,
cient
to venture
him,
at
than did any
other
(ibid.,
80). An
philosophy
was
cowardly
its heart.
[A]ll that Seneca's
daring
could venture was to seduce the

plunder of a province
baby-tyrant into the least divert him him
injurious
lust
with
of tyrannies.
From the
he
would
carnage of new at
the circus. From the murder of a senator he could lure him
home. From the

ruin of a noble
ruin of
the
Empire, he
and
could seduce with
by the by some by diverting

was one of
him
He
the
family. And Seneca did this

in his hands,
the best of motives.
said
he
used all the power

whom all
he thought he did. He from
those men of
times have their share. The bravest of his time, he satisfied
himself
could
with alluring the beardless Emperor flatter him to the expedient. He dared
by
petty
crime
public right.
wrong; he
not order
him to the
(Ibid.,
pp.
80-81)
Hale dismisses the
not consider
whole philosophic
tradition of advising
tyrants.25
He does
it
an
extenuating
circumstance
that Seneca could have been

on"
trying
to moderate and improve a horrible regime
by "working
the
tyrant, that
Seneca
might
have been
concerned
to do what he could to improve a tyrannical
order rather than philosopher

view of
simply to occupy the moral high ground. The morality of the low-stakes morality to Hale. It implies an exceedingly dim the world and of the prospects for improvement. Moreover, it may is
a
imply a certain sympathy with the tyrannical regime as being preferable to a democracy under the best circumstances. For Hale the first order of priority is to smite the tyrant hip and thigh with moral thunder, and damn the conse
quences. whereas
Seneca
was
concerned
only to
to
moderate
the excesses of
face.26
tyranny,
St.
en
St. Paul
was concerned
condemn
the tyrant to his
Hale tries
the
to articulate what
he
suspects might
have been Seneca's thoughts
on
hearing
Paul's
address to the
Emperor,
which
is to say his
bearing
witness to
on
counter of
"Faith
on one
side, before expediency
and
cmelty
the
other!"27
This
wild
Easterner has
as
rebuked
the Emperor as I have so often wanted to rebuke

to stand, a man
him. He
stood
I have thought,
there, and have been

as
I have
wanted
before
brute. He
said what
afraid as
to say.
Downright,
straightforward, he told
which
the Emperor truths
to
Rome,
what
to man,
and as
to his vices,
I have longed I have
to tell him. He has done
am afraid
to do. He has dared this,

of
which
dallied with,
and
left
undone.
What is the mystery
his
power?"28
In Hale's hands the tyrant

"individualists."
and
the
philosopher
both
come
to sight as pure
The tyrant
the
will
have the city
with
its
people and
its
goods all
to
himself,
way.
while
philosopher seeks self-preservation
in
cowardly
calculat
"egoism"
ing
Only
the Christian teaching
can show
the way beyond such
100
Interpretation
of
in the direction
all
of
tme morality. It can
give reasons
for the
sake of
justice here
and now.
why one should The Christian proves the genuineness justice

and
surrender
his philanthropy Given

what we
by brooking
have
no compromise where
humanity
are
concerned.29
seen of
Hale's fundamental
said.
position
above, it might
appear
that little
a
more need
be
Hale
preaches
the individual's sociality
because he is justice
He
and
Christian philanthropist, and human beings in all their need for humanity are first to be found in one's own community. "[T]here is for
a man
common
no success
must
live in the
if he try to live for himself, in himself, life or he dies. He must enjoy

sorrow."30
and
by
himself.
with
the
joy
of
others; he must sorrow in their But if we go deeper into the
experience of
Hale's Nolan,
we
find that Hale

or
has
of
created a more complicated picture. efforts
It
would seem that
despite
because for
his best
to make the case
for the
essential need of
the individual
his community,
and
very strong from full membership in the community civic life.
ing
case
for the morality of noble self-sacrifice, Hale ends up mak for the ennobling effects on the individual of exclusion
or
for freedom from the demands
of
NOLAN'S RE-EDUCATION
"educating"
or Nolan's isolation necessarily had the unintended effect of more precisely, re-educating him. It turns out that during his exile Nolan be
came a great reader. other

. . .
A "system
was adopted
from the first

it"
about
his books
and
published p.
everybody reading in America and made
was permitted
18).
Any
"American
content"
books, if they were not allusion (The Man Without a Country, no to had to be cut out of the material he could see.
to lend him
exclusion of
Such
ern
a proviso
hardly
resulted
in the
the largest part of the West

when
literary
tradition. But "[t]his was a little cruel sometimes,
the back of
swore
what was cut out might old
be
as
innocent
Hesiod"
as
(p.
18)
and
"Philips
Shaw had
cut out
the Tempest
from Shakespeare before he let Nolan have

to be ours, and
it, because he
day'"
said
'the Bermudas
ought
by Jove,
should
be
one
(p. 19). As it English
happened, Nolan had

which an
"quite
windfall"
in the form
officer
of
"a
at
lot
books"
of
English Admiral had lent to

main readings and
"Sermons"
Philips
the Cape of Good Hope. Amongst Nolan's
then were the
Bible,
Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Flechier's

papers"
the
reports
in the "foreign
of
Napoleon's battles his
and
Canning's
speeches.
Thus
as a man without a
"reading
thodical"
his
as
profession."
notes were
country Nolan made a life for himself in which His life on board ship became as "me back in the try
western states.
it had been
not
chaotic
He
said
it did
do for
anyone to
to read all the
time,
more
than to do
"Then,"
anything
"I
else all
the time; but that he read just five hours a day.
he said,
keep
up my notebooks, writing in them at such and such hours from what I have
The Wisdom of Exile

books."
-101
been reading; and I include them in my Those were very curious scrap indeed. He had six or eight, of different subjects. There was one of History, one Natural Science, one which he called "Odds and (P. 29)
Ends."
of
of each would
Nolan's reading and note-taking "took five hours and two hours respectively and for he would turn to his "Natural which
day," "diversion" History,"
take "two
hours
day
more."
"These
nine
hours
made
Nolan's
and
regular
'occupation.'"
daily
study, "but on a
Sometimes the
cruise
men would
bring
Nolan birds
fish to
and who
long
cockroaches and such small
he had to satisfy himself with centipedes game. He was the only naturalist I ever met
mosquito."31
knew anything about the habits of the house-fly and Nolan's formal exclusion from civic life left him with
cultivate
no other option
seas a
but to
a
his
mind.
Thus he became in his life
on the
high
litterateur,
at
scientist,
time
somewhat of a physician and a
kind
of poet-priest.
But
the same
all
he did his
not exile
lose his
it him
"aristocratic"
old
virtue of
courage,32
and
for
the
pain of
seems evident
that he
grew
in his
humanity
as
and
dignity.33
His
exile made of
an excellent citizen
"in
absentia,"
it
were.
Nolan
becomes
better
was
citizen
despite
or
because
of
the
fact that the
mle of
his "re
education"
that it be free from
all content
appertaining to his
country.
PREACHING PATRIOTISM WHILE LIVING APART
At
one point
of slaves stands
were
occasion to play the role of an interpreter to a group his by ship because he is the only man available who under Portuguese. The emotional response to his explaining that they
Nolan has
liberated
slaves'
to
be taken back to their homes

on
moves
of
Nolan to
give a
little
sermon
to his
young friend Ingham
the
relationship
the individual to his country.
Youngster, let
that show you what it is to be without a
family,
without a
home
and
without a country.
And if
you are ever
tempted to say a
word or
do something that
shall put a bar between you and your family, your home and your country, pray God in His mercy to take you that instant home to His own heaven. Stick by your family, boy; forget you have a self, while you do everything for them. (P. 35)
be recommending to the young boy to seek the oppo site situation to his own, in which he can have no other concern or focus for his life than himself. Uncompromising dedication to family and country is to be preferred to a self-absorbed existence where the other human beings encoun
Thus Nolan
seems to
tered
are
merely
means
to the basic
own
necessities of existence such as progress and
food
and
shelter.
It
seems that costs of
Nolan's
intellectual "without
his
appreciation of
country"
the human
being
stateless or
advance
in tandem.
the virtues
The more learned he becomes, the view his country as his mother. In
of civic
more emphatic other words
he is that the
citizen should
Nolan
recommends
dedication in inverse
proportion
to his own connection to such a
life.
102
Interpretation
a
But there is
virtues
fundamental disjunction between Nolan's

to the boy. Nowhere in his little
"knowledge"
"intelligence"
own virtues and
the
he
preaches
sermon on appear.
love
do the does he The
"mind,"
words
or
of country Nowhere in it
allude
to the years
contradiction
study he has pursued as result of his being exiled. between Nolan's little sermon and his actual dealings with
of
Ingham is Ingham
apparent
in the
role
Nolan
played
in Ingham's deal
of
"formal"
education.
mathematics
. . .
explains that
Nolan taught him "a

me about
great
lent
me
books,
as
and
helped
reading"
my
we
my (p. 36). This had

Ingham
impact,
indicated
by
the fact that
first
meet
a lifelong "devouring to the
very stubble all the current literature [he] could get hold of (p. 7). How could Nolan have played this role if he had not been absorbed with his researches and
studies,
years? which is to say preoccupied solely with his own interests, for all those Would he have been a competent teacher if he had not blurted out his
shocking
statement at the court martial and
thereby had
remained a
"full
citi
zen?"
strange twist of
But if Nolan has palpably improved in all the virtues as a fate that placed him outside the pale of political
result of
the
or civic
life,
why does he not encourage his young friend or anybody else to try to maneuver himself into a position, certainly not of exile, but reminiscent of his own in that
the "life of the
cupations?
mind"
and
the study of natural phenomena are the
major preoc
In
answer of
to this question
we must recall
that Nolan's
"liberation"
from the
demands
not
his society was forced on him in the sense that his life situation was something that he chose directly for himself. It was not by natural inclina
tion that
he
came
to lead his life in pursuit of knowledge but

new-found virtues went
other
by
force
of
circumstance.34
His
"against the
grain"
of
his earlier,
choose
"freer"
life
where
he had
options,
such as soldier or
adventurer, to
land."
from. Thus the

natural
attainment of
would
his
new virtue was at
the cost of certain basic
inclinations that
have
say that on land the lower and

would
have had free play back "on more naturally powerful of Nolan
while
We
might
inclinations in his
submerged the
higher,
this situation
was
reversed
"artificial"
unique or
situation at sea.
INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
Despite his early his

youthful
conduct
Nolan
must
have had
a good nature underneath all
wildness,
somewhat
like Prince Hal in
Henry IV,
who would
later
become the all-conquering Henry V. Otherwise he would not have gone in the acquisition of knowledge and the development of his character
so
far
while
floating
with
on
the oceans
of
the
world.
In the
case of
Nolan
we are
dealing
not
the
pure philosopher nor with a
totally
of
undistinguished and ungifted type.

although perhaps not
Rather
we are
dealing
with
the kind
individual who,
The Wisdom of Exile

originally destined to lead the purely philosophical life, is enough endowed by nature to be capable of capitalizing on
the acquisition of
open
nevertheless
103
well
a situation where
path
learning
and the pursuit of
the sciences is the only
left
to his
mind.
Nolan then is
the call
nature of
of a
type that is susceptible to both the
call of
his intellect
and
his
community.
As
such
he is
neither a
total solitary who
is
by
fitted for life alone, nor is he simply the citizen and nothing more, who receives full human satisfaction simply by virtue of belonging to, and partici
pating
brid,"
in,
the life of the community. To the extent then that Nolan is a
"hy
which
is to say
not
totally
all
satisfied or
fulfilled
by
his
pursuit of
knowl
edge or
totally overcoming
of
received.35
the natural inclinations which tended to

we can can appreciate
link him
to the
life
the community,
how drastic
a punishment
he had (to
Nolan's
use
agonies
in
exile serve
to show just how
"superior"
as a
human type
Aristotle's terminology), he would have to have been in order for him to be truly indifferent to the fact of his exile, which is to say tmly free from all
possible concern or attachment to the
"past,"
land
of
his birth, to his

god"
family
and
to his the
so to
speak.36
But
being
"neither beast
nor
as
Aristotle
says
be, Nolan must endure the costs, even as he takes city advantage of the benefits, of his isolated The life of philosophy or science is only a possibility opened up by human
man without a
must
position.37
society,
and
is
no more
the explicit purpose of that society's coming into exis

purpose of of such a
tence than it is the explicit

conditions
for the
flourishing
does
Navy to fine human being as Philip

has
other concerns with external a citizen
the United States
provide
the
Nolan. The
community fection of the intellect. It internal

assume
order.
as such
not philosophize and must
than the per
first
absorb
itself
security
and
It
must
then
pay heed to producing

end of
body
that will
the responsibilities that accompany the
nity's existence.
Citizens
are expected
etc.
ment,
serve
in the defense forces,
perpetuating the commu to obey the law, participate in govern And nobody seriously claims that these
unreasonable. are at odds with
requirements on the part of
the community are
But it is
clear that these reasonable

or
demands
the
ultimate
requirements of
philosophy because he found peace and

ship.
intellectual
virtue.
Nolan becomes
"uninterrupted"
who
he is
his
extended periods of
time aboard
while
Although Nolan is
or supervisors
kind
of
prisoner, he to
is
at permanent
leisure,
keepers
are
obliged
work and
to fulfil their
naval respon
sibilities.38
He
could
do
what
he did precisely because he is

none of the
not part of
the
ship's crew and therefore

member.
has
demanding
the
responsibilities of a crew relation of
Nolan's
experience
is
a paradigm of
intellectual to human
simply Nolan's insofar coming

as
civic virtue. strange case serves to remind us of the
ambiguity
of
nature
it includes both individualist

outstanding human
and communitarian
tendencies. His be that we must
a somewhat
being
in
exile reminds us
104
Interpretation
feel
and appear
expect to pursue
different from
to
use
the community
norm
if
we
would
"self-improvement,"
John Smart Mill's
phrase
for
our
highest
individual
mation or
obligation.
The
approach to tme virtue
involves
kind
of transfor an ear
conversion,
such as
Nolan
seems to
have experienced, from
lier, inadequate,
stage.
stage, into a later, more fully human, individual But the fact that Nolan's achievement of a high degree of human excel
civic or social
not accompanied
lence is
by
the fullest
personal
happiness
also reminds us of
the tension between the full
development
The
of
individual
potential and simple or

Country"
ordinary happiness
shows us that
or contentment.
case of
"The Man Without

who
the
situation of not
those individuals
by
whatever means come
to cultivate virtues
ambiguous
strictly
required or even appreciated
by
the civic order
is
from the
point of view of
happiness.
which
Nolan's nobility seems to consist in the way he accepts the situation in his imprudence as a youth placed him. He "repented of his folly, and
submitted
then like a man
to the fate he had asked

approaches
for."39
In his
acceptance of
his fate does his lot cially
or situation
Nolan
the life
of
the
philosopher who above all
not complain about
the dominion of chance
over
human life. He
accepts
by
recognizing that some things are forever outside one's control, espe
one's past errors and the consequences that
flow from them.
CONCLUSION
We
tism it
must conclude
from
study
of
Hale's
great
general political principles that while
it may
make a
story in the light dramatic plea for
of
his
patrio
fails to
on
persuade us of the ultimate
seems,
the surface at
sociality of mankind. Hale's story least, to demonstrate his claim that the "human race is many
separate
the individual of
organ
which men and women are so

"re-education"
cells, or
reintegra
His
account of
Nolan's
in
exile seems
to describe the
tion of the
unfortunate man
into the community, to the
principles of which
he
had
not
course
been properly educated, but from which he had been expelled. In the of the story Hale necessarily reveals the interdependence of this re Nolan's basic
of condition of alienation
need
education and
from the
community.
But
if, in his very description
the human
for society, Hale is forced to
show
that, in the decisive respect of the acquisition of wisdom or knowledge, man cannot be a fully social being, has he not conceded the point that the individual
is ultimately
social? of
higher
dignity
than the community
and
is therefore
not
simply
may work for all how "no man is an Hale would ordinary showing certainly say that his defense of human sociality is at the same time a case for the fuller development of the individual. But in the final analysis his suggestion that dedication to the community or philanthropical benevolence should be our
case and against
Hale's
for the community

of
"individualism"
the
purposes
island."
The Wisdom of Exile
105
determining
the
principle cannot of
be the last
word.
This is because
of
the
fact that
is connected to his loss of full "self-realization" is a double-edged membership in the community. Nolan's sword. On the one hand it involves a fuller appreciation of his fundamental
natural potential
development
Nolan's
dependence
on
the community, and on the other

"consciousness"
hand it involves his transcend
ing
an
son and
through the cultivation of his rea his intellect. This fuller intellectual development may not ultimately be adequate compensation for the pain of his exiled condition, but this simply that
man
. .
the level of community
shows not nature are
is
.
human
by nature social, but that "the virtues of [and] the excellence of reason is a thing
our composite
apart."40
NOTES
2. Hale himself
tion.
1. John R. Adams, Edward Everett Hale (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977), p. 27. gave a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding his story's
composi
He
explains that
he
was
influenced
by
the careers of
Vallandigham,
who was expelled exile on
from
Ohio for opposing the Union cause, and of Napoleon, who suffered his notes that at a time when it was thought "that the United States are a
St. Helena. He
(emphasis
confederacy"
Hale's), "any lesson

negatively,
what
1897,"
was well received
by
persons of conscience which or what one's a
showed,
is"
'Patriotism'
the word
means,
Edition
of
Little, Brown
3. Adams
cluded addition
and
in Edward Everett Hale, The Man Without Company, 1899], pp. 3-4).
a
Country Country and
positively or ("Author's Note to
either
Other Stories [Boston:
summarizes
the story's commercial career as follows: "How many anthologies in
The Man Without

to the
printed
Country
is
mere
speculation,
as
is
also
the number of translations. In

and
trade editions,
braille;
and as a comic paperback. are accompanied
in Pitman, Graham, Numerous inexpensive school editions

appeared
a patriotic edition sponsored
it
Gregg
shorthand; in
educational
with
suitably
an
introductions
by
by
the Veterans of Foreign Wars
and an expensive
illustrated
as
volume
Carl Van Doren. It has been

programs one act
recited on phonograph
a national
for the Limited Editions Club (1936) with records; and it has been
television
network.
introduction for
by
rewritten
radio
and, as late
1973, for
Although it has been
staged as a and
play, it has also been
published
by
Samuel French
as a
play in three acts, prologue,

Opera"
epilogue. composed
commercial
by
moving picture was made in Hollywood, Walter Damrosch and was sung at the Metropolitan
a
and an operatic version was
(Edward Everett Hale,
p.
35). 4. Francis R. Gemme, The Man Without 4,7.
Country and Other Stories
(New York: Delta, 1969),
pp.
Books, 1968),
tutors
and
5. Edward Everett Hale, The Man Without a Country and Other Tales (New York: Magnum p. 28. All page references not otherwise identified are to this edition. 6. John R. Adams says that Nolan's "irregular education, pieced together from private British
by
association with
foreign
commercial
youth"
temper the swagger of an impatient
aristocratic
7. "The liberal
that
man will need

.
the returning of services

acts
correspond
and the
money for the brave man

and
interests, had lacked the moral discipline to (Edward Everett Hale, p. 28). doing of his liberal deeds, and the just man too for
will need power
if he is to
accomplish
any
of
the
for deeds many things are needed, and more, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1178a30-38). the greater and nobler the deeds 8. Nolan's situation is akin to that of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, in that he has been born and reared in society and subsequently cast out. But in Crusoe's case it was the blind forces of nature combined with his proneness to take risks that ushered him to a life without society. In the case of
either
he
or
any
of
his virtue, the others to be

to
the temperate man will need opportunity;
for how
else
is
recognized?
are"
Nolan it
"politics"
was
that forced the change, or more precisely the political climate combined
106
Interpretation
Moreover, Nolan is
ship
and not on a not
with youthful rashness.
devoid
of all
human company
"society"
whatsoever, as was
Robinson,
to
make pate
as
he is
aboard
all
Nolan's fate
the
more painful.
desert island. But ultimately this but He is within range of
situation
only
serves
cannot
really
partici
in it. And
seven years on
seems
of course he never again saw his homeland, while Robinson served only twentyhis island. Defoe is obviously an intellectual source for Hale. More generally Hale to have been under the influence of Fichte, Tolstoi, Dickens, Bunyan, Scott and others.
9. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), chap, xiii, p. 186. 10. In the eighteenth century Montesquieu had said that "where we find man we find him
together with
rejected the
others,"
and of
following
this lead philosophers such as

a
Hume, Paley
(See
p.
and
Bentham
idea
the State of Nature as
"philosophical
fiction"
Hume's Moral
and
Political
Philosophy
[New York:
Hafner, 1972]
of
D. Aiken, ed., 189). Thus British liberal
Henry
ism became "utilitarian

while
liberalism,"
with
its "greatest happiness

abandon the
number"
the greatest
man."
principle,
American liberalism
continued
to talk in terms of the "rights of
Hale the American
patriot would seem to want to
keep
the
rights but
"fiction"
out of which
they
grew.
11. Nolan's life
on naval vessels was of course without a chance
the distraction of
female
when
company.
Once
at a
ball
at
Naples he had "left

poor
to dance with a
as
southern
beauty, but
not of
the topic of
"home''
arose,
she
Nolan alone,
he
was."
always
Nolan "did
dance
again"
(p. 25).
Because he is truly without regular relations to the general membership he must perforce spend his days without prospect of family life.
12. Edward Everett Hale, Subjects of History Education
13. Hobbes
supplied six
any
political
community,
"Democracy
and
and a
Liberal
Education,"
in Addresses
and
Essays
on
Government (Boston: Little Brown, 1900), p. 48. reasons why Hale must be wrong. Firstly man is in competition for
dignity; he constantly compares himself to others; he "thinks himself wiser and able to govern the Publique, better than the rest"; he can make judgments of good and evil, "discontenting men, and troubling their peace"; he is "most troublesome when he is at ease"; and his agreement "is (Leviathan, chap, xvii, pp. 225-26). by Covenant only, which is 14. Unlike Hale Aristotle draws a very clear distinction between man and the bees, in that "man is much more a political animal than any kind of bee or any herd animal [because] man alone [and] speech serves to reveal the advantageous and the harmful, among the animals has speech and hence also the just and the (Politics, 1253al0). Aristotle then, does not say that man is
honor
and
Artificiall"
. .
. . .
unjust"
"social"
more
in the
sense of
naturally
more
in
harmony
than the
bees. Man is
more political
than
the
bees, but this means that his capacity to speak about the just and the unjust, the good and the bad, the advantageous and the disadvantageous makes him more likely to be in conflict, making his
crucial. community more tenuous and his 15. McCosh was Professor at Queen's University, Belfast, before moving to Princeton. Mc Cosh agrees with Hale that American education has danced to European music and that this is unfortunate. a
"socialization''
But the issue for McCosh is

civilization"
whether
"America has
arrived at a stage at which
there
is
in
body
of men and women who of
have leisure
and taste
to cultivate the liberal arts and advance the

an
higher forms
Realistic
("General Introduction: What

a
American
Philosophy
Should
Be,"
Philosophy
Defended in
to
Philosophic Series. 2
vols.
[New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1887], 1:1). According

own."
McCosh, America is
.
ready.
America to declare her independence in philosophy she a character of its According to McCosh, "Yankees
.
.
should require are
"The time has come, I believe, for that her philosophy have
distinguished from
most others
by
their practical observation and invention
ISM,
3). In
opposed a
to IDEALISM
while
on
the
one
The American philosophy will therefore be a REAL hand and to AGNOSTICISM on the (ibid., pp. 2other"
word,
Kant, Fichte, Mill

"[A]s
with
and
acknowledging the merits of the thought of Locke, Berkeley, Leibnitz, Hume, these Spencer, McCosh explains that America must
"naturalize"
"imports."
the emigrants who to her
land
on
her shores, in
regard
to whom she
insists that they
speak
her
language
and conform p. 3).
laws;
so she should require
that her philosophy have a character of its
own"
(ibid.
16. Tocqueville
to individuals
who
allowed with
must
Hale that it
would
be dangerous to have the

on
older education given
face
entirely
as
other skills.
"It is
evident
society grounded that in democratic
entirely different principles and requiring communities the interest of individuals as well
the security of the commonwealth demands that the education of the greater number should be
The Wisdom of Exile

scientific, commercial, and industrial
rather
107
than
literary
"few,"
Greek
and
Latin
should not
with
be taught
Hale. He
in
all
the
on
schools."
But
at a certain point
Tocqueville
of
decisively
or
parts
company
are
insists
the
importance to American life
the
the "true their
"elite." scholars,"
the
"It is
important that those who, by their natural disposition letters or prepared to relish them should find schools
fortune,
formed"
destined to
cultivate
where a complete
knowledge
of ancient
literature may be acquired and where the true scholar may be (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 2 vols. [New York: Vintage Books, 1945], 2:66).
17.
Ibid.,
p. 46.
One
could
say
on
Hale's behalf
of
that he
itself in the
philosopher
real
"flesh
blood"
and
issues
life lest it become
is arguing that philosophy must root simple star-gazing, like the natural
"the be
cave"
Socrates in
Aristophanes'
Clouds.
Philosophy
should return to
from time to
time in
order not
to lose its human bearings. But in the authentically philosophical tradition there
of
is
"outside"
always an escape
the cave, and the
prime concern
is that
few
should
able
to
make
their
such
into
the
light
or
to turn their back on the life of the city. Hale
holds back from
thoughts.
18. "The Professor in 19. "The Education
America,"
in Addresses in Addresses
critics, the
and
Prince,"
of a
and
Essays, p. 66. Essays, p. 1 17.

believe in
caste"
20.
to see
According
simple
to
Hale, "the feudal
people who
government
by
fail
the importance for
education and
democracy
of
the distinction between labor and
work.
Labor is
while
work,
the
which
brute effort, and it is the lot of only "is labor inspired by the Holy
of
about
10
per cent of
the American population,
Spirit,"
is the lot
of about
90
per cent.
According
to
Hale,
21
.
tion"
overwhelming majority (ibid. p. 124). Hale

was worried
this overwhelming majority "are to receive a liberal educa
that the kind of liberal education that McCosh
and
Tocqueville
recom
mended
to the
best
colleges might
have
"un-American"
some
effects.
Hale
complained about
the
"Eurocentrism"
of college education requirements of
in his day, meaning that it was not focussed enough on the American life. Today Hale's own Americanized education would fall under the
since
label
"Eurocentrism,"
of
for
all
Hale's
concern about
Europeanizing influences,
though the term
ness"
he
still conceived of
cleansing American America in terms of the Western

of today's campaign
education of
its Al
experience.
might not
be used, the implicit meaning

"un-American."
for "political
the
view
correct
is
also
that liberal education is
Paradoxically, however,
expressed
that such
high-quality
to which
liberal
arts
training is
the
not
right for America is

as
in precisely those institutions

terms: "I
McCosh
and
Tocqueville looked
its home.
22. Tocqueville describes

in
which
American danger in the
following
know
of no
country
.
there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America
there the
of self
body
is left free,
and
and the soul
applause,
there are
from
experience"
(Democracy
power,
The majority lives in the perpetual utterance certain truths which the Americans can learn only from strangers or in America, 1:274-75). "The public, therefore, among a democratic
enslaved
.
is
people, has
others to
a singular
which aristocratic nations cannot
conceive; for it does not

the
intelligence"
persuade a
its beliefs, but it imposes them,
and makes
them
permeate
sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the
individual
thinking of everyone by (ibid., 2:11).
23. Hale then is manifestly not a classic, eighteenth-century enlightenment liberal like Edward Gibbon. In Gibbon's hands historical Christianity always has the color of intolerance about it,
while paganism nations were
is
portrayed as tolerance
itself. "Such
was
the
mild
spirit of
antiquity, that the
worsh
less
and
attentive
to the differences than to the
resemblances of
their religious
(The Decline
24. "The Old

and
Fall of the Roman Empire [New York: Dell, 1963], p.44). in The Man Without and the New Face to Face: A Thumbnail
Sketch,"
Country
may be
a
Other Tales, p. 77. 25. In Book V of the Politics Aristotle does not refrain from showing how preserved in his position by transforming himself into "the manager of the
thinkers'
a tyrant or
city"
becoming
competent ruler rants
(Politics, 1314b7). References

their
to the
classical
openness
to
advising ty
should
how better to do
one
job may
of course
be
multiplied.
26. Whatever
observed that
may say
not
about
the adequacy of Hale's treatment of
Seneca, it
be
it has the
merit of not
Christianity. Hale is
minimizing the distance between Seneca's famous Stoicism and what W. E. H. Lecky describes as the "many curious influenced
by
108
Interpretation
phraseology
.
coincidences of
between the
his
writings of
Seneca
and
the
epistles
of
St.
Paul."
According
after
to
Lecky, "[To]
suppose that
the model, or under the

of
influence
and
teristics
both
Christianity
[Seneca's] system of morals is in any degree formed Christianity, is to be blind to the most obvious charac Stoicism; for no other moralist could be so aptly selected as
of essential characteristics of of
Of [the representing their extreme divergence. teaching of Seneca is the direct antithesis. Careless
of
Christianity]
of
all
the
the future world,
and
profoundly
convinced
the supreme majesty of man, he

and
labored
he
to emancipate
claimed
his disciples 'from every fear

sage an
God
and
man;'
the proud
language in
point
which
for the
sents, perhaps, the highest
to which philosophic arrogance
equality has been
with
the gods, repre
carried"
(W.E.H. Lecky,
History
of European Morals. 2 vols., (New York: D.Appleton,1875], 1:363-64). 27. "The Old and the New Face to p. 81.
Face,"
28. Ibid., life. He does

accused of
p. 83.
not mention the
Hale in criticizing Seneca fact that Seneca
makes no mention of the most salient was
features
that
of
his
banished
by
the Emperor
Claudius,
he
was
life,
does
which not
complicity in Piso's conspiracy against Nero and was ordered by the tyrant to end his he did in a manner more or less identical to that of Socrates in the Phaedo. Thus Hale
ultimate cost of of
detail the
Christian Paul,
cowardice and
was
guilty
crossing swords with tyrants, as indeed Seneca, as well as the doing. His purpose is rather to associate pagan philosophy with
"Lockean"
29. Hale's
"literally"
genuinely "Those just

bonds
of
or
Christianity with moral courage, regardless of historical fact. Christianity, but it is obviously held Christianity may be called than it was by Locke. Before the advent of Christianity, Locke
right
and
more
says,
measures of
wrong,
which
prescribed, or philosophy recommended, stood
necessity had anywhere introduced, the civil laws on their true foundations. They were looked on as
society,
and conveniences of common
life,
and and
laudable
practices.
But
where was
it that
of
their obligation was
thoroughly known
of
and
allowed,
they
received as precepts of nature of
law;
the
highest law, the law

given
nature?"
But Jesus Christ has "changed the
things in the world and
the advantage to piety over all that could tempt or deter

to
light"
men
from
it"
by bringing
"life
and
immortality opening humanity's eyes "upon the endless, unspeakable joys of (The Reasonableness of Christianity [London: Rivington et al.,1824], sees. 243-45).
and
life"
another
30.
which of
"Democracy
an
and
Liberal
of
Education,"
p. 50.
Compare John Stuart Mill: "In the Republic,

whole process
has [the definition

ideal
Justice] for its
express
arrive
purpose, and travels through the

at
constructing
commonwealth
to
it,
the result is brought out that Justice is
synonymous with the complete supremacy of Reason in the soul [but resolving] justice, pre into the supremacy of reason within our own minds [involves] a eminently the social virtue disregard of the fact that the idea and sentiment of virtue have their foundation not exclusively in
.
the self-regarding, but also, and

cepted
even more
directly, in
the social
feelings:
truth
first
fully
ac
by
the
on
Stoics,
p.
of morals
have the glory of being the earliest thinkers who the brotherhood of the whole human ("Grote's
who
race"
grounded
the obligation
Plato,"
Edinburgh Review
"glory"
[April, 1866],
Seneca
171). It is
worth
their ethical conceptions, which
of noting here that while Mill praises the Stoics for the included the brotherhood of man, Hale describes the great Stoic
of his the philosopher Socrates Nolan spent his time in the study of nature, in community particular in the study of household insects. In the humorous presentation by Aristophanes it was the study of the digestive system of gnats which absorbed attention. The individual may political
Socrates'
as a morally bankrupt symbol of the depravity of ancient morals. Aristophanes' 31. Like that other character who in Clouds lived outside the bounds
independently become entirely indifferent to the Aristophanic Socrates, or he may be expelled and
But the It
cause of
political or social realm,

exiled
as
in the
case of the
from this realm,

same as
as
in the
case of
Nolan.
this condition in the case
of
Socrates is the
the effect of it in the case of
Nolan, i.e.,
seems
expelled
the study of the natural world, or, more generally, a fascination with the natural order. that, potentially at least, the individual, whether somehow innately indifferent to, or from civic membership, finds his home in nature. He substitutes the order of nature for the the fundamental
"world"
political order as
in
which
he lives
and
breathes.
baptized,"
32. In
one of
"the
great
frigate duels
with the
English in
which the
navy
was
really
Nolan took
and, using the artillery skills he acquired in his youth in the army, led them through the battle. After this episode the Commodore said, "[W]e are all very grateful to
over a cannon crew
The Wisdom of Exile

you
109
a
today;
you are one of us
today;
you will
be
named
in the
dispatches"
(The Man Without
Country,
he
was
p. 27).
33. "He
the
always
kindest
anybody
was sick
kept up his exercise and I never heard that he was ill. If any other man was ill, nurse in the world; and he knew more than half the surgeons do. Then if or died, or if the captain wanted him to on any other occasion, he was always
beautifully"
ready to read prayers. I have remarked that he read 34. Nolan's situation in some respects reminds
most
(ibid.,
p. 30).
most sociable and
us of
Rousseau. "The
the
loving
and
of
humans has been in

spite of excluded all
proscribed
have loved beings
themselves."
men
from society by unanimous agreement Rousseau's being forced out of the fellowship
I
of
would
human
it
was
thereby being
from
the pleasures and
happinesses it
can
bring,
although
ultimately
liberating
from
cares, was at the same time also a terrible fate. (See The Reveries of a
Solitary Walker,
political
trans. Charles E. Butterworth [New York: Harper and

would
Row, 1979],
pp.
1-5.)
35. Socrates, it
community
to the
appear, did not want his ultimate
rejection of
the final authority of the
on questions of
the just and the unjust, or the best way of
life for man, to be

love
you,"
taken simply for a cold indifference to
his "home
hearth"
and
and
men of
to his fellow citizens. In his

salute you and
Apology
even as
Jury
he
he
says
to his fellow countrymen: the
"I,
Athens,
he
says
will
defy
City's
commands and
later in the trial, just before the vote to convict surely do have some family; for this is also just what Homer
rock,'
"not stop philosophizing"(29d2-4), And (34d3-5), he says to the jury, "I, best of men,
says: not even
I have
grown
an oak or a
but from human
beings."
Thus the
philosopher
in his
alienation
from,
and
up 'from indeed like
fatal
opposition to the and
City,
must
try
to impress upon his fellow
citizens that of nature
them,
that
they
should not
take him
for
some sort of
freak
he is very devoid of
much all
human
so
sentiments.
36. "But
as
such a
life
[contemplating
the
truth]
would
he is
man
that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is

our composite nature
be too high for man; for it is not in present in him; and
far
so
by
much as of
this is superior to
the other
[practical] kind
of virtue.
is its activity superior to that which is the exercise If reason is divine, then in comparison with man, the life
life"
according to it is divine in comparison with human 37. "He who is without a city through nature
superior to man.
.
rather
(Nicomachean Ethics, 1177a25-1178a5). than chance is either a mean sort or

who
One
who
is incapable
city,
of
being
.
self-sufficient
is
no part of a
and so
participating or is either beast or
is in
need of
nothing through
god"
(Politics, 1253al-5; 27-28).

that we may have leisure
38. "And happiness is thought to depend

and the self-sufficiency,
.
on
leisure; for
we are
busy
leisureliness,
with
unweariedness
(so far
which
as this
is
possible
for man)
(Nicomachean
connected evidently Ethics, 1177b5-250).
are
the activity of reason
is
contemplative"
39. "Finally,
feeling
that all my efforts were useless and that I was
tormenting
without
myself
to no
avail, I took the only
course which remained
that of submitting to my fate
railing
against
necessity any longer. I have found compensation for all my hurts in this (Rousseau, Reveries, p. 2). tranquility it provides me
"
.
resignation
through the
40. Nicomachean Ethics, 1178a20-22.
and the
Origin of Algebra
Joseph Gonda
Glendon College, York
University
Leo Strauss
the
characterized
Jacob Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought
and
Origin of Algebra'' by using the following words: "The work is much more than a historical work. But even if we take it as a purely historical work, there is not in my opinion, a contemporary work in the history of philosophy or
science or
in 'the
comes within an
history of hailing distance

to
ideas'
of
it."2
generally speaking which in intrinsic worth The purpose of this article is to provide
could
informed
opinion as
what
Strauss
have
meant
by
this praise of
Klein's book. Leo Strauss had

a
confidence, bom
of
by
clearly
argued
need, that political philosophy could pursue
his wide-ranging studies, reinforced its most impor He

argued
tant questions without any apology to

modem political stantiate
modem political science.
that
science,
or
"the
politics,"
scientific
study
of
is
unable
to sub
its
claims of
having
bettered its
older counterparts.
One of its most serious according to Strauss, guilty of making a "surreptitious recourse to common
manifest.3
Its failings are, failings is that it is

a recourse
sense,"
dis
allowed
by
its
scientific
hypotheses,
have
which robs
it
of
its
scientific pretensions
(p. 318).
Strauss
"data"
argued
that
we
access
to the "political
things"
to the primary
access
of political experience yielded
by
common sense
but that this
is
barred to the "new

argued that the
awareness"
science."
political
Of
even
greater
significance, Strauss that
"naivete
of
the
man
from
Missouri,"
is,
the
"primary
human experience, is of a character "that there is no possible human thought which is not in the last analysis dependent on the legitimacy of it."4 And so, however that naivete and the awareness or the knowledge going with
of
impressive the
Strauss
questions.
programmatic promise of
the "new political
science"
might address
be,
was clear
that it
could not
satisfy
our
pressing
need
to
fundamental
turn to the
was
It
could not render an openminded approach
to the Ancients illegiti

we could
mate,
and
therefore pmdence, if nothing else, dictated that

whose perspective was
while
Ancients,
not
that of the
citizen
(WIPP,
p.
310). Strauss
willing to fiddle
would
burning
issues
remained unaddressed.
I
and
like to
express
my
gratitude
for the
help
received
from Alfred Mollin, Will Morrisey,
Daniel Schiff in the
preparation
of this paper.
interpretation,
Fall 1994, Vol.
22, No. 1
112
Interpretation
was clear
Strauss
that the "new
science"
political
did
not
by
itself
stand
in in
the way of returning to the Ancients

our
with an open mind.
Rather,
appears
what stands
way is the
scien
ubiquitous
belief that "the
success of modem natural

as
makes premodern mological views
thought
implausible, dependent
it
to be on cos
p.
inconsistent
could
with modem natural science
(WIPP,
36). To
begin with, Strauss
elegantly dismiss this claim by pointing out that clas sical political philosophy at its that is, in its original incarnation at the hands of Socrates, did not depend on "a solution to the cosmological
"foundation,"
problem."
Rather, its
theoretical openness was vouchsafed because it was open

rather than predicated on
to "the quest for
cosmology,"
any
particular solution.
This
elegant
manner
by
which
simplicity appears to this reader to find sufficient warrant in the Strauss characterizes what it takes to raise the modem cos
to classical
political philosophy. neither
mological objection
minded. nor even
The
objection
nor
is
simple-
According
to Strauss it "requires
erudition"
(WIPP,
p.
36) But Strauss did

elegantly
originality not leave it
intelligence,
at
simple-minded objection with an
simple rejoinder.
meeting a To this rejoinder

which
he
added one of
his
rare reflections on as an openness
the character of philosophy to the "problem of
identi
pro
fied it,
of
at
its highest,
"articulate"
cosmology."
He
ceeded to
this problem as
being intellectually
always
open to the
dialectic
homogeneity
and
heterogeneity. (These have
gories of and
philosophy,
Identity
and
been the primary cate Difference in Hegel's language, or Sameness cosmology

of a
Otherness in Plato's.) The

open to the twin
problem of of
can
be
paraphrased as of a
being
temptations
"absolutizing
knowledge"
either
heterogenous sort, such homogeneous, as that of the ends of human life, without yielding to either. This philosophical coda points, by my lights, on the one hand to the need for a new look at Jacob
mathematical sort or of
knowledge
Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought
Origin of Algebra, and on the other to the difficult issue of attempting to defend post-Socratic classical politi cal philosophy as it is spelled out by Aristotle.
and the
First Klein: The

modem natural of
argument of
at
Klein's book
provides profound evidence that

a radical vision of
science,
its
ontological
nerve, is
the
charm
homogeneity. As well, Klein's book

science"
offers an explanation
for "the
success
of modem natural
which provides
independent
evidence
for Strauss's
claim
that
ancient political
challenge posed niable
by
modem science.
philosophy This
at
its foundational level is immune to the

explanation
does justice to the

sense of
unde
achievements, both theoretical

of modem
and practical
in every
this dis
tinction
about
natural science.
Here is in
our
the
role of modem natural science
Klein has to say Cave: "Mathematical physics is

part of what
the most
important
part of our entire civilization and actual so
life. This is
not
only in
cause
respect
to the technics
inseparable from
our modem
life,
and not
only because it determines

the principles of
behavior."
understanding of the world, but also be mathematical physics are basic to our whole way of
our own
thinking
and
So that: "We
appear to
be in the
most
direct
contact
On Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought

the world around us, but in reality the vast machinery of permits us to perceive the world only through generally accepted
with other
our
-113
views."5
society In
words, Klein's book science, it
not
only
reveals the grounds
for the
success of mod
em natural
also allows one to see
doxastically
need
successful, the objections

us
that, however derived from modem

open-minded
ubiquitous and
natural
science
not, in principle, detain
from the
study
of
the Ancients at
their foundational level. What of
Aristotle?6
Doxa is
neither
intelligent
nor original nor erudite.
quiring intelligent, original,

characterization of our minds
and profound
arguments,
such as
But it is powerful, re Strauss's pithy
which, as
philosophy paraphrased above, to begin the process "so that free."7 be It is not surprising that modem natural science, may Klein's book shows, is a radical version of but one option of genuine
can close off alternative views which appear
philosophizing,
to
be linked
more
closely to cosmological solutions than those of Socrates. No wonder there

widespread
is
belief that
attempts to revive
modem
ancient political
bottom Quixotic because

and
doxa
assert
that the
quarrel
philosophy are at between Ancients

the level
of
Modems has been
resolved
in favor
of the
Modems
at
First
Principles, concerning Being

most effective when
and the whole of
things. This
widespread rather
belief is
than its
Aristotle's be
version of political
philosophy,
Socratic counterpart, is
confronted
by
modem
thinking.
However
much
Aris
totle's political science may
autonomous on
Aristotelian grounds,
way:
as shown
sort.15
by Strauss,
it
appears
infected
by
theoretical premises of a teleological
Jurgen Habermas has
expressed the
thought in this
the ethics and politics of Aristotle are unthinkable without the connection to
physics and metaphysics.
. . .
(his)
But today it is
plausible.9
no
longer easy to
render
this metaphysical mode of thought
Strauss
was not
blind to this difficulty:

philosophy] in its
.
[Ancient
view of
political
classic
form is
connected with a
teleological
the universe.
view of man
science.10
The
teleological view of the universe, of which the

a
teleological
forms
part,
would seem
to
have been destroyed
by
modern natural
But
notice
that Strauss
expressed
himself
modally.
"seem"
Hence
a question suggests
itself. From destroys the

spective
of
"would"
what perspective
it
that
modem natural science
teleological view of the
universe?
One possibility is that the
per
in
question
belongs to
seems
received opinion of our
day,
as
the observation that

modem
Jurgen Habermas
has
to
confirm.
Is it
not part of our nomoi
natural science
resolved
the debate at the
level
of
First
Philosophy
in the full
in favor
sense of
of
the Modems? But is

word at
modem natural science authoritative
the
the level of First Philosophy?
Does it
resolve
the debate between

to this question
Ancients
and
Modems? Jacob Klein's
work provides an answer
114
which
Interpretation
of modem natural
physics.
squarely confronts the conceptual integrity of the core science in its authoritative mode, namely as mathematical
answer science
It is
an
which,
in its in
ing
evidence
compelling is questionably authoritative, thereby provid that the fundamental questions of First Philosophy remain as ac
authoritative mode
we will
see,
provides
grounds that modem natural
cessible affirms
our
day
as
in antiquity,
and
that the
debate between Ancients

we need now to mm to
in addition, it is an answer which and Modems remains unresolved.
With
all of
that,
transhistorical-intrinsic, i.e., philosophic,

perspective on
seeing in what way Klein's book has a merit because it provides a needed
and
the stmggle between Ancients
Modems.
authoritative with respect
mathematical physics.
The
science of nature
in its
modem
incarnation is
the
to First Principles
or metaphysics a
through the claims of

of
world
Adumbrated
by
Descartes in
fable
in his Discourse
in
on
Method
(Part VI),
science as
then converted into a commonplace of popular understanding through

nineteenth
the course of the
century,
apotheosized
current
philosophy
of
the "Reduction
Thesis,"
is the hypothesis that
modem natural sci on mathematical
ence, in all of its manifestations, is ontologically dependent

physics."
The "Reduction
the
world.
Thesis"
asserts a complex correspondence

order of
between
com
struc
science and posed of
The world, in ascending particles (states of energy), elementary

observed
complexity, is
complex,
ones
higher,
more
tures such as those organisms, and,
by
chemistry,
yet more complex
such as
can end
be
rank-ordered at
his institutions. Analogously, the sciences in corresponding fashion with mathematical physics at one
lastly,
man and
and,
the other, the sciences concerned with the
human,
just the
sociology,
psychol
ogy,
and political
science, among
others.
It is
not
new method of
the
physical sciences which warrants of politics.
the scientific character of the modem science

or
Just
as
ontologically
so
"mathematical,"
ysis,
modem
in actuality the world the sciences (if the "Reduction

the
world
is, in
the final anal
Thesis"
is
a guide to
physics.
nomoi)
make contact with
through mathematical
And,
as we will
see, Klein takes
conceptual connection
which vouchsafes
long way in understanding a deep-seated between method and ontology in modem consciousness
us a
this dual authority of modem natural science in our Cave.
Accordingly,
count of reality.
and
mathematical physics
in its
authoritative mode gives us an ac

essence
By
appealing to the
Aristotelian distinction between

with greater
accident, this
point can
be fixed
accuracy, although, to be
sure, the distinction is
undermined
by
mathematical physics.
The
authoritative
status of mathematical physics turns on
its ability to
merely
accidents,
give us an account of the

some of
essential character of the world, rather than
describing
even
its
acci
dents,
even
if its
account yields
proper
if, in
addition, it is
operationally successful through the technological successes of modem natural science. If it does not give us an essential account, if it is merely an accidental
or an operational
account, then it
and
makes no prima
facie
claims which resolve
the
debate between Ancients
Modems in favor
of the
latter. Can
mathe-

matical physics make such an essentialist claim?
us an account of what
115
On the
one
hand, it
must give provid
there is
and
its
character
in
an essentialist
mode,
ing
us with an unambiguous answer
to the question as to the
"stuff,"
to use a
modem philosophical matical physics
metaphor, of the world. In its authoritative
mode mathe
does
so.
be'
Its
answer
has been formulated in
various ways.
Allow
this formulation: 'to
means
to
be determinable, essentially, in
of mathematical and
mathematical
terms, a formulation which, at the origins such diverse forms as Cartesian extension
the
other
physics,
embraces
Newtonian
absolute space.
On
hand,
the mathematical expressions
of mathematical
physics,
which
exhaustively convey the meaning of the physics, indeed all of mathematics whether pure or applied, can be done, from conception to proof procedures,
any standard of "external By any standard of identity ascriptions, identical results can be reached at the same time in any part of the world without reference to the world. But as Sir Arthur
without reference
to the
reality."
world or
Eddington
world
pointed
out,
mathematical physics seeks
to give us an account of the
by
"identifying"
the mathematical character of the

world.12
its
statements with
the
essential
attributes
of
Is
such
an
identification
maintainable? suggests
Klein's
account of the conceptual stmcture of modem mathematics
that such identification cannot
be
made
as
a matter of course and
hence it
follows that the debate between Ancients

Therefore
life?"
and
Modems
remains unresolved. can
political
autonomously,
are not and
and
philosophy in all of its issues of the human
premodern
forms
as
be
approached
good
such
"What is the best
barred from the primacy
accorded
to them
by Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle.
nerve of of
The
Klein's inquiries is the

mathematics,
while
claim
that the ancient and modem the same
understanding
tion"
focusing
pp.
on
insight concerning
"conceptualiza
a
the nature of number, nonetheless differ radically in
modes of
(Book,
pp.
117-25;
cf.
Article,
1-5). This
word
has both
broad
and
a narrow which
meaning for Klein. In its broad meaning it includes the inform a world view, or, to mix ancient and modem similes,
concepts
"concep
city,
tualization"
in this
sense refers to the

or age.
horizons
defining
this or that
Cave,
nomos, civilization,
on
Here
are
included, for
of of the
example, Klein's reflections

episteme scientia:
the
epochal change and
continuity
the concept
into its
as
modem
form,
man
science, through
a word which
modifications
concept
with
"reli
gion,"
originally
names an affect or predicate of
individual hu
beings,
episteme or science
becomes,
under
the aegis of modem

more akin
"concep
in
law
with
tualization,"
a word whose
the
modem sense
primary (Book, pp. 118-19). Klein's

28-34). What
concerns
reference
is
to an institution
comparison of modem
"conceptualization"
ancient sense
analogy
also suggests worlds about

pp.
in this broad
the narrow
(Article,
us
here, however, is
with
"conceptualization."
sense of
This includes the

mind as
semantic and ontological
impli
well,
cations of the operations of the

reflections
it deals
concepts, and,
as
on
these
operations.
It is
one of
the merits of Klein's studies that
116
Interpretation
never allow the reader to
they
or
lose
sight of the ontological reference of the

never
concepts
he examines, and,
result of
more
importantly,
to
lose
sight of
the hidden
implicit
reference of concepts whose
customary interpretations bypass this
issue. (One
grasp in
what sense
Klein's reflections, for example, is that they allow one to the notion of a has been completely assimilated
"concept"
by
modem
conceptualization.)
to
According
Klein,
the Greek concept of
number
has
when considered
em concept of
by
First
Philosophy,
the other
yields an
ontology
of a
of one sort.
meaning which, The mod
number,
on
hand,
while
remaining
initially
faithful to
sort.
this meaning,
yields on reflection an and
ontology
radically different
things."
For the Greeks
the tradition subsequent to

a
arithmos, refers, always, to

or penta can refer refer
"definite
number of
to
either
five
apples or
them, number, the Greek definite Five or cinq five people or five dots, but it must
quotes
something"
to a definite number of definite things. Klein
Aristotelian commentators, "Every number is of n. 24; Book, p. 48). As for counting per se, it refers to things
Alexander, one of the (Article, p. 23 and

or objects of a
different sort, namely monads unity. Allow an illustration of

tio"
or
units, that
is,
to
objects whose sole
feature is for
ra
us
what
this entails: it would
be
as unthinkable
an ancient mathematician such as such modems as
Diophantus to
assume that an
a
"irrational
pi,
which
is
not
divisible
zero.
by
one, is
number as
it is for
to divide a number
means a ratio which gous considerations
(The neologism, irrational ratio, only terminology, an irrational number.) Analo hold for geometry. A triangle drawn in sand or on a black
by
yields, in
our
board,
refers
which
is
"image"
an
of
the tme object of the geometer's presentation,

per
to an individual object, for example, to triangle
se, if the
presentation
concerns the
features
of
triangle in general. For the
Greeks,
the objects of
counting or of geometry are, if considered by the arithmetic or geometrical arts, in principle, incorporeal. Hence a question arises as to their mode of existence. At least two
whatever what answers
to this question stand out, Plato's and
Aristotle's,
and,
the differences between
them, they
are agreed on this:
to account for
it
means
to say that there are pure monads or pure triangles must begin
from the
ism.'"3
common ground which
has been condescendingly
called
"naive
real
For Plato,
of
pure monads point to the existence of the
Ideas,
mind-inde
pendent objects of
cognition; for
Aristotle,
monads are to
exists?"
be
accounted
for
on
the basis
his
answer to the question

and
"What
namely
mind-indepen
dent particulars, like Socrates,

substances and their accidents.
their predicates, that
is, by
reference
to
In
order
to fix this common
ground shared
by
Plato
and
Aristotle
and thus
of
by
the ancient mode of conceptualization, Klein appeals to the
language
It
the
Scholastics.
According
to the
Greeks,
number refers
directly,
without media
tion, to individual objects, to things, language of the Schools, a "first

refers to mind-independent objects.
whether apples or monads.
is, in
the
intention."
Number, thus, is
a concept which
In
order to understand
Klein's
interpreta-
On
tion
of
Klein'
Greek Mathematical Thought

a
-117
the modem concept

intention"
of
number, it is useful to say

intentions.14
few
words about
the
distinction between first

"First
is
man,'
and second
a semantic
animal,'
label for
predications such as:

pale.'
'Socrates is
'Socrates is
an
'Socrates is
which
It
not
only
serves as a seman
tic label for such
using "first
an
locutions, it also appropriate terminology

each of
characterizes
their ontological reference.
Or,
of
captures the ontological
meaning
intention,"
the predications
listed
above
has
as an object of refer
ence a
intention"
first intention; in Aristotelian terms a substance, e.g., Socrates. "Second refers not to things but to concepts. "Second is a semantic/
intention"
ontological
nus,'
label for
predications such as:

individuals.'
'man is
species,'
'animal is
a ge
'pale is
said of
Or,
each of
the latter
has
as an object of
terminology, a concept. One way of the difference between first and second intentions is to say that characterizing are united in one thing, Socrates; while species, genus,
reference a second modem
"man,'
intention; in
'animal,'
'pale'
predicate exist
object of a
in
and
are
separate
in
as
or
through thought.
Accordingly,
the
first intention, imaginable; whereas in the

are
at
least
case of
illustrated in these examples, is easily the objects of the second intentions above,
our
they ing,
literally
But,
unimaginable, only instantiable. In

and second
the difference between first

as we will
intentions is
ordinary way of speak a difference in abnot
stractness.
see, Klein's studies suggest that

as
only is
abstract-
ness misapplied stands
in this case, but that,

arithmos
well, the
modem concept of number
between
us and an appreciation of
why this is
so.
Finally,
we note:
the
Greek
concept of
intention,
monads.
instantiated in, say, penta, is a first number, i.e., it refers to mind-independent entities, whether it is apples or
as
concept of number results
The
modem
from
what
Klein
calls a
"symbol
abstraction"
generating
with respect to of
(Book,
of
p.
202). What this
entails
is the identification,
point of view
number,
first
and second
intentions. From the
"naive
realism"
or ancient
ontology this
the
is, strictly
speaking, an oxymoronic
abstrac
endeavor.
In
order
to
make sense of
notion of a
symbol-generating
through, in outline, Klein's account of the modem concept let us spell out what Klein's studies show: (1) Symbolic mathematics, as in post-Cartesian algebra, is not merely a more gen eral or more abstract form of mathematical presentation. It involves a wholly
tion,
we need
to go
at
of number.
But
the outset,
new
ing
new understand understanding of abstraction which (2) implies a wholly of what it means for the mind to have access to general concepts, i.e.,
second
intentions,
as well as
(3) implying
variability
wholly
new
nature and mode of existence of general

genuine
concepts, and
or
understanding of the (4) Klein's inquiries do
justice to the
concept of
to
symbolic
mathematics
and
which
is
at
generality which is so important the heart of the most important
achievements of modem natural
science, achievements which are
fully
recog
the
nized
by
Klein.
account of
Klein's
the
modem concept of number
is based
on readings of
118*
Interpretation
diverse
sixteenth-
mathematical and philosophical works of such
and
seven
teenth-century figures as Vieta, Stevin, Descartes, and Wallis. We will first consider Klein's interpretation of Vieta's Isagoge and then turn to his account
of
of
Descartes. This
the
new
will
first
lay
bare the
to
semantic and ontological
implications
the new
mathematics;
of
on
turning
Descartes
we
will
examine
understanding interpretation of the
the working of the mind

concept of number.
implied
by
Vieta's revolutionary
According
to
Klein, Vieta's
conception of
number,
while
it is the starting
with
point of the modem concept of
number,
nonetheless still
begins
we are
the tradi
a
tional understanding of the
arithmos concept.
In short, human
confronting
different interpretation
for their
of
the same phenomena; ancient and modem modes of

experience which
conceptualization share a common ground within not account ultimate
does
mation, from
of
an unexpected
of
divergence, thereby providing independent confir direction, of the judiciousness of Strauss's defense
Missouri."
the unavoidability
where on
the "naivete of the Man from

ancient mode of
In
order
to
display
focuses
notion
Vieta departs from the
the use of letter signs. Klein's patient
conceptualization, Klein exegesis dispels the hazy

to allow
as
that a letter sign is a mere notational convenience (a symbol in the

sense of
ordinary
greater
the word in our

of reference.
generality
day) whose function it is Rather, Klein argues, symbol,

abstraction,"
for
he interprets
new mode of
the character of "symbol generating
entails a
wholly
not
ontology
and conceptualization. number refers
Every
to a
definite
multitude of
things,
'a,'
only for
ancient
mathematicians
but
also
a
for Vieta. The letter sign, say,
refers
to the general
character of
being
number,
however, i.e.,
of
not to a
thing
or a multitude of
things, but, instead,

minate content.
to a concept taken in a certain manner, that
is, its indeter
the Schools, the letter sign designates a intention; it refers to a concept. But note what is of critical importance according to Klein; it does not refer to the concept number per se but rather to its 'what it The letter i.e., to "the general character of being a in other words, refers to a "conceptual sign, i.e., mere multi plicity, which, as a matter of course, is identified with the concept (Book, p. 174). This matter-of-course, i.e., implicit, identification is the first step in the process of "symbol generating According to Klein, this step,
second
is,'
number."15 'a,'
content," abstraction."
In the language
which
is
entailed
by
Vieta's
on
procedures
not,
we should
stress, merely
entailed
by
Vieta's
reflections
his
procedures
at
makes possible modem
symbolic
begetter,"
mathematics.
In
other
words,
the outset, at the
hands
of
its "onlie
Vieta,
the modem concept of number suggests a radical contrast with ancient
modes of conceptualization.
For Plato
and
to the definiens
of a
Aristotle logos, discursive speech, is man's communal access "content."16 Not so for modem concep concept, i.e., its
sign
tualization. The letter
refers, gives
number,"
being
mere
multiplicity.
us access to, "the general character of (Although it was left to Descartes, in
-119
Klein's view, to
work out
the implications
of
this
mode of
conceptualization.)
In addition, the letter syntactical distinctions
sign
indirectly,
through rules,
operational
usages, and
of an algebraic
sort,
also refers
to
things, for example, step of "symbol It occurs, ac
five
units.
This leads
directly
as
to the decisive and culminating
abstraction"
generating
it
emerges out of
Vieta's
procedures.
cording to Klein, when the letter sign is treated as independent, that is, when the letter sign, because of its indirect reference to, say, things or units, is
accorded the status of a
first intention, but

momentous
and
this is critical
all
the while
a second
remaining identified with the intention. Klein sums up this

of
general character of a
number,
i.e.,
achievement:
a potential object of
cognition, the content of the concept of number,
is
made
into
an actual object
cognition, the
object
of a
first
intention.17
The
on,
signal number
character
of this
achievement needs to
be
spelled out.
From
now
is both indepen
to the
world or
dent
any
tion
of
human cognition, i.e., objective,

not common sense
and without reference
other mind-independent
if
entity, which, from the is paradoxical.
point of view of
the tradi
All
of
this means, according to

'being'
Klein,
that "the
one
immense
difficulty
'being'
within ancient of
ontology, namely to determine the relation between the

and
the object itself
the
of
. . .
the object in thought is

. . .
accorded a
'matter-of-course'
solution
passed"
whose significance
(is)
Let
simply-by
to grasp
(Article,
sign
p.
192). Allow
few
more
details. The
symbolic.
mode of existence of us
the
letter
(in its
operational
context) is
try
Klein's
suggestion about what symbolic means
by
tonic and Aristotelian accounts of mathematical objects.

of all
contrasting it with the Pla For Plato the correlate

mind-independent none of
thought which claims to

or
be knowledge is the
number, monad;
form,
or
idea,
genus, or, in the

correlates of
case of
these
are
the on
tological
the symbolic, modem, grasp of mathematics.
For Aris
that
totle the object of the arithmetical art results

understood
from abstraction, but

when
abstraction
shows
in
precisely defined
manner
which,
examined,
the mode of existence of the
referent of
the
letter
sign of modem mathematics
is
not abstract
in this Aristotelian
sense
ing
Klein's
interpretation, both
symbol
but is, rather, symbolic. Thus, follow and its referent are not only sui generis,
arising
out of the new
Vieta, they transitively

generating
understanding of number implied by the algebraic art of as well, logical correlates of one another, symmetrically and are, in "symbol mutually implicatory of one another. That is, symbol
abstraction"
is
not a place marker which
refers,
as
in the ordinary
and
sense of symbol of our

ontological
correlate
day. Rather it is the logical, conceptual, of its referent, namely the "conceptual
mere multiplicity.
thus
quasi-
content
of
the
concept of
number,
i.e.,
But to
of
return
for
a moment
to Aristotle: the issue addressed
by his discussion
concerns.
abstraction referent
(aphairesis) is
monad
to account for the purity and mode of existence of

serves as an answer
the
of arithmos.
Aphairesis
to both
The
purity of the
results
from the
leaving
out
of consideration
all other
120
Interpretation
things, i.e.,
and
p.
sensible qualities of
all accidents of substances, and
those accidents
or predicates which
fall
under
the category of
quantity.
retaining only "Leav
ing
consideration"
"retaining"
out of
are what
Aristotle
calls abstraction
(Metaphysics K3, 106a28ff; Book,

count of
105). It is
no more a psychological ac
psychological account
the genesis of
number
than the Categories is a
of the genesis of
the structure of logos. Aphairesis is

a manner analogous to the
an ontological-semantic spells out
doctrine which, in
Categories,
open
the impli
cations of a concept
in
a manner that
leaves
to inspection the
logically
in these
correlated metaphysics which supports

which
is metaphysically
mathematics.)
neutral
is
it. (The possibility of consequence, if Klein is
doing
a semantics
our guide
matters,
symbolic cause are
of modem conceptualization whose mode of
there are
Abstraction, as substances, e.g., Socrates,
thinking is defined by Aristotle understands it, is possible be

and
their accidents, some of which
in the category of quantity. Although quantity is pure for the mathematical arts as Aristotle interprets them, it is no less connected to the world, in Aris
reflections on color are connected
totle's account, than, say, Turner's things

of
to the
this
world.
None
of
this holds for the
symbol of modem mathematics.
have seen, it does not refer to the world, but rather, content of a concept, its definiens. As
we
initially,
to the
In short, the
cedures, is
not
modem concept of
number, defined as it is
the ancient concept
by
as
symbolic pro
merely
a continuation of
is
on
supposed at a
by
the modem self-interpretation of mathematics
only
carried
higher
ancient
level
non-
of abstractness or
generality.18
On the contrary,
while
bound to the
concept, the
modem version
is,
paradoxically, less
general.
Abstraction in the
grasped
Aristotelian sense, the usual label for symbolic in at least two ways. First, it presents itself
pair abstract/concrete.
modes of as a
thought, can be term of distinction as

before
us or can
in the in the
Whereas the
concrete stands
cannot.19
be
presented through or
modem
by
an
image,
the abstract
Alternatively
ascending
of
abstract order of
interpretation
can also
be illustrated
by
an
generality:
or
Socrates,
also the
man, animal, species, genus. The scope

as abstractness
the
denotation,
more
the extension,
increases
increases,
and,
once
again, the
general
is
tion
is
not.
less imaginable. But this is precisely what The mathematical symbol in context has no
'a'
symbolic abstrac greater extension

"way"
than the ancient number, say,

modem
penta.
Rather,
the symbol is a
or, in the
interpretation
of
of method
which
Descartes
inaugurates,
It is
a
"method"
grasping the general through a
particular.20
step in a way, if you
will,
of
imagining
the unimaginable, namely the content

'this,'
of a second
intention,
is, at the same time, tion, i.e., something which

which
through procedural mles, taken up as a

represents a concrete
first inten
totelian terminology.
tion of the concept
replaced
or tode ti, in the Aris Klein And, notes, one consequence of this reinterpreta of arithmos is that the "ontological science of the ancients is as are
by
a symbolic procedure whose ontological presuppositions
left
unclarified"
(Book,
p.
184).

The
tion
most
-121
important
consequences of this
lack
of
clarity
are open
to
inspec
reads repre
in
Descartes'
account of number.
According
to
Descartes,
as
Klein
him,
the
human intellect has

This
capacity to conceive or grasp, not merely

mind's
sent, the
content of general concepts such as mere
ness of extension.
arises
from the
multiplicity or the ability to deal with and

or even
extended-
reflect on
its
own
capacity to know. It can comprehend fiveness from five

power to abstract entails a pp.
multiplicity in
Rather this
general as separate pure.
counted points or other objects either corporeal or
But this
is
not
Aristotelian
abstraction.
claim, Klein notes,

of
"new
'abstraction'
mode of
and
and a new
possibility
of abstrac an abstrac
understanding"
(Book,
be
does
200
199-202). This "new
mode"
tion may properly
called second-order or meta-abstraction. not
It is
tive capacity
with
which
deal
with
things and their properties but rather

usage of
concepts,
or abstract entities
mind
in the ordinary
the term.
Descartes'
suggestion
that the
has
such
a power answers
to the requirements of
Vieta's
supposition that the
letter
sign of algebraic notation can refer mean
of number. The "new possibility of under if Descartes is correct, none other than a faculty of intel is, lectual "intuition."21 But this faculty of intellectual intuition must not be
ingfully
to the "conceptual
required
content"
standing"
understood
in terms
of
the Kantian
Descartes'
faculty
of
intellectual intuition. The Carte
account of the mind's capacity to reflect on version, implied by its knowing, unlike its Kantian counterpart, is not informed by an extra-mental object. (Of course, since for Kant the human intellect cannot intuit extra-mental
sian
objects
in the
absence of
sensation, there is no human
faculty
of
intellectual
a
intuition. It is, for Kant, knowing.)22 on human
faculty per
impossibile
which
illustrates
limitation
Moreover,
to the world
.
this power of
. .
and
the things in the
intuition, in Klein's words, has "no relation at all (Book, p. 202). In other words, it
world"
is
not
to be
characterized so much as either
incorporeal
or
dealing
the the
with
the
incorporeal but, rather, as unrelated to both the corporeal and so perhaps is an intermediate between the "mind and
traditional interpretations of
mathematical
Descartes.23
and
incorporeal,
fulcrum
of
body,"
In the
simplest own
terms, the
objects of mathemat
thought are given to the mind
by its
activity, or,
ics is metaphysically neutral. Nonetheless, this unrelatedness of mathematics like Aristotle's Prime and world does not mean that mathematical thought is
Mover merely
dealing
with
itself
alone.
the aid of the imagination. The
mind must
It requires, according to Descartes, imagination" "make use of the by

symbolic means
representing "indeterminate 201). A shift in ontology, the

and
manyness"
through
passage
even
(Book,
p.
from the determinateness

world of
of arithmos
its
reference
to the world,
if it is the
the
Forms,
to
to a sym
nota-
bolic
mode of reference
becomes
absorbed
by
what appears
be
a mere
tional convenience, its means of representation,
i.e., letter
an
signs, coordinate
of method
axes, superscripts, etc., thus preparing the way for

as
understanding
independent
of
metaphysics, or of "ontological
commitment,"
in the
Ian-
122
Interpretation
day. The
conceptual shift
guage of the schools of our

"way,"
from
methodos
(the
an
cient
particular
to,
appropriate
to,
and shaped
in
each case
geneous
objects) to the
modem concept of a
"universal
method"
by its hetero (universally

prepared was
applicable
to homogeneous objects) is thus laid down. The way is
for
a science of politics whose

one of
the main
polemical
methodology is scientific and objects of Leo Strauss's work.

symbolic art
whose
influence
The interpretation
abstraction
of
Vieta's
by
Descartes
as a process of
meta-
by
the
intellect,
and of representation of
the abstracted
for
and
by
imagination is, then, what Klein calls "symbol generating fully developed mode of conceptualization (Book, pp. 202, 208;
the
abstraction"
as a
cp. pp.
175,
to
192). Consider two 1. In

order
results of this
intellectual
mind's
revolution. concepts unrelated which
to account for the
ability to grasp
the world, Descartes introduces a
separate mode of
knowing
knows the
extendedness of extension or the mere
to extra-mental objects
universal or particular.
multiplicity of number without reference This not only allows, it logically
implies, a metaphysically neutral understanding of mathematics. A mathemati cian in Moscow, Idaho, and one in Moscow, Russia, are dealing with the same
objects although no reference
imputed.24
to the world, genetic or ontological, needs to be
"realm"
2. "Symbol generating yields an amazingly rich and (to use sly terminology) of divisions and subdivisions and the same discipline, mathematics. For confirmation, one need only
Leibnitz'
abstraction"
varied of one glance
at the course offerings of a major

ematics."
Yet the
the
source of this
of
"realm"
university is
calendar under
the
heading
"Math
at once unrelated to the world and
deals
all of
"essence"
with
the world through mathematical physics in

of
its
es of
sentialist mode.
For the Descartes
the early
"scientific"
works, inclusive
the
foundational
arguments examined
by Klein,
for the
share
this is possible because
the
imagination is Janus-like. It is the

what comes
medium
symbol and also a
bridge
to the world, since the world and the
imagination
the same
"nature,"
i.e.,
corporeality or,
extension.25
to the
same
thing, the "real
nature"
of
corporeality,
lecture entitled, "Progress or Strauss spoke of "the amazing of the whose intellectual content, at once its core and life, is vitality animated and propelled by unresolved Nowhere is this vitality more
a
West" tensions.26
In
Return?"
in
evidence than
in the
ways
in
which
the Tradition of the West extended, at
times accretionally, at other times through bold
leaps,
ways of
understanding
laid down
of
by
the ancient
Greeks. From the

centuries, to
nominalist solutions of the problems
limits
and
aggregates, to the
reinterpretation of the arithmos concept

name
in
the
sixteenth and seventeenth
lessness has
animated
but two examples, the Tradition's reception of its own
a certain rest
presuppositions.27
out
But the cunning of reason, or chance, has had a role to play here. Klein points that Vieta for one, as well as Fermat, simplified their achievements. They
understood
the "complex conceptual
process"
of
symbol-generating
abstraction

merely a higher order of has come to be habitual for
as
"generalization,"
123
what
thereby setting
modem
the stage
for
consciousness, the passing
over of
the
theoretical and exceptional, so
(Book,
p.
92). (All this is
an
that, in Klein's phrase, it is simply almost uncanny inversion of Heidegger's insis

the proximal
"by-passed"
tence that the passing

appropriate
which
over of
Being
is
in
our
day.)
and everyday must be overcome to But this blindness to its own achievements, from
the modem science of

symbol understood
nature
suffers, is
a condition of
its
success.
Only
if the
can its ality intuition be
relation
in this way merely as a higher level of gener to the world be taken for granted and its dependence on
"by-passed."
Only
if
symbol
is
understood as abstract
in
modem
doxa's meaning
of
the
word would
it have been
possible to arrive at
the bold
new stmcture of modem mathematical physics on
the
foundations
of
the old.
of
It is important to grasp the conditions of the success of the modem concept number. One of these is that modem mathematics is, to repeat, meta
neutral.28
physically
entail,
of
This means, first

of
of
all, that
modem mathematics
does
not
itself,
or presuppose of
itself,
metaphysical
theses concerning
one need
what
exists or what
is the meaning
proof,
and
Being. For
contrast,
only follow
with meta
Klein's
Diophantus'
patient exegesis of
Arithmetic; there,
commentator
object,
mode of pre
sentation,
physics
scope of
pp.
rigor
of procedure are
intermingled
has
pointed
.
(Book,
126-49). As
...
one
out, Klein
shows that
...
"Aristotle's theory
and
of mathematical concepts
was assimilated proofs
by
Diophantus
Pappus."2''
Secondly,
and more
conclusively, the
and content of modern mathematical arguments need not
be
considered
in
con
junction
with
the metaphysical orientation of the mathematician presenting the
argument,
and
so,
mutatis
mutandis,
whereas
the premodern world could
dis
tinguish between Platonic and, say, Epicurean physics, no analogous distinc tion is viable in the
modem world.
There is
yet a
third way in which
modem
symbolic mathematics
is metaphysically neutral,
and
this in the strongest sense.
It is
there
neutral
because it is
interpretation
all consistent with all metaphysical
doctrines,
nomi
nalist or
realist,
an
relativist or objectivist. of modem
is
Whatever the metaphysics, to date, mathematics which leaves it
unscarred.30
This is
of
not
the case
for the
ancient conception.
the
theory
of proportions nature of
into
one
for
multitudes and another
For example, Euclid's division for magnitudes

commitment"
is
rooted
in the
things, in
after
an
"ontological
to the differ
ence
between
the two.
Only
the
metaphysical
neutrality
possible
of
the modem
conception
is taken for
granted and
bypassed, is it
to do away with
Euclid's division None

of
as a matter of notational convenience. of
this,
course, holds tme for there
in its
authorita
tive mode,
as arbiter of what
is,
that
is,
in the
version
it
must assume
to
serve as a ground
for the
of
prima
facie
acceptance of
the victory of Modems over

physics
Ancients
this
at
the level
First Principles. Mathematical

It is
not
does
make
in
mode
metaphysical claims.
particles
are, for example, if
metaphysically is arbiter
neutral.
Elementary
there is.
of what
124
But
Interpretation
are
they?
Take,
to begin with, the
most
influential
that
version
extant
for those
as the
who accept
the Reduction
means
Thesis,
be the
is,
of ontology Willard Van Orman
Quine's famous dictum that "to be

Drawn
entail
to
value of a
bound
variable."31
dictum is in
order
to make metaphysics safe for physics,

particles?
does it
the existence of,

can
say, elementary
Assuredly
not; after all,
Quinean ontology
only inform us about the semantic conditions of on tological statements. All we know, accordingly, is that if we claim that parti cles are that is, are in re and not merely operationally defined then our
claim will
fit this
semantic model.
"existents"
Conversely,
sets, aggregates, mathematical
infinities
us
in this semantic sense, but they cannot give also qualify as of knowledge the since we need not impute to them any extraworld, any mental reference when we deal with them as pure objects of mathematics. In
words,
as
other
of
long
as, in Cartesian terms, the identification

the objects
of mathematical
of
the
real nature
un-
body
as extendedness with and
thought remains
proven
is merely, in effect, asserted, Sir Arthur Eddington's hope that

the world will remain
mathematical physics gives us an essentialist account of
just that.
All
of
the above means that Klein's book is a
key
to understanding modern
of
ity's
most profound
doxa
about
the nature of
Being,
bringing
to light the
very character of these historical genesis but lays

also nomoi.
modem
doxa in
a manner which
discloses
are not
open a
to inspection why
they
Thus the book is

us
key
to renewing that most
not only their only doxa but daunting of human
tasks,
liberating
from the
confines of our
possible, in
the prospect
a stronger
might
than logical sense of

we can
Cave. For example, it is entirely the word, that, however daunting

anti-teleological
be,
leave
aside
the
bent
of our
Cave
and entertain the

pursue without
contrary bent of political philosophy in its classic form, and so fear of metaphysical bad faith the entire complexity of Aris
the human things.
totle's
reflections on
As for the
gestion
"intrinsic"
importance has been
of
based from
upon what
examined
Klein's work, allow the following sug in this article by way of an answer
a temptation
to what Strauss could

oneself
have been pointing to. There is
to distance
modem natural science
i.e.,
the
an enterprise which
by characterizing it as a kind of Poetry, identifies making and knowing in a way that obscures
modem natural sci side of the quarrel
objectivity of truth. By toying with the possibility that ence is a form of Poetry, a modem instantiation of one
between
Philosophy
and
Poetry,
we also
toy
with
the possible
supremacy
of an
unmistakably Nietzschean if not Heideggerian Klein's work allows for a shift in perspective
pan of mathematical physics and
metaphysical orientation. which rescues us
Jacob
from both the

most radical
the fire
of
"historicism"
in its
version, the
will
to
believe that
Poetry
it
reigns supreme.
Modem
physics cannot
only be
viewed as
Nietzschean,
or, even, Leibnitzian

can also
committed to a
"har
mony"
between
mind and world
be
of
Parmenidean,
committed to the
identification
unwittingly Thought (symbolic mathema-
characterized as

tics)
and
125
Being (elementary
argument
particles).
with a
compelling
that
Parmenides'
In these terms, Klein's dictum:
work provides us
to gar auto noein te
kai
estin
(For
Thinking
and
Being
are
the same.)
is,
as
it
always was, as much of a statement of a
fundamental
physics,
on
philosophical practical and so-far-unex
problem as the solution to one.
The
success of modem
continual
theoretical,
evidence even as
underlines
the need
for
reflection
its
plained equation
between
Being
at
and
Thought. Klein's First
work reminds us
that the
for the fundamental

antiquity.
questions remains
of
accessible even
in
our
day,
in
Truly,
the level
Philosophy
the stmggle between
Ancients
and
Modems
remains unsettled.
NOTES
1. Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra (Cambridge, 1968), henceforth Book; and "The World of Physics and the henceforth Article, in The Lectures and Essays of Jacob Klein, ed. Williamson and Zuckerman (Annapolis, 1985), pp. 1-34;
'Natural' World,"
henceforth Essays. 2. Leo Strauss, "An Unspoken Prologue to a Public Lecture at St. Interpretation 7(1980) 3. To the best of my knowledge Strauss never explained what he meant either by suggest ing that Klein's book has a transhistorical significance or what he meant by its intrinsic worth.
John's,''
Storing
3. Leo Strauss, An Epilogue to Essays on The Scientific Study of Politics, ed. Herbert J. (New York, 1962); henceforth ESSP. Here is a partial list of its failings: it does not provide
worthy of its pretensions to objectivity (p. 319); it is characterized by a "for in any scholasticism of the past"(p.319) which it customarily evades through (p. 320); it seeks a precision in its language heterogenous with the phenomena it
criteria of relevance malism unrivalled
sheer parochialism
seeks
to elucidate (p. 321); it that it is
invariably
succumbs
to dogmatism
with respect
to
theology (p. 322); it

with such a
relies on suspect suspicion
theoretical underpinnings such as the fact-value distinction
lack
of
unavoidably parochial in character (p. 324). 4. ESSP, p. 316. In a book review, Strauss raised the possibility that the "questions raised by Aristotelian physics retain their full significance regardless of any progress that modem science
thereby
once again almost
has
achieved"
(What Is Political
"
Philosophy
[New
5. Jacob Klein, "Modern even for the latter. Cf. also

.
Rationalism,"
in Essays,
York, 1959], p. 286; henceforth WIPP). pp. 53-64, see p. 57 for the former, and
p. 64
a critical attitude
towards mathematical physics does not free us
from its issue
dominion"
(Article,
p.
3).
"Socratic,"
to authority (ad vericundiam) which implies that on the as Strauss defines steering clear of cosmological dogmatism Plato remained a the term in his account of philosophy paraphrased above. According to Klein, the Philebus inti
of an appeal of mates
6. What
Plato? Allow
that "nous is above all a human possession, and that

Philebus,"
Socrates is
and
the embodiment of
nous."
Essays, p. 342. See, "About Plato's 7. Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis
p. xx.
Its Genesis (Chicago, 1961),
8. On the autonomy of Aristotle's political philosophy see ESSP, p. 309. 9. Quoted in William Galston, Justice and the Human Good (Chicago, 1980), 10. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1965), pp. 7-8. 11. Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (New York, 1961), pp. 336-80.
12. Sir Arthur Eddington, The Mathematical
p.
11.
Theory
of Relativity
(Cambridge, 1924),
p.
222.
126
Interpretation
Stephan Komer, who, on the whole, represents the dominant opinion on this issue, does not agree with Eddington. He argues that the ascription of an identity between mathematics and the world is
as if which cannot be taken to mean "discovered, conjectured, merely hypothetical or (Stephan Komer, The Philosophy of Mathematics [New York, 1960], pp. 177-79). This, of course, does away with the authoritative character of mathematical physics, and so runs
. . .
postulated"
"
or
counter to modem
that
doxa
or
the "surface of
lack
of agreement
only at the heart of the matter but hardest to access. The between Eddington and Komer illustrates a fundamental incoherence in modem
not
doxa. To be sure, is
things"
all of this
is
consistent with
Strauss's
and
Klein's insistence
thought. Klein's work provides a plausible argument that this incoherence is embedded in the
founding
physics
stages of
at
is abstract, unrelated to the world and thus only accidentally descriptive, via mathematical physics, of reality. (For a contempo rary version of the latter, see Komer, above; for the former, see Willard Van Orman Quine, "On What There in From a Logical Point of View [New York, 1961], pp. 1-19; henceforth Quine.)
is,
once, a
modernity in the sixteenth paradigm for ontology,
and seventeenth centuries. and mathematics per se
As
result, mathematical
Is,"
Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford, 1940), p. 34. Elementary Christian Metaphysics (Milwaukee, 1963), pp. 237-41 For Klein's account of why he appeals to the language of the Scholastics, see Article, pp. 7-8. 15. Book, p. 174, cp. p. 201: the starting point of Cartesian abstraction is the intellect's grasp
13. R.G. 14. See Joseph Owens, An
.
of
the content of a concept,
e.g. mere
. .
multitude;
see also p.
192.
sense
.
.
16. Cp. 17. For
Article,
p.
17: ".
mathematical objects
in the Greek
are accessible
only to
also p.
the discursive intellect.

a contrast with the ancient mode of of and
conceptualization, see
Article,
pp.
132-33;
123: the "heart

representation
[the]
it
procedure"
symbolic
real
is that it identifies
object represented with means of
replaces
determinateness
of object with
possibility
of
of
determination. distinc in this
Would it be too fanciful to tion,

with
suggest that the
Heideggerian inversion
the
actual/potential
the latter receiving at his hands a higher procedure, and with

self-
dignity
than the
former, finds
a root
symbolic rather
that,
all
that is entailed for understanding Heidegger as a Modem

end of
than accepting his
philosophy,
a claim which obviates
understanding of himself as true claimant to representing the the distinction between Ancients and Modems?
achievements
18. It is noteworthy that the founders of modem symbolic mathematics did interpret their in this way. See Article, p. 20: "What Fermat and Descartes call is in
'generalization'
reality
a complex conceptual process

these."
time, identifying has become a commonplace

the same
ascending from intentio prima to intentio secunda while, at It is no less worthy of note that this one-sided self-interpretation doxa.
of modem
19. One way

tion.
of
indicating
the distance between abstract in the modem and Aristotelian sense is
to note that the pair abstract/concrete is not
isomorphic
with
the Aristotelian form/matter distinc
For Aristotle the

matter.
abstracted
is
also a combination of matter and
form, i.e.,
to be sure, of
See Book, p. 295 n. 314; also cp. Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (Toronto, 1963), pp. 342-43. 20. The description
intelligible
inseparability
the
of method and
through the symbolic procedures

"universal"
of
ontology in the context of linking universal and particular inaugurated by Descares should be kept in mind when reading the Method in the Discourse on Method. Contemporary readings of the
of
Method
eye
as prescriptive
for those hence
"good
conceivable
problem,
and
readings which would make
to
Descartes'
apologetic or exoteric esoteric
for every best Quixotic, turn a blind intention in the Discourse (see VI). The subtext of the
and
sense,"
thus as universally applicable
it
at the
Method, i.e., its

suggests, and
cartes'
intention, is to be found in its ontological content, as the point above thereby its universality is descriptive, rather than prescriptive, with respect to Des
only
mathematical physics gives us
metaphysical claim that
knowledge
of
the world. See
Discourse
result.
Method, Part II. 21. Book, p. 200. In addition, Klein

on
presents a
reading
of
Stevin
which suggests
'One'
the same
Stevin's
number concept
which, in effect, denies the ancient view that

and
"material"
is
not a number
(a
major
faculty
of
sticking point for modems, which seems at once inexplicable intellectual intuition. Stevin's key premise, that the
perverse)
also requires a
of a multitude of units
is
'"number"'
implies,
as with
Vieta,
that conceptual content and concept
have been
identified,
cp.

pp.
127
the
191-92. Stevin's
role
in
modem conceptualization cannot
be
overstated.
He
originates
number sense
line
which
(a)
provides
modernity
as
with
an
unshakeable visual
eidetic
in the
modem ancient
metaphor
for the
homogeneity
of magnitude and
multitude,
and
(b) thereby obviating

irrational
numbers
objections to
"schnitts,"
treating "irrational
ratios"
numbers
rational and
are
both
as
numbers ratus of
Dedekind's felicitous formulation homogenous with all other numbers. Stevin's

to use
(c)
a
assimilates
not add
both One
and
Zero
work
does
vivid
to the ontological appa matters, see
"symbol generating
a
abstraction,"
however. For
account of these
Klein's "On
Sixteenth
Century
Algebraist,"
Essays,
pp.
35-42.
Thesis,"
22. See Moltke Gram, "Intellectual Intuition: The Ideas, 35, no.l (April-June 1981), 287-304. 23. See Richard Kennington, "The
Review of Metaphysics, 26, No. 1 body cannot be divorced from
Descartes'
Continuity
Nature'
Journal of the
History
of
'Teaching
of
in
Descartes'
Soul
Doctrine,"
The
(1972),
who makes a persuasive case
that the dualism of
mind-
exoteric or apologetic
intention.
was
...
24. To the best
lished
context
by
my knowledge, the term "metaphysical Leo Strauss: "Prior the victory of the new physics
of neutral physics.
neutrality"
first
used
in
a pub
to speak colloquially, there
was no
metaphysically
The victory
of
the
new physics
led to the
emergence of
physics which seemed as

medicine"
available
metaphysically neutral as, say, mathematics, medicine, or the art of (ESSP, p. 309). Klein provides independent, consistent confirmation of this claim un elsewhere. This article does not mean to suggest that the metaphysical neutrality of math
physics, in its nonessentialist mode, is part of the modem world's
as
ematics and of mathematical self-understanding.
On the contrary,
were not
"the inner
constitution of nature
as
Klein suggests, the belief that mathematical physics yields Galileo and thought is at the heart of our Cave
Boyle"
(Essays,
p. 231).
If this
the case, there would be no need, in my eyes, for making Klein's
argument accessible to a wider
audience; see below note 28.
25. (1) For the later Descartes, there appear to be a host of concepts continuous creation, clear and distinct ideas, the pineal gland, to name a few in interpretations to
the bridge between
innate ideas, God, which can be used
imply
that the doctrine of the corporeality of the imagination of the Regulae as
compromised. For contemporary defenses of each of the two Stephen Gaugkroger, Project For A Mathematical who argues, in effect, that the early Descartes is fundamental, and also Martial Gueroult, for a defense of the later Descartes as "The Metaphysics and Physics of Force in mind and
body is
Descartes
Physics,"
as
fundamental,
"Descartes'
see
Descartes,"
fundamental; both are in Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics, and Physics, ed. Stephen Gaukroger 140 and pp. 196-229 respectively. (2) With that, allow a (Totowa, New Jersey, 1980), perspective from Straussian premises. According to Strauss, an important doxa of our Cave is a
pp.97-
separation
between philosophy
seventeenth
most
and science which
is
"consequence
of the revolution which oc
curred
in the
century"
(ESSP,
mathematics)", is the
successful.
309). Of the two, science, in particular "physics (and If one assumes that the intention of the late
p.
Descartes'
metaphysical arguments was of nature success. question.
in part, at least, apologetic, exoteric, meant to protect the new from hostile forces of an anti-Galilean character, one can surely applaud
"extension"
science
Descartes'
(3) No doubt Cartesian

The foundation
of
is the bridge between early

clear
and
late Descartes
"
on
this
that
bridge
on
the early side is made
by
Klein:
Descartes'
concept of extensio
identifies the
made
extendedness of extension with extension
itself (Article,
Descartes'
p.
21).
This identification is fication

of
possible, credible, and successful through Vieta's and
identi
the content
of
of mathematical second
for the foundations

of mind see
the bridge in the later

unravel the
intentions, the deflniens, with the concept itself. As Descartes, I wait impatiently for a patient reader of a cast
of
like Kennington 's to
terminology
the Fourth and Fifth Meditations in order to
if there, perhaps, may be found 26. Leo Strauss, "Progress or
an ontological
Return?"
coherent with the early argument. in An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays
doctrine
History,"
Leo Strauss, edited with an introduction by Hilail Gildin (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1989), pp.249ff. 27. Curtis Wilson, William Heytesbury: Medieval Logic and The Rise of Mathematical Physics (Madison, 1960), p. 148. 28. For more on metaphysical neutrality, see Richard Kennington, "Strauss's Natural Right and Review of Metaphysics, 42, no. 2 (Sept. 1981), 57-86, esp. 82-85.
by
128
Interpretation
29. Hiram Caton, The Origins of Subjectivity (New Haven, 1973), p. 168. 30. In light of this, one can better understand why contemporary "Mathematical
Platonism"
(i.e.,
little
only
the assertion that mathematical entities are mind-independent), although ubiquitous, carries so
permanent
a pious wish
impact in today's philosophy of science. It is not merely because, at worst, it is to found mathematics on solid objectivist ground, or because, at best, it is only a
symbolic mathematics
restatement of the problem,
neutral,
sider
but, rather, because modem i.e., logically independent of such metaphysical

"
is metaphysically
ubiquity, con
"
theses. On
.
"Platonism's"
the following:
it is the dominant
attitude
of modem mathematics
(The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy [New York, 1967], vols. 5-6, p. 201). On its lack of solid argument, or conceptual utopianism, consider also: "Mathematical objects are treated as if their existence is independent discussion
of cognitive
operations, which is perhaps

Platonism"
"
evident
(ibid.,
emphasis added).
Logic,"
For
Kurt Godel, "Russell's Mathematical in Phi losophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings, ed. Paul Benaceraff and Hilary Putnam (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1964), pp. 211-32, esp. pp. 212-13, cp. p. 220, and also Paul Bernays, "On Platonism
of
"Mathematical
see
in
Mathematics,"
ibid.,
pp.
274-86. For
a glimpse of
the conceptual
distance between
contempo
of Plato's dialogues, see rary Platonism and the ancient version, not to mention the Gottfried Martin, Leibnitz: Logic and Metaphysics (New York, 1960), p. 172. Given this distance, ought rightly to bear the sobriquet of "naive realism"; see note 13 above. contemporary 31. Quine, pp. 12 and 15. This Quinian bon mot is modernity's way of acknowledging, albeit
"Platonists"
"Platonism"
unconsciously, reformulating,
tode ti.
and
thus agreeing
with
Aristotle's
contention that
to
be
means
to be a
Leo Strauss
and
Classical Political
Philosophy
David Bolotin
St. John's College, Santa Fe
Leo Strauss From 1969

was, I
was
bom in
Germany
in 1899
and
died in Annapolis in 1973. St. John's,

we and
until
his death, he
was a scholar-in-residence at
he
believe,
the only man ever to hold this position at the college. Despite
our emphasis exception
on
teaching,
as
distinct from scholarly research,

and
made
an
faculty rightly so, unusually congenial to our traditions at the college. As he wrote in an "We are indeed com essay entitled "Liberal Education and pelled to be specialists, but we can try to specialize in the most weighty mat
on our since scholar
to include Strauss
his
ship
was
Responsibility,"
ters, or, to speak more simply and more nobly, in If I am not mistaken, this is the reason why liberal
almost synonymous with the
the one
thing
is
needful.
education
now
becoming
reading in
common of the
Great Books. No better specializing in "the shows that he was as

the
beginning
most
could
have been
made."1
Strauss'
remark about one
matters"
weighty In
a
or even
in "the
needful"
thing
spoke of
and
critical of the
our program.
fragmentariness
of
American
education as were
founders
of
lecture in the 1950's Strauss

more and more about
contemporary
the practical
special
ization sibility
as
"knowing
less
less;
impos
of concentration upon
the very few

and
essential
things
upon which man's
wholeness
entirely depends";
he
added
that this
specialization
tends to be
"compensated
by
sham
universality,
by
the stimulation of all kinds of interests

universal philistinism and more specialized
and curiosities without

conformism."2
tme passion; the danger of
creeping
science,
and
Strauss
saw
this
tendency
to an ever
its accompaniment, the
growth of an ever more unscientific phi
losophy, "in
son,"
which mere wishes and prejudices
have
usurped
the place of rea
as signs of a grave crisis within
Western
civilization.
Now there
have,
to
be sure, been many
critics of excessive specialization and
its
effects upon con

or sense of ur
temporary life,
gency.
though
few,
him
Strauss'
perhaps,
with
severity
evils.
But
what makes
stand apart
is his
unequivocal support of
Great
Books
with
education as the counterweight almost alone
to these
In this
respect
he, along
con
his students, is
to our
could not
among American
so
educators not
directly
nected
program or
to one of the few kindred programs at other colleges.
Strauss
have thought
highly
of
Great Books education,

form,
lecture
or at
This
paper was
originally
College, Santa Fe,
on
delivered, in 1990. 26, January
slightly different
as a
at
St. John's
1994, Vol. 22, No. 1
130
least
also
Interpretation
not
reasonably so, if he had not freed himself, as we as a college have do, from the prevailing contemporary approach to these books. That approach, historicism, is to study the books as reflections of their particu
tried to
lar historical contexts, or else to resign oneself to seeing them, as we are al leged to see everything else, through the lens of contemporary prejudice. Strauss argued vigorously against this historical approach to interpretation, and it is among the most immediately accessible aspects of his Rather than studying the Great Books as expressions of the spirit of the times in which they were written, or in other words as matter for a decent
polemic against
work.
his
burial, and rather than studying them to see how they look to the merely con temporary mind, Strauss took seriously the bold claim that at least some of the books make on their own behalf, namely the claim, to present the final and
comprehensive tmth about their subjects.
And
although
Strauss did
not accept
any book
as
as an unquestioned
authority, the
goal of
his life's
work was
the same
about
the
goal of or
many
of our program
authors, to discover the tmth
the
whole,
in
other words
to discover the one comprehensive truth about
God,
the world,
and man.
which
In saying these things about Strauss, I am portraying him as a philosopher, indeed he was. But the primary field of his work was not philosophy simply, but more narrowly political philosophy, or rather the history of politi And this
self-limitation on
within
cal philosophy.
of academic
his
part was not
merely for the
sake
concern regard
respectability may have played a minor role. For Strauss had an extremely high for political philosophy, as we can see clearly from the following remark
the American university system, though that
in The
stood
City
a
and
Man: "In its
original
form
political
philosophy
to it
broadly
This
under
is the
course,
me
philosophy difficult remark, and I

within
core of
or rather
will
'the first
return
philosophy.'"3
is,
of
have to
later, but for
now
let
of
leave it
Strauss'
as a mere assertion on
part as a
political
philosophy
philosophy
of political
regarding the whole. As for

rather
key
importance
choice
Strauss'
to
concentrate on the
rate a political
main
history
was
philosophy,
than
trying
to elabo
philosophy
of
one, I
believe,
his own, there are several reasons for this, but the his conviction that the tmth about the subject had
already been discovered. Though it was not his way to stress this fact in his writings, he did indicate clearly enough that he thought classical political phi
losophy,
was
which means above all
the political philosophy of Plato and
Aristotle,
writings
tme.
Accordingly,
the most
or
important
purpose of
his historical
was
to elucidate this
tmth,
the
to revitalize classical political philosophy, in a

accordance with the
manner accessible to
contemporary students, but in full

classical authors
self-understanding
Now Strauss
of
of
themselves.
was not
the first philosopher to have tried to restore the thought the true and comprehensive teaching. This had also
and
Plato
and
Aristotle
as
been the
aim of
the medieval Islamic

and
Jewish philosophers,
until
beginning
of
with
Alfarabi in the tenth century
continuing
the
disappearance
philoso-
Leo Strauss
phy from the Islamic
and
and
Classical Political
several
Philosophy
later.
-131
Jewish
worlds
centuries
Moreover,
of
these medieval philosophers
were also aware of
the centrality of political phi

of
losophy
for
for Plato
and
Aristotle. Alfarabi's summary

to
an account of
the
of
philosophy
Plato,
instance, leads up
the perfect city
the Republic and to a
concluding discussion of how the cities of Plato's time might gradually have been converted to the way of life of the perfect city. And in his summary of the philosophy
sciences of
Aristotle, Alfarabi
writes
that according to Aristotle
some of
the
that
man
desires "are firmer
and some shakier than others.
However,"
he continues, still speaking for Aristotle, "once [man] attains certainty about what he was investigating, this is the perfect science of what he wants to know
and
the end beyond
which
he
can
hope for
no
better
assurance and reliability.

sciences."4
This, then, is
themselves
most
man's situation with regard to the practical
The im
portance of classical political

can
be
seen
philosophy for the medieval Islamic philosophers from the fact that Alfarabi presented two of his own God
and
important
statements about
the universe in works that also treat

and
politics,
and whose
titles
are
The Political Regimes
The Principles of the
Opinions of the Citizens of the Virtuous City. Or, to take another example, the Islamic philosopher Avicenna wrote in a work called On the Division of the
Rational Sciences that "the treatment books
of of
[Plato
and
Aristotle]
and
about
the
Laws."5
of central
importance to these
medieval
is contained in the prophecy Political philosophy, then, was philosophers, both in their interpreta
...
tions of the classics
in their
own
thought. But in part, perhaps, because the
rise
of modem science and modem secularism
has
made
the physics and the

so
metaphysics of
Plato
and
Aristotle
at
seem
largely
incredible to
many
of us
today, Strauss limited himself

cal
least in his
published work
to their politi
a
philosophy,
and to political
philosophy
more
generally, to
degree that The
distinguishes him from his

Let
me
medieval predecessors.
turn now to
Strauss'
account of classical political philosophy.
guiding order. And

political
theme of this philosophy was and is the question of the best political
since
the
classics
held that
what most
determines the
character of
life is
not
the
and that rules
in broad
laws, but the class of human beings daylight, the question of the best
that makes the laws

political order
boils
well-
down to the
question of what class should mle.
Should it be the
rich,
the
bom,
to
the
common
people, the priests,
or some other class or some mixture of
classes?
Now this question,

of
which must
be treated
as a settled one
if society is
the
be stable,
nevertheless comes
to the surface of political
life
whenever
authority
the mling
instance, within rica, among other
is challenged, as we recently saw happening, for the Communist world, or as we see in Algeria and South Af
class
places, today. And
whenever
this
question
does
come
to the
surface, it becomes obvious to all concerned, not just to the philosophers, that it is the fundamental political question. In other words, the guiding question of
classical political question
philosophy
emerges
directly
from
political
life itself. It is
that
concerns men and women as
citizens, not as beings who look at
132
Interpretation
life
as spectators or
political
from
outside.
Strauss
always emphasized
the
im life.
portance of this
political
direct
connection
between the guiding
question of classical
philosophy
regime
and
the actual concerns of prephilosophic political the best regime
Admittedly,
the
we are concerned as citizens with
here
and
now, or
best
for us,
rather
than the best regime simply, which is the theme

arguments universal cannot we make
of political philosophy.
But the
in
political
controversy
necessarily who defends
express
themselves in
terms. As Strauss puts
it,
"a
man
democracy
such."6
in Athens
help
of was
using
arguments
in favor
of
democracy
within
as
Now in the foreground

also
the political stmggle, certainly the controversy between the the democrats. The classical
the Greek world, but the poor,

or
elsewhere,
rich
and
between the
oligarchs and
political philosophers
held, however,
to mle,
that neither of these two parties could

mle was
fully justify
human
its
claim
but that the highest title to

support of
based
on
excellence or virtue. and
And in
this view, the philosophers noted
that the oligarchs
the democrats themselves claimed to be virtuous or good

exceptional virtue
men, and also that
they looked for
among their generals,
judges,
Plato
and other
and
leaders.
principle
Aristotle agreed, then, that aristocracy, or mle of the best, was in the best political order. But this initial answer leads to a number of
allow
further
questions. For one thing, the circumstances that would ine aristocracy are extremely rare, if not impossible, and the lish such an aristocracy in the absence of these circumstances
for
a genu
attempt could
to estab
to tyranny. Plato well
knew, for instance,
of
the reign of
easily lead terror in Athens under
the
be restoring ancient virtue, but in fact they ended up making the discredited democracy, which had led Athens into the minous Peloponnesian War, seem like "the golden Accordingly,
mle of
the Thirty. These men claimed to
age."
the classical
of
the
best
regime
the various
had to pay attention not only to the question but to the question of the best practicable regime in simply, imperfect circumstances in which men live. But a still more impor
political philosophers concerns
tant question
the very notion of virtue or excellence itself. Virtuous or

political
good men were
known, from
do
what
life,
as men who
"are willing,
and
able,
to prefer the common

passions"
interest to their is
Yet it
private
interest
and
to the objects of their

noble and
or who
noble and was
right "because it is
right
and
for
no
ulterior
reason."7
recognized within political secured
life that the

character.
common good could sometimes
be better
by
men of
dubious
The Athenian Nicias, for example, whom Thucydides praises so highly for his dedication to virtue as understood by law, was a disaster as a general, whereas Themistocles, a man of questionable character, had been the savior of Athens
and of
Greece in the Persian War. As

arise
a result of
these and similar
difficulties,
What, in
be
difficulties that
directly
to ask
phers were compelled
life itself, the the Socratic question "What is

within political
political philoso
virtue?"
words, is the virtue that is the highest title to mle?

other
at
least
implicitly
admitted
by
everyone to
Leo Strauss
The Socratic for this
question
and
Classical Political
is
not
Philosophy
-133
"What is
virtue?"
merely
a political question
in
the narrow sense, but what we

reason
would call a moral or ethical one as well.
The
emerges when we consider the
men are understood as
those who, among other things, do
fact just mentioned, that virtuous what is noble and

virtue
right
for its
own sake. even
For this implies that
is
not
merely
a means
to
political
ends,
to such noble ends as the community's survival or its free
dom. However
useful
truly
well. of
understood as
it may be in the service of such political ends, it is more an end in itself, and indeed the highest end. The question
"What is
virtue?"
transcends the narrowly political for the

ourselves and one another
following
or
reason as
In exhorting
to be virtuous,
to resist the path
easy pleasure, we tell ourselves and one another that virtue is good for us, or that it is the core of our tme happiness. In other words, we assume that the
highest
qualities our
in the
political sphere are also those that perfect
us,
or
that
deepest needs, as individuals. In keeping with all this, Aristotle's satisfy Nicomachean Ethics, which outlines the virtues of the individual, rather than
discussing
rather than
political order, and whose primary theme is happiness, is the beginning of what he calls his "political virtue, The classical inquiry into virtue could not, however, rest with the conclusion
science."
the best
that virtue is something
good
for its
own sake or
that
it is the
not
core of our
tme
happiness. For
even
if these
conclusions are
tme, they do
tell us precisely
what virtue and means
tme happiness are.
Moreover,
so a
although virtue
is
to serve the community

virtuous
and
necessarily
it is
still understood as
politically effective being directed toward the
merely a leader is not

commu
not
be so, however, if virtue, or the happiness of Why is itself the highest end, is a difficulty. And even apart from being virtuous, that, the directedness of virtue toward the common good means that one cannot
nity's good.
this should
common good?
adequately know what virtue is This question is

continued.
without
knowing
that
good.
But into
what
is the
another sign
that the
inquiry
virtue must
be
The
Strauss'
culmination of
virtue?"
account of
the
classical response of
to the question
"What is
is included in his interpretation
the Republic.
The theme
of
the Republic is the peculiarly important and, in a sense, of justice. In his interpretation Strauss notes that
about
comprehensive virtue
Cephalus'
initial
assumption
justice, namely
or received
that it consists in truthfulness and in restoring what one
has taken
possess what
from someone,
presupposes
that what people
is
justly
everyone
theirs, or more generally that the law has is entitled to. But "Socrates shows with
view of
rightly
already determined
Strauss'
ease,"
in
words, "that
Cephalus'
justice is
untenable: a man who
has taken
or
received a weapon when
from
a sane man would act
he
asked
for it
after
unjustly if he returned it to him he had become insane; in the same way one would
to say nothing
unjustly by being Socratic conclusion rests

act
resolved
but the truth to is

shared
madman."8
This
that
on
the premise, which

good
by Cephalus,
Since it is
justice is something good, something
for
all concerned.
obvi-
134
ously
even
Interpretation
not good
for
a madman to
be
given a
weapon, justice
Socrates'
cannot
demand,
or
permit, that we return one to him.
But
argument also
implies the
more
important
conclusion
that the law does not adequately settle the question

some codes of
of what
justice is. For though

law
law
might
include
is
certain
tions to the general mle that one must always return what one
excep has taken or
received,
no
can
adequately
assign
to
everyone what
is
good
for him in
all circumstances.
Only
wisdom, as
only what distinguished from law,
good and
fulfill that function, and this fact has quote Strauss at length on this point:
can
enormous consequences.
Let
me
Not
we
all men make good or wise use of what belongs to them, of their property. If judge very strictly, we might be driven to say that very few people make a wise use of their property. If justice is to be good or salutary, one might be compelled
to
demand that
and
everyone own
him
for
as
long
as
only what is it is good for him. We

or
"fitting"
might
for him, what is good for be compelled to demand the

.
abolition of private which there even
property
the introduction of communism. To the extent to

private
is
a connection
between
property
and
the
family,
one would or
be
compelled
to demand in addition the abolition of the
family
the
introduction
of absolute
communism, i.e. of communism regarding property,

will
women, and children. Above all, very few people

what
be
able to
determine exactly
or at
things and
what amount of who
things are good for each
individual,
any
rate
for
each
individual
shall
counts, to use; only
men of exceptional wisdom are able
to
do this. We
wise
then be compelled to demand that society be ruled
by
simply
Socrates'
men,
by
philosophers
in the
strict sense
wielding
absolute power.
Cephalus'
refutation of
view of
justice
contains
then the proof of the necessity of

philosophers.'
absolute communism as well as of the absolute rule of
Socrates'
refutation of man
Cephalus further implies that the
most virtuous
hu
beings,
those
who most
truly deserve
to mle, are the philosophers. Now as

relevant
Strauss notes, this argument disregards a number of most contains at its core the tmth that no society other than one kings
even
things, but it
philosopher-
mled
by
asks
its
citizens where
to adhere to the the philosophers

exist
strictest standards of mle
justice. Indeed,
in the city
assuming, for the sake of argu
ment, that it
can
actually
there are
serious and unavoidable most
imperfec
tions in what it holds to be

asks
lie,"
justice. To take the
its
the
citizens to accept a
glaring example, this city dogma that Socrates himself speaks of as a "noble
original citizens were all
lie,
namely, that its

and
bom from the earth,
or
from the motherland,
that its political
hierarchy
is
supported
by
a god
who,
among other things, mixed three different metals into the souls of the three different classes of human beings. And the philosopher-kings themselves, inso far
as
they
of
are engaged
in mling,
must act at
any
rate as
if they
accepted this
lie. Their
perception of
the truth about
justice be
must
be
somewhat
dimmed,
the
justice
their souls, in a sense, must
somewhat
tainted, for them
to act
politically. engaged
The Republic teaches, moreover, that when the philosophers are in philosophizing, they find such happiness in this activity that they
Leo Strauss
believe they
only
seemed at are
and
Classical Political
of
Philosophy
As
a
135
already far away in the "Isles

that
the
Blessed."
result, it is
under compulsion
they
a
first to is
come
from
willing to mle. Though their title to mle superior knowledge of how to assign to each
are
citizen what
good
for him, it
turns out that what
they know
about political
life, from
Plato's
the
their experience as philosophers,
is
above all
its insufficiency.
inquiry
truly
virtuous
into justice leads, then, to the paradoxical conclusion that or best life is not the political life at all, but rather the life
a some and
devoted to contemplation, or philosophy. And Aristotle as well, if by what different route, comes to this same conclusion. The cmcial result,
sense
in
the only result,
of classical political
political points
life
cannot attain
the
justice
at
philosophy is the knowledge that which it aims, but that it ultimately
toward a perfection attainable
only
by
the individual
or as a
who philosophizes. of
To but
quote
as a
Strauss, "philosophy
of
not as a
teaching
body
knowledge,
that keeps
political
way life in
life
motion."10
it were, the solution to the offers, And in the light of this solution,
as a
problem political
life
neces
sarily
the
appears as
life in
cave, a cave almost
totally
cut off
from the light
of
sun.
Now the
classics
knew that philosophy
could not so
be
without a political ef sought
fect,
and
hence
a political
responsibility, and
they
to make their
effect a
salutary one, not only for their students, but also for the communities in which they lived. In the language of the Republic, the classical political
the compulsion to return to the cave. But
philosophers understood
they
were
extremely wary
the
of
saw as a threat to
radicalness of
any widespread popularization of philosophy, which they both philosophy and society. Despite, or rather because of, their ultimate views, the classics were in general political
were concerned
conservatives. would
They
that the
habit
of
tend to undermine the merely habitual respect for

political
changing even bad laws law which they saw as life in

particular
necessity for decent
life,
and
for
a political
that
could afford to tolerate
philosophy.
For
better understanding
philosophy,
of what
Strauss
turn
saw as
the
specific character of
classical political em political
philosophy, let
me now
briefly
to his discussion of mod
which originated
in the
sixteenth and seventeenth cen
turies
in Europe in
purposes, I
explicit opposition shall
to the whole classical tradition.
For my
mod
present
em political philosophy. respect
be stressing what Strauss saw as weaknesses in But let me say at the outset that he had a very
all genuine
great
with
for
it,
as
he did for
philosophy,
and
that he studied
it
great care and willingness
to leam throughout his life.
Modem
the
political
philosophy, according to
Strauss,
For
can
be
contrasted with no
classical so and
in
two different but related

with
respects.
one
thing, it
longer life
begins
directly
the primary questions that

no
arise within political
itself,
initial
secondly,
it
longer
culminates
in
praise of of
the philosophic, as
opposed
to the political, way of life. As
for the first
these two points, the
questions of modem political
philosophy
are not
those that are "first for
136
us"
Interpretation
as
citizens, but
more or
rather questions
that can arise only for someone who

perspective of citizenship.
is
already
less detached from the

and
Thus, for
the
instance, Hobbes
claim that man
Rousseau both begin their

a political
chief political works with or
is not naturally that the being, individual is naturally independent of all political authority. This claim is sup ported, to be sure, by arguments, but these arguments are not, or at least not
other words
in
for the
cal
most
part, the kinds
of arguments that would
be
acceptable within politi of
life itself. And only subsequently do these authors turn to the question why, or whether, the individual should submit to the fetters of political life
all.
at
In
other
words,
modem political
whereas
individual,
or of
rights,
philosophy begins from the primacy of the classical political philosophy began by assum
although modem political
ing
the primacy of justice

to
or
duty. And
philosophy
modem
might seem political
begin from the guiding life itself, with its emphasis

the
concerns of modern political on
life,
individual rights,
as
distinct from du
And
even within
ties, is
largely
creation of modem political philosophy.
modem political
life,
the awareness that our political duties are not merely to secure our own rights
derivative from the

sent
concern
is
sometimes
vividly
pre
to us. This is the case especially

at
in wartime,
when a country's survival or
independence is
stake, but
not
only then,
as we can see to some extent even as
from the contemporary environmental movement, which regards itself responsible for the long-term future of the planet as a whole.
But to mm
now
being
to the second difference between modem and classical polit
ical philosophy,
philosophy is less political in its begin ning point than its classical rival, it is more political in its end. In contrast to what it sees as the Utopian character of classical political philosophy, it is con
while modem political
cerned with
solving the
rather
political
problem, to the
extent
that it can be solved,
in
strictly life simply, but

nity.
political
terms. Hence its highest theme is
not virtue or
the best way of
the best arrangement of an actualizable political commu
Its
concern
is
with
the
rational political
order, understood
as one
that
is
capable of
realization,
or
or one whose realization can even
be
I
guaranteed
human planning saying that
by
the historical process. This is
what
meant earlier
by by
modem political
philosophy does
not culminate
in
praise of the
much of
philosophic, as opposed to the political, way of life. To be sure,

modem political work
for
philosophy has been enormously concerned to lay the political life that would allow philosophers to speak and
this
ground
write
in
freedom, but
particular. who
freedom is
seen as
freedom for all,
not
And
even
those modem philosophers, such
just for philosophy in as Spinoza and Hegel,

praise
do
praise
the philosophic life as the best
their political philosophy, at
least
not as an
life do not include this important theme.
in
Now to
return
to the first of these two

one might
modem political classical concern
philosophy,
differences between classical and say, on behalf of the modems, that the
naive.
beginning
for justice
point was
and
excessively
For
one might argue
that the
so-
the common
good
is
characteristic at most of the
Leo Strauss
called respectable men who
and
Classical Political
men,
and
Philosophy
enough
137
those
seize
citizens, but
not of most
in
particular not of
really count, those who
are sophisticated and
bold
to
power and
to hold onto it. The classics,
cates of political
life
who
believe that
more
however, thought that those sophisti they are merely using the community for
their
private ends are
in fact far
deeply
concerned with
justice than they

we
know. Not
Alcibiades, Thrasymachus, and Callicles, as see them presented in the Platonic dialogues, are able consistently to reject demands of justice or the common good. Accordingly, the classics held that
even such men as concern
the
the
as
for justice
and a
nobility is the primary

and naive.
concern of
human beings
such,
of
and
hence that
philosophy that presupposes the

and
falsity
or unnaturalness
this concern is itself arbitrary
In particular,
theoretical
moreover
here is the
main point
the classical political
of life, or the life of detachment, has to vindicate itself in political terms. Since even philosophers are human beings, and that means political beings, before they
philosophers came to see
that their
own philosophic
way
become philosophers, philosophy cannot understand itself fully until it under stands its own relationship to the political sphere from which it arose. And the
problematic character of
this
sics than modem
it is today,
As
we
era, inasmuch
respectable.
the early philosophy in ancient Greece had not yet become know from the trial and death of Socrates, philosophy was
or of as
relationship was more easily grasped even than it was in the Christian world
by
the clas
distmsted
and even
hated
by
many well-meaning
citizens.
For these reasons,
then, the classical philosophers were compelled to explain themselves to their fellow citizens and to vindicate themselves in strictly political terms. And it is
ultimately in the light of this need for a political vindication of philosophy, rather than from any lack of sophistication, that we can best understand why classical political philosophy is so directly related to the concerns of political
life itself, and also why it culminates in the praise way of life. To quote Strauss, "Plato's Republic as
political works of the classical
of a
philosophy
as
the
best
whole,
as well as other
philosophers,
can
best be described
as an at
well-
tempt to
supply
the
a political
being
of
political
justification for philosophy community depends decisively
by
on
showing that the

cmcial point:
the study of philoso
phy.""
And let
me quote
Strauss
at greater
length
on
this
justify philosophy before the tribunal of the political community means to justify philosophy in terms of the political community, that is to say, by means
To kind
such.
of a
of argument which appeals not to philosophers as such,
but to
citizens as
To
prove
to citizens that philosophy is permissible, desirable or even
necessary, the
philosopher
has to follow the

agreed
example of
Odysseus
and start
from
premises that are
has to
argue ad
generally hominem or
expression
upon,
or
"dialectically."
from generally accepted opinions: he From this point of view the adjective
"political"
in the
"political
philosophy"
designates
not so much a subject
matter as a manner of
means
treatment; from this
point of
view, I say, "political
philosophy"
primarily
not the philosophic treatment of
politics, but the
138
Interpretation
philosophy,
or
political or popular treatment of
the political introduction to
the attempt to lead the qualified citizens, or rather their qualified philosophy sons, from the political life to the philosophic life. This deeper meaning of
"political
philosophy"
tallies well with

philosophy"
"political
culminates
means and
in
praise of the philosophic
its ordinary meaning, for in both cases life. At any rate, it is

of
ultimately because he
political
to
justify
on
philosophy before the tribunal
the
community,
hence
the level of political
discussion,
they
that the
philosopher
political
has to
understand
the political things exactly as
are understood
in
life.'2
The
need
for
political
philosophy, in order to
justify
the
philosophic
life,
arises, in part, from the

now
following
consideration,
which
way of I have been pre
stating it. Political philosophy is a necessary introduction to philosophy only if philosophy is unable to supply a purely theo retical foundation for its activity. Philosophy, as we know, existed in Greece supposing up to
without well
before the
or
emergence of political philosophy.
Its
aim was to understand
the cosmos
the permanent nature of the whole, an aim

or
in the light
of which philoso
human
or political affairs might well seem
phy could reasonably dispense with a in this its central endeavor. For however
paltry political justification if it

questionable
insignificant. Now
could succeed
the
initial impulse toward
philosophy might seem to be, no one know the tmth about the whole than
attained.
can not
reasonably doubt that it is better to to know it, once that knowledge is
that
to have thought, for the most part, had attained that knowledge, or else that they were solidly on they already the way to it. But as we leam from Plato's Phaedo, there was at least one philosopher who had grave doubts about the possibility of such a theoretical
And the
earliest philosophers seem
account of
the
or
whole.
This
philosopher was
Socrates,
and
his
youthful
inquiries
he things, many came to wonder whether anything could be known with certainty about nature. And if nothing can be known with certainty about nature, the very claim that
causes of all
raised so
into nature,
into the
questions that
there is nature,
i.e.,
fundamental
natural
necessity, the
question.
claim which
lies
at
the
basis
of all
philosophy, is itself
called
into
And if this fundamental
claim of all
philosophy is called into question, then so also is philosophy as a of life. Rather than being the life of the wisest men, it might be, instead, way as Aristophanes had suggested in the Clouds, the life of deluded boasters, of
men who claim
Socrates'
to know
big
things without
turn away from contemplating the beings directly, a pursuit which he compared to trying to look directly into the sun, and toward what he called his "second or a consideration of the beings as they are reflected in the medium of speech.
questions about natural
knowing them in fact. philosophy finally led him to
sailing
And though he doesn't say so explicitly in the Phaedo, the first examples that he gives there of his new approach, as well as the Platonic dialogues as a whole, make it clear that his turn to the speeches was closely bound up with an
emphasis on moral and political speeches
in particular,
on speeches about
the
Leo Strauss
noble, the
and
Classical Political
Philosophy
139
just,
and
the good. In
other
words, Socrates turned away from his

political philoso
exclusive preoccupation with
theoretical philosophy toward
phy, and
in fact became the founder his
of political philosophy. political
And
since the
emphatic and central conclusion of
philosophy is that philosophy

assume
answer
itself is the
that what
right
motivated
way of life or the best way of life, we are permitted to his turn to political things was chiefly the desire to
was
the question of whether philosophy

even a sensible
the best way of
life,
of whether urgent
it
was
consequence of the
way failure
of
life
of
a question
that had become
for him in
his
youthful ambition
to discover the
causes of all
things.
Now
with
as
mentioned
earlier,
modem political
of
philosophy is
hardly
concerned with
the question of philosophy as a way
life,
and
certainly
not
vindication of
philosophy that
modem
this is true
of modem
why the early
would begin from strictly political premises. And philosophy in general. But we can perhaps understand philosophers failed to see a necessity for such a political
vindication of their own
activity,
since modem
where
discovered
that the
a method
for succeeding,
philosophy claimed to have the ancients had failed, in giving a

on
true and adequate

whole
account of
the whole. Or rather, modem philosophy claimed
is
unintelligible
in itself, but that precisely
this basis we are
free to distinct
modem
constmct principles of account of all
understanding that will allow for the clear and possible experience. It is tme that the first premises of
science,
such as
philosophy
or
the principle that
all
bodies tend to
preserve
their state of motion uniformly in a straight

which
line,
or
the principle that

are at odds with
"substance is that
common sense. and
is
by
itself and is
conceived
by
itself,"
But it
was
hoped that these
premises would
justify
themselves,
hence philosophy or science as a whole, by their success. And this hopedfor success was seen from the beginning not merely as theoretical, but as prac
tical as well, since the new
natural
science could
be
used
in the
service of
was
unprecedented relief of man's estate.
In
keeping
with
this practical
hope, it
also cess
hoped that
in
modem political
philosophy
would prove
its
worth
by
A
its
suc
helping
could
to
bring
about, for the first time,
a rational society.
philoso
phy that
same
adequately
about a able
comprehend our experience of of rational
the world, and at the

might
time
bring
to be
life
well-being for the human race,
well seem
to dispense
with a political self-vindication
along
classical
lines. Buoyed up, then,
by
this hope
of
failed,
modem
philosophy did
the
natural
not much
succeeding where the dwell on the question of in

particular
ancients
had
whether phi
losophy
itself
was possible or
good,
and
it did
not
dwell
on
the
problem of
finding
beginning
point
for resolving this
question.
For Strauss, however, the questionableness of philosophy was a matter of central concern from early in his life long before he saw his way back to indeed it is of central concern for any and classical political philosophy
thoughtful individual
quences of
in
our century.
philosophy
and science
have
For in the first place, the practical conse shown themselves, in our era of world
140
Interpretation
weapons, to be extremely
mixed
wars and nuclear
blessings. But beyond that,
the assumption that philosophy

challenged powers of
is both
possible and good
has been radically

the two ruling the historical
and
from
within
the philosophic tradition itself.
Indeed,
the contemporary intellectual world,

combined
positivism
consciousness, have
to call this assumption into
question.
Positivism
and
regards modem natural science as the paradigm
for
all genuine
knowledge,
it
asserts that the

must
only way
objects of
knowledge
reason
are
facts
as
distinct from
values.
Hence it
hold, in
which
particular, that
of
is
unable
to validate the choice of
philosophy
of
as a
life
or of science as
a vocation.
And the historical

consequence
consciousness, positivism,
Strauss
saw as the
necessary, if unintended, that

all
goes even
further; it
asserts
human thought,
including
the
basic
premises of epoch.
torical
philosophy or science, is merely relative to And if this is so, as Strauss clearly understood,
to attain
a particular
not
his
losophy
very
unable
its
original goal of wisdom about
only is phi the whole, but its
is arbitrary or absurd. Now in the light of this situation, many heirs of the philosophic tradition existentialists, for short contemporary have decided that that tradition has to be destroyed and replaced with a new
endeavor
kind
He
of
thinking
that
would accept and even affirm
the merely subjective char

never
acter of all principles of thought and action.

was prevented
But Strauss
took that step.
been
ent
raised as an
of
in part, I think, by his good fortune in having doing orthodox Jew. Though the existentialist response to the appar from
so and science
failure
philosophy
impressed, both
alternative
as a thinker and as a
impressed him greatly, he was also deeply human being, by the traditional Jewish
to
philosophy.
Strauss'
By
men
the time
of
youth, it had
long
been
with
assumed
by
most educated
in Europe that
orthodox
refuted
Judaism, along
the supernatural claims of

modem era. youth
Christianity, had been

But led him to for
by
the Enlightenment of the early
the apparent self-destmction of reason that was occurring

wonder whether reason
in
Strauss'
had in fact
refuted religious orthodoxy.
The
refutation of and all
orthodoxy that had been thought to have been accomplished once

Spinoza
and others when reason was
by
in its
heyday
was never
seriously called into question by the existentialists, despite the fact that they no longer accepted the rationalist premises, such as those of modem science, that
had been the basis
of
the alleged refutation. Their
"irrationalism,"
pensed with.
it that, thus depended crucially on the rationalism And this holds even for those prominent
if I may call that they allegedly had dis

existentialists who chose
to return to
Judaism,
of
since
the Judaism that
they
returned to preserved
impor
some
tant features
the
Enlightenment,
in
particular
its denial
of at
least
Biblical
miracles.
By
contrast, Strauss
saw
the necessity to
reopen
the contro
versy between Enlightenment and orthodoxy. And since Jewish orthodoxy, in keeping with the Biblical prohibition against eating from the tree of knowledge
of good and
evil,
was opposed
and
to
all
philosophy, Strauss
as part of
saw
this
controversy
philos-
between Enlightenment
orthodoxy
the larger one
between
Leo Strauss
and
Classical Political
Philosophy
141
ophy (and all its heirs), on the one hand, and the Bible, on the other. Now from his examination of this controversy, Strauss concluded as a young man that it could not be resolved on theoretical grounds alone, since the basic premise of
orthodoxy, namely that God is omnipotent,
called natural
and
hence
stronger
than any
proved.
so-
necessity,
can no more
be
refuted than
it
can
be
The
that
efforts of modem
philosophy to refute orthodoxy

world of our
indirectly, by showing
can
the world, or at
least the
experience,
be
made
intelligible
view, to
without the assumption of an omnipotent change
God, did
nothing, in
Strauss'
this situation. And since he saw
no
way to attain theoretical certainty as
to whether philosophy or
sion
that philosophy as a
and
orthodoxy is tme, Strauss drew the tentative conclu way of life rests on an act of the will, as does ortho
antagonism
doxy,
but
hence that the
between them is ultimately
not
theoretical
moral.
In studying this moral antagonism between philosophy and orthodoxy, Strauss did not take for granted the soundness of the contemporary consensus that philosophy could not vindicate itself. But he did, it seems, come close to
accepting that young Strauss

orthodoxy,
atheism of
conclusion. came
For from the

all
perspective as
he had
now
reached, the
to regard
philosophy
and
and
he
saw
the ultimate
which
stemming from a revolt against purest justification for this revolt in the
to
Nietzsche,
did
not even claim
be based
on
reason, but
rather on the courage to
face the terrible tmth

Nietzsche had
of man's
forsakenness. But for certainty that
Strauss
his
objected that since
no adequate grounds
atheism was
"being
in fact the tmth, its ultimate basis based on belief is fatal to any
or an
was mere
philosophy."13
For it is
belief, and that inconsistent,

for
evident
decision."14
knowledge,"
Strauss argued, that philosophy, should itself rest on Despite the

strength of
"the life devoted to the
quest
"unevident,
arbitrary,
or
blind
the case against philosophy,
however, Strauss
could
not
disregard
certain
thing, the
abandonment of reason
facts that kept calling for it as a necessary pursuit. For one does not lead to orthodoxy in general, but in
orthodoxy,
and
each case to some particular
the various orthodoxies make con

are meant
flicting
light
claims.
Some
of
these claims, moreover,

noted that
to be evident to the
of reason.
Strauss
superiority to other "15 (Deut. i.e., on the superior rationality of the laws of Moses. 4:6), nality Even Nietzsche and the existentialist opponents of philosophy could not, ac cording to Strauss, avoid making theoretically tme. Considerations
picion that
wonder
claim to
Jewish orthodoxy, for instance, "based its religions from the beginning on its superior ratio
claims
such as
that
were meant
to be
intrinsically
or
these helped confirm in him the

reason."
sus
"it
would
be
unwise
to say farewell to
He began therefore to Strauss
"whether the
self-destmction of reason was not
the inevitable outcome of

. .
modem rationalism as was assisted
distinguished from
pre-modern
rationalism,
Islamic
and
in coming to see this new possibility by his study of the medieval Jewish philosophers. For from these teachers he learned for the
first
time that Plato and Aristotle
had
sought to vindicate
philosophy in the face
142
of
Interpretation
not
religious, if
strictly Biblical, objections,

namely
and
that
they had done
so
in the
only
cal
appropriate manner,
premises agreed to
by
an
their adversaries.
by beginning from the moral The discovery of this fact,

this deepest
Strauss'
and political
that classi to
philoso
thought had appropriately

was
confronted event of
of challenges
was
phy,
naturally
return
important
in
life. It
this
discovery
set out
that
led him to
on
to the philosophy
Plato
and
Aristotle
and
to
himself
the
path of political
Let
me conclude with one
philosophy final
as
"the first
Though Strauss
was
remark.
clearly
con
vinced that classical political
philosophy had appropriately confronted, at least in principle, the challenge to philosophy posed by Biblical revelation, there is dispute among his students as to whether he thought that this issue had been
resolved.
But
even
if Strauss failed to
view.
resolve
it,
this
would
not
have been
grounds
for despair in his

and of
For he believed that the

of
unresolved conflict
between the Biblical

unfinished
Strauss'
the philosophic notions

civilization and
the good
life is the its
main
business
Western
the
secret of
vitality.
In
words, "The very life of Western
civilization
is the life between two inherent in Western up that

life."17
codes,
fundamental tension. There is therefore
no reason
civilization, in its fundamental constitution, why it
should give
NOTES
1. Liberalism Ancient
and
Modern (New York: Basic

ed.
Books, 1968),
p.
24.
of
2. The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, Chicago Press, 1989), p. 31. 3. The
Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago:
University
Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 20. Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle trans. Muhsin Mahdi (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), p. 74, emphasis mine. 5. Philosophy and Law, trans. Fred Baumann (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1987), p. 103. 6. What Is Political Philosophy? (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), p. 85.
City
and
4. Alfarabi,
7. What Is Political Philosophy?, 8. The City and Man, p. 68. 9. The
p.
86.
City
and
Man,
p.
69.
p.
p.
10. What Is Political Philosophy?, 1 1 What Is Political Philosophy?,

.
91. 93.
12. What Is Political Philosophy?, pp. 93-94. 13. Liberalism Ancient and Modern, p. 256.
14. Natural Right
and
History
and
(Chicago:
p. p.
University
of
Chicago Press, 1953),
p.
75.
15. Liberalism Ancient
Modern, 16. Liberalism Ancient and Modern,
256.
257.
p.
17. The Rebirth of Classical Political
Rationalism,
270.
Book Review
Harry Neumann,
+
Liberalism (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1991),
xxiii
336pp., $29.95.
gekommen"
"Ich bin der welt abhanden A Book About Nothing

Paul A. Basinski Fort Hays State
University
when
Man is least himself

tell you the truth.
he talks in his
own person.
Give him
a mask and
he
will
Oscar Wilde
At the
beginning
of
my essay
and
on
Harry
figure
Neumann's book
of the nineteenth
von
must stand
the fa
miliar words
from that sad,

between
suicidal
century,
a man
tmly
poised
being
nothingness, Heinrich Kantian
Kleist:
and
Not
long
ago
a
I became
acquainted with the
philosophy
now
have to
no
tell you of
reason to
thought I derived from
it,
which
I feel free to do because I have

and
believe it
will shatter you so
profoundly
are unable
to decide whether that which we call to be. If the
painfully as it has me. We truth really is truth, or whether it follow

us to
only
appears to us
latter,
then the truth we assemble here is nothing
after our
death,
and all endeavor to acquire a possession which will
the grave is in vain. If the point of this thought does not penetrate your
not smile at one who
heart, do
his
feels
wounded
by
it in the deepest
I have
when
and most sacred part of
being.
My
one great aim
has failed
me and
no other.
can't
help thinking
his
His
of
Harry
Neumann
read
these words. A
and
decade
or so ago
great aim at an
undying truth failed
him,
try
at
he hasn't been the

it is
con
same since.
meditations on
the end of political philosophy are the series of

want to
and explain what
essays collected
in his book Liberalism. I
Neumann believes, and how, if correct, his analysis ception of liberal democracy. Undermines, that is,
undermines our
least
so
far
very as liberal
democracy
I
requires some
larger
philosophical
justification for its
existence.
Liberalism, liberal democracy,

what
culminates
in
nihilism. as
This is the
such
core of
Neumann tries to
get at
in Liberalism. The title
is
play
on
1994, Vol. 22, No. 1
144
Interpretation
since
words,
the book isn't at all about
"liberalism"
as what
the term is
when
frequently
occurs
understood.
Rather,
the essays are about
happens
the freedom of
fered in
moral
liberal
democracy
are
is
carried
to its
ultimate conclusion.
What
is
nihilism, the belief that reality is only
what we experience,
standard
and
that
moral which
disputes
irresolvable for lack

as
of a transcendent although
through
to adjudicate them. And concomitantly,
he
never analyzes so
cial problems one
in America
in
Bloom did in The
Closing
this
of the American
Mind,
of
feels that Neumann believes that
most of
the hideous dilemmas
late
capitalism are
some sense a consequence of
moral nihilism or excess of
freedom. As
with
Francis Fukuyama
and
others, Neumann has apparently

that
exposed
the
raw nerve of
democracy, its fatal flaw. That flaw is
free-market-oriented
majoritarian governments are great at
lack Lots
sufficient of
but ultimately justification for their existence, or human existence in general. Our civilization has TV sets and cars but no "more perfect
delivering
"the
goods,"
union."
become best.
almost
wholly quantitative,
of the good
at
the
expense of an
qualitative
ideal
life
more
is better
and
he
understanding of the who has the most is it. He is
Neumann's
a
contribution not
to this familiar
argument
is to
radicalize
liberal. Neumann simply isn't comfortable with the postmodernism of the American regime. Unlike Milan Kundera, numbing, silly Umberto Eco, Richard Rorty, and so many others, he refuses to glamorize
nihilist, but he is
nihilism as of
the "unbearable lightness
being."
of as
Neumann
great
experiences the
loss
God,
not as
liberating
my
or
uplifting, but
to bat
"the
dread."
Whereas the very thought
of a purposeless universe an
winding down into
en
tropy hardly
Neumann, to the contrary, com prehends that grim abyss and is repulsed by it. Like Leontius, he cannot avert his glance from the horror. This great idea, his romantic confrontation with the Nothing, makes Neumann's works rather shrill and rebarbative, although no
causes
students
eye,
less
are
lacking
in
tremendous
fury
tinged
with poignancy.
Man has lost his
God,
or as
Neumann
prefers
to
put
it,
never
is"
had
one.
We
(p. 198). unfortunately is reality, that is, the world of common sense and experience, according to Neumann? In a word: nothing. But, like Kleist, Neumann believes that without a God or some Platonic good to give weight and substance to life, So
what
thus unwilling to "accept reality for what it
is merely "a chaos of empty temporarily individuated consciousness. Human

existence
experiences"
(p.
116)
partaken as
in
by
action
is
as
baseless
the
ran
dom evolutionary experiences that took eons to give rise to mankind. Unlike the liberals he despises, then, Neumann will not let us have our cake and eat it
too. If there exists
no suprasensory ideal to ground human existence, then all human beliefs, from feminism to Freudianism, are mere prejudices. And in this
sense, the
work of political
the weightiest political matters
its grappling with the truth philosophy regarding becomes mere play, utterly superfluous. Neu-
Book Review
mann, if correct, would put
as sink
145
journals like Interpretation

at
out of
business,
as well
the whole
Straussian enterprise,
least
as
that enterprise is constmed

role
by Harry
Jaffa
and others as
the restoration of natural right to its proper
in
our national
life.
more
Let's look
stand
carefully
at
Neumann's
arguments to make sure we under
the radical
subjectivity
portrayed
in the book.
Neumann believes that from

on
no
governing
principles exist
divine
alone,
or otherwise
to guide us on our sojourn through the world.

redemption stands or anyone or anything.
We
are
with no
hope
or
Neumann's for their
entire philosophical edifice

unfathomable
falls
this unprovable belief. But like that other great
mystery, his
verified.
writings are no
less
profound
inability
to be scientifically
In
spite of
his facade
of square-jawed
toughness that
a
"obliges"
Neumann to believes that
present nihilism's awful
the pre-Enlightenment cosmos
basically reactionary infinitely preferable to the nihilistic chaos of so much of today's world. He desperately wants there to be some sort of divine grace hovering over our lives, but his integrity will not permit him the comfort
who was of such
tmth, he is
beliefs.
great appeal of
This is the
the basis for any serious

our age and not take
political
his work; indeed, Neumann's point of departure is philosophy today. One cannot philosophize in
The Nothing.
question around
ancients'
into
account
Why
which all others revolve
is there something rather than nothing? is the great in our postmetaphysical age. As the
nature, the
medieval mind's states:
starting
buildingconviction or
point was
God,
our modem arises
heuristic
of
block is
nihilism.
As Neumann
"Modernity
from the
that what is
perceived or
thought has no existence independent

awareness of
perceiving
thinking. One's immediate
existing in itself, as the ancients which it takes to be this independent existence

ral or on
something is not an awareness of it believe. Ancient thought seeks to account for

obvious
by
(ancient)
divine (medieval) order which cannot be interpretation. Modem rejection of either type of
or
altered
positing a natu by human will

constraint
permanent
human freedom (liberalism) is

. .
manifest
in Spinoza's
condemnation
of
[theology]
This
(p.217).
the question: If reality is nihilistic, then was Heidegger right in
raises
assuming that we have no ground to stand on, nothing permanent to root our selves in? To all serious minds this is the dilemma of our age, and all specula
tions
not somehow
most
The
bound up in it, so Neumann feels, are spurious or cowardly. revealing essay in Liberalism is the first chapter, "Political Philos
Science?"
ophy
or
Nihilist
Taking
his
cues
from
Schopenhauer, Neumann
146
Interpretation
his understanding of nihilism. He nihilist science. His thinking is cast in the
out
calls
nihilism
plainly lays
sometimes
"science,
mold of the
oft-neglected
Schopenhauer,
quences of
that great mind who was the first to
synthesize
the
awful conse
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, and the Discourses of Rousseau, as well as the epistemology of Locke and Berkeley. His conclusion: nihilism is reality, political philosophy its window
dressing. (One thinks

when
of
that terrible
moment
in Oliver Stone's film Platoon

reality."
the disfigured
sergeant proclaims:
"I
am
No
one challenged on
him.) This is the challenge of Neumann's work, as he says Schmitt, published as an appendix to Liberalism: "no theology,
politics."
in the essay
no
Carl
morality, if
no
morality,
no
Neumann's book quietly shouts: nihilism is reality; liberal to the abyss! And yet both the left and the right fight this former in the
name of
name of some
democracy
conclusion
leads
the
delusional,
unbounded
freedom,
the latter
in the
God.
Ill
What horror is it that Neumann has itself is the

the law
of simple realization
unearthed?
His
finding
is that "Science
a
that
whatever
is
experienced
self, a world,
apart
contradiction,
being
vealed
experienced"
anything (p. 2). Our world is literally consisting

quite experiences or
a god or
else
is nothing
of
from its
our world.
by
science
is
nihilist
literally
nothing,
"This reality re of empty inter

metaphysical
methods"
changeable
nothings,
(p. 3).
Simply
ground out self
put, Neumann believes that
nihilism
has
pulled
the
from
under mankind.
Man has nothing to
stand
on, to ground him
suprasensory ideal. Living, judg ing, dying all human activity becomes mere process or experience. We sim ply float, unattached to anything that can give our lives more than temporary or
in, if reality is
not underpinned
by
some
transitory
meaning.
can make
The only thing that
life
seem
paralyzing veil of nihilism is passion or hence more substantial than nothing. The primary political passion, moral in dignation, then, is the driving force behind all human thought and action. Ha tred is the beginning and end of politics and the political; that is, the communal
world cannot exist without
temporarily real and displace the desire. Desire, at any rate, feels real,
this drive. In the
most
intriguing
pronouncement
in
his
book, Neumann
writes:
"Reality
(nature
and
human nature) is apolitical,

nihilism,
pursue
nihilist; human desire is

your passions.
not"
(p. 176). If
you want to avoid
desire,
of
All else, especially the is just a dream.
attempt to give moral
meaning to human
So the very task of political philosophy and the motive behind the life work Leo Strauss and his best students including most of the impetus behind this
Book Review
journal
147
is
exposed as a
fraud. Political
The
philosophy's
object, to
uncover an
unchanging
moral ground which can serve as chimerical.
the basis to check desire and
spiritedness, is
venture of political
philosophy itself
was an
always vain attempt
to cover up all that life could ever be

end quite
pure purposeless
desire,
passion, amounting in the
literally
and
to: nothing.
With history's Nietzschean fulfillment,

political
all
ideas
ideals,
the heart of
moral-
life,
are experienced as emptiness

noted
efforts to
hide life's
empty representations or concepts, cowardly from oneself. All willing, as Schopenhauer and his
shrinks
student,
Wagner, had
at
is futile. Will
from
this
not willing.
This
horror
(schrecken)
the emptiness of not willing
horror
vacui
is the
fundamental fact has been frantic

commitment to
of the
human
will.
The result,
and
after
the Nietzschean culmination
will
to will or, in more trivial or academic terms, fanatic
technology (sciences)
creativity (humanities). (P. 199)
The
point made
here is important
wants
and requires clarification.
Neumann be
etc.
lieves that the

reason
body
it has desires, sexual, appetitive, cultural,
So
(insight into life's nihilism) obliges the political community to construct justifications for these desires in order to keep them under wraps. Without these
justifications
nihilistic
illusions
reality
would
be
exposed
for
what
it
ulti
mately is: naked desire. Desire needs a goal, a telos. "Depriving the desires of their goal, that nihilistic devaluation makes them arbitrary, any desire
meaningless"
(p. 39). This
will not
do.
quest
In essence, this is the problem of liberal democracy at its very roots. In the for greater and greater human freedom, democratic regimes unwittingly
satisfaction of
disassociate the
desire from higher human
purpose.
And so,
human activity in liberal democracies is mighty, but ultimately ing. As Bloom so eloquently noted before his death in The Closing of the American Mind: "Nobody really believes in anything anymore, and everyone
signifies noth
spends
his life in frenzied

to look
man
work and
fact,
not
into the is
abyss"
frenzied play (p. 143).
so as not
have to face the inhibit him
Modem
shameless.
For there is nothing to

some
shame
him
or
in the
satisfaction of
his desire. Without
hierarchy
of
the passions, as
Strauss eloquently discussed in Natural Right and History, the pleasures of the ass are indistinguishable from those of human beings. We become beasts, in a
perverted
interpretation
of
Rousseau's
state of nature we
"live
naturally,"
that
is,
nihilistically.
IV
The
ence
key dichotomy
versus
established
by
Neumann in his book is
about
the differ
between the
open and closed societies
(although he
prefers
to see it as
liberal
illiberal thought). Illiberalism is political; it is Nietzsche's herd
148
Interpretation
a world of shared social
morality,
goods,
and
the means to satisfy them.
Liber death
of
alism, to the contrary, reflects the victory of nihilism, "and the resulting
of a
philosophy
and
politics, both
of which presuppose
religion, the existence

life"
(p.xx). The crisis permanent, non-arbitrary good to guide moral-political of our age, then, is more than a mere crisis of faith, if Neumann is correct. The
crisis
of
tmly resides in the fact that there is nothing taking some fantastic leap of faith.
It is
now a
to believe in anymore, short
to
find
a rational
generally accepted fact that the Enlightenment tried, and failed, (or purely human) justification for morality. The residual
the unwitting dissolution of the Christian faith ideals. I say this consequence was unintended, because thinker as Hegel honestly believed that unassisted reason could
problem of this project was and
probably
of all
even as great a
produce a constellation of profound physical and political permit mankind mentions
changes,
and still
the
luxury
of a
firm
moral ground
in Christianity. Neumann
Kant in this context, suggesting that
Kant's modernity is
compromised
by
absolutely free liberal. As

on modern view.
will the
basis
a
of morality.
his moralism, his determination to make this His attempt to establish it as the only
of ancient and modern,
absolute or pure good
is
ridiculous fusion
illiberal
and
mere will apart
from any external, objective standards it, like everything horizons, is nothing but horizon, a method, a discipline, a point of
(P.
223)
for
a
Kant
wished
Newton
of
morality,
who would establish a
firm
scientific
basis for the new, secular morality. Or, imagine Thomas Jefferson and James Madison gathered transfixed around David Rittenhouse's orrery (a device con
structed
of
to depict the movement

the
of
the planets about the sun). There stood two
the
greatest minds of
tion of Independence and
day, respective authors of the American Constitution, entranced by a scientific toy,

every bit as orderly To think that people
awesome
Declara
and
firm
in their belief that the

these
physical universe pictured
sponded with a moral universe

men
before them clearly corre and regular. How wrong

would prefer power
were, how naive.
to cling to
religious opened
rituals
in the face
of the
individual
the
and
freedom hubris.
an
up to them, surely this historical moment was the pinnacle

of
of
As Bergman has the Squire say idealist could have dreamed this And
so
the
Cmsades in
Seventh Seal,
"only
up."
this is Neumann's great revelation, if that's not too strong a word. The Enlightenment, by overreaching the boundaries so established
delicately
throughout centuries
mann
by the church and philosophy, has left man naked. Neu believes it is intellectually dishonest to try and cover this monstrosity of a
modem civilization with a nakedness
failed his
few creaking ideologies. He

protective
refuses to
"hide
nihilist
behind the
atmosphere of
humanitarian
fig
Book Review
leaves"
149
(p. 33). Nor
will or
he take
refuge
in the
comforts of admire
scientific
ideology,
right
technological triviality. I
his
democratic dogma, courage in making

all of
this decision
us
or wrong.
Perhaps, he is
saying, it is high time that
had the
courage of our tme convictions.

should not
Or is Socrates right in the Republic

someone
when
tmth"
he says, "one (331c)?
be willing to tell
in this
state
the whole
Politics
or
Terror
of
Reason: Comments
Liberalism
on
Paul
Basinski's Review
Harry Neumann
Scripps College
of
If
we wish
with the
to grasp the heart (Wesen) of science, then decisive question: Should science continue to
we must exist
first
come to grips
for
us or should we
drive it to
a swift end? That science should exist at all is never unconditionally If what that passionate, god-seeking, last German philosopher, necessary Friederich Nietzsche, said: "God is is true how do things then stand
.
dead"
with
science?1
Reason
(Geist) is
own
the life that itself cuts into life: through its own agony, it
increases its
knowledge
You
are no eagles: therefore you
do
not
experience the
joy
in the terror
of reason.
And
whoever
is
not a
bird
should not
perch on
abysses.2
Liberalism
sinski's,
which
will
not
receive
more
sympathetic
works
interpretation than Ba
as
perhaps
because
we
both
value
such
Mahler's
Sixth, in
Like Wagner, especially in Tristan, Mahler reveals life's essential emptiness, its indistinguishableness from death (Liberalism, pp. 202-7). He is alive to the horror experienced by
Liberalism's
atheism
(nihilism) is
set to music.
desire
any desire
this
faced
with
science, knowledge
not
of reality.
Although
Ba-
Liberalism, that it is the problem always confronting thoughtful men. Put differently, Basinski empha sized Liberalism's irrational or romantic (moral-political), not its rational or scientific (atheist, nihilist), side.
sinski notes
horror, he does
stress, as does
The
reason
for Basinski's
choice of emphasis
is
obvious:
thing, can,
or need
be,
said about reality's essential
Not much, if any nihilism. Speech and com
munication, community and politics, is the voice of desire, and desire is impla cably opposed to reason and science. Indeed the war of desire against reason
is
and always
was
the central fact of the human condition. Compared to

else
this war, everything

reason sparks
its
war against
is trivial, human-all-too-human. Desire's horror of intellect and intellectuals, men determined to see
it eternally is. For thought, that horror is not serious, but then nothing is serious (or playful) for intellect and for men insofar as their passions permit them to be intellectuals. It is serious for desire, however, the ground of
life for
what
The
research
for this
article was assisted
by
a grant
from the Earhart Foundation.
1994, Vol. 22, No. 1
152
all
Interpretation
of all
seriousness,
gion, philosophy
pp.
community and communication (politics, morality, reli there is no essential difference between them: Liberalism,
oppose political
170-78, 213-15).
and
Strauss
the wars
position
Schmitt
liberalism's ideal
"fun,"
of a world of
a and
world without
the life-and-death seriousness
of moral-political
decisions
caused
is fueled
main
by by
them
(Liberalism,
hatred
pp. of
xiii-xiv,
passion's
science,
92-95, 261-66). This op that is, by life's hatred of

secure what
death. The
good
emotion,
informing
all
others, is the desire to

responsible
notes
is
for oneself, happiness. This drive is

and piety.
for
politics and
therefore
without makes
for morality
Basinski
rightly
Schmitt's
observation:
theology,
seem as
morality, morality if I believe that any desire can exist

standard of good and and
no
and without
no politics. without of
But Basinski
without
it
god,
faith in
some
eternal, nonarbitrary
bad,
tme
happiness. This is im
always
possible, gods,
since
desire
therefore politics and

political conflicts
its
moralities
imply
absolute standards.
All
notions of what constitutes
opposing gods, opposing human happiness. The enemy's god, his version of
imply
the good
must
life,
always
is
perceived as a wretched snare
from
which
humanity
moral
be liberated!
education, liberates from politics and therefore from
atheism
Science, liberal
ity
and religion.
is hated
by
(nihilism) is anathema to politics because it desire. Passion's creativity is what Nietzsche meant by the will to
is desire's determination to
reality's atheism. rescue moral-political
Science's
power which
life
will
by
over
powering (obfuscating)
power
The
will
to power, the
"tarantula,"
to over
reality,
springs
from
what
Nietzsche
calls
the
the spirit of
revenge,
moral indignation, hatred of intellect and intellectuals (Liberalism, pp. (Basinski). Ba 177, 213-15). "Hatred is the beginning and end of
politics"
sinski
of
does
not
sufficiently
the human condition which, as to
(contrary
lovable;
I
not,
Aristotle)
of
hatred's centrality for Liberalism's view Aristotle noted, is by nature political, that is dominated by emotion, not by reason and science. In
stress this
deed the basic human it is hatred
passion
is
not
truth
or
the
love of tmth, since truth (nihilism) is not determination to be deceived, that is, to be
and ends with
age."
political, moral,
agree with
as
religious or philosophic.
Basinski that thought begins
"the
nothing"
but
he
asserts,
just in
our
"postmetaphysical
Basinski
rightly
notes or
that for my atheism,

nihilism
which
god never
died because he
never existed.
Atheism
identical) is not a modem historical or historicist event be succeeded will send may by future ages of piety in which
are
"Being"
(the two
new gods.
Desire's hatred for

all
of science creates
these pious hopes. This hatred is

"reason"
responsible
community and communication. Basinski does not suffi ciently stress the fact that what usually passes for (common sense or political "reason") is, in reality, desire's will to overpower reason and science. Understood scientifically, the moral-political world, the created
humanity
by
passion's
hatred
of
science, is
a world of
conflicting bigotries
and prejudices
Book Review
unable
-153
to realize their own emptiness: only the enemy is

one's own
bigot,
special
interest, politically incorrect;

and political correctness.
always
faction
always represents
Politics is this
war of
tmth, justice factions deluded about their
arbitrary factionalism
of would
"where ignorant
of
armies clash
by
night."
Since it
refers as
to the heart
politics, the title
Plato's Republic
should
be translated
more emo
Faction. That
be the
rational or scientific
3
translation; the
or
tional or political translation is Republic.
Each faction demands imposition
of
its morality
religion, its
as
notion of notes
happiness,
his
on
its
enemies
and, if possible,
on all men.
And,
Bloom
in
American Mind, even the philosophers have their faction, Closing just as, for example, the democrats and the nazis, have theirs and, therefore,
of the
their enemies
(Liberalism,
to
own
pp.
xiv-xv, 88-91).
Desire's
will
power prevents political men
from seeing that their

as
real and
only enemy is their

political
reason, the Serpent

are political
who reveals
the stupidity of all

are
(factional) fights. Men

irrational can,
or wants
insofar
they
irrational, for
only
the
no gods or moral standards.
to, mle; reason (science) offers no guidance, Thus the champions of mankind's political-moral
men,"
factions,
those Nietzsche called "the famous

real
wise
shrink
from the
knowledge that their

realization,
science or
enemy is their own reason, not hostile factions. That liberal education, is too horrible to contemplate. Nietzsche's Zarathustra holds for Liberalism:
become
who
What Heidegger
Zarathustra
this
must
says of
first
of all
he is. Zarathustra
. .
recoils
in horror from
becoming. That horror
pervades the entire work.
The horror determines from the very

know
the style, the hesitant and constantly arrested course, of the entire book. That
horror One
stifles all
Zarathustra's constantly
self-assurance and arrogance perceive the
outset.
who
does
is."
not
horror in
all
the discourses
will never
seemingly
who
arrogant and often
ecstatically
conducted as
they
are
Zarathustra
Zarathustra's animals, his passions, are terrified by the honest self-knowl edge for which he strives. He wills to be the first honest man, the first tme atheist, the superman who negates all desire, all moral-political life. When
pseudo-intellectuals advocate their need
"to
get
in touch
feelings"
with one's
as
which
kind A
of
moral
imperative, they
himself to
reveal
their terror at
the
horror
Zarathustra
must steel
confront.
man's real enemies never are
hostile factions. Wisdom
(science) has
of
no or
enemies except the
dread inspired
by
it in
all
desire. The life
feeling
desire is subhuman, bestial. In The Burrow, Kafka incorporates desire's hege spends all its time desperately fortifying mony in an underground beast which its home against all possible enemy inroads. Its main feeling, terror, is misun derstood (or fearfully misinterpreted) as fear of external enemies. If that beast
were
to transcend its
bestiality
and
become
human, it
would realize
that
what
terrifies
it is, in reality, its
own reason.
Nietzsche
rightly
insisted that the really
154
Interpretation
errors, those arising from
passion's moral
crucial
indignation
against
reason,
are
triggered
which, in
by fact, they
cowardice,
are.
not
blindness.5
Men dread to be the
nothingness
dice
and
be honest
with
No man, only a superman, could conquer this cowar himself about himself. Basinski correctly observes that hope
either
Liberalism holds
(Heidegger).6
out no
for
supermen
(Nietzsche)
or new gods
NOTES
1. Martin
Heidegger, Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universitat (Breslau, 1933),
pp.
7,
12.
Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 11:8 ("The Famous Wise Men"). Plato, Republic, 338D-339A, 343C, 540E-541B. 4. Martin Heidegger, "Who is Nietzsche's in The New Nietzsche, edited by D. Allison (New York, 1977), p. 66. 5. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, Preface, section 3. 6. Harry Neumann, "Eternal and Temporal Enemies: Carl Schmitt's Political Polit ical Communication, 9 (1992): 282-83. This article is an appendix to Liberalism, pp. 200-201,
3.
Zarathustra?" Theology,"
2. Friedrich
260.
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Fall 1994 David C.

Bacon's New Atlantis: The Christian Hope

Partisanship: The Lockean Constitution

Women in the Novels

Exile: Edward Everett Hale's

"The Man Without

On Jacob Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought

Liberalism, by Harry Neumann

Paul Basinski's Review

Philosophy, Queens College

by Eastern Composition, Inc., Binghamton, N.Y. 13905 U.S.A.

by Wickersham Printing Co.,

Lancaster, PA 17603 U.S.A.

Bacon's New Atlantis: The Christian Hope

Partisanship: The Lockean Constitution

Women in the Novels The Wisdom

Exile: Edward Everett Hale's

"The Man Without Joseph Gonda

On Jacob Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought

Liberalism, by Harry Neuman

Paul Basinski's Review

Bacon's New Atlantis:

the Modern Hope

progressive attitude which permeates modem

the promise of the modem scientific enterprise. The high expectations we

our science and the

are confident we can accomplish

the same means. That

only by that dominion inspires and

this scientific enterprise, a particular

the highest good. For the

pensity for error. Biblical hope is a

(Titus 1:2). Sec

(Romans 8:29, 30). The Son's

the sins of every generation of the faithful from the begin-

Fall 1994, Vol. 22, No. 1

not the enjoyment of

from enjoy the perfected be

this sort takes on a

secular role and emerges

the first time in the

the activities of Salomon's House

for himself is tme, that he is we know it today in its fantas

then it is primarily to Francis Bacon that

power which we possess

selves, have been decisive

be universally appealing, ises. Part of the appeal,

the expense of people's trust

least in the function

the science had much to show

the New Atlantis. The

in the way of fruit, can be seen in the New Atlantis is to accomplish

This is primarily the disposition to

provide others with us

these goods, the only encompasses,

and civil peace which mark the

civility underly island. This peace derives

from the priority

the Bensalemites give to the comforts and

hope, however, is deeper

of angels who are

civil and and hu-

satisfied with regard

Bacon's New Atlantis