1

THE AGE OF EXPLORATION

Marco Polo, The Glories of Kinsay (1295)

1. Kinsay is the modern Hangchow

2. Manzi comprised the greater part of China, being all the territory south of the Hwang-Ho (the
Yellow River} in the East and the province of Shensi in the West.]
And since we have got thither I will enter into particulars about its magnificence; and these are well
worth the telling, for the city is beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world. In this we shall
speak according to the written statement which the Queen of this Realm sent to Bayan the conqueror
of the country for transmission to the Great Khan, in order that he might be aware of the surpassing
grandeur of the city and might be moved to save it from destruction or injury. I will tell you all the
truth as it was set down in that document. For truth it was, as the said Messer Marco Polo at a later
date was able to witness with his own eyes. And now we shall rehearse those particulars.
First and foremost, then, the document stated the city of Kinsay to be so great that it hath an hundred
miles of compass. [note: probably a hundred Chinese li, about 4/10ths of a mile] And there are in it
twelve thousand bridges of stone, for the most part so lofty that a great fleet could pass beneath them.
And let no man marvel that there are so many bridges, for you see the whole city stands as it were in
the water and surrounded by water, so that a great many bridges are required to give free passage
about it. And though the bridges be so high the approaches are so well contrived that carts and horses
do cross them.
The document aforesaid also went on to state that there were in this city twelve guilds of the different
crafts, and that each guild had 12,000 houses in the occupation of its workmen. Each of these houses
contains at least 12 men, whilst some contain 20 and some 40, - not that these are all masters, but
inclusive of the journeymen who work under the masters. And yet all these craftsmen had full
occupation, for many other cities of the kingdom are supplied from this city with what they require.
The document aforesaid also stated that the number and wealth of the merchants, and the amount of
goods that passed through their hands, were so enormous that no man could form a just estimate
thereof. And I should have told you with regard to those masters of the different crafts who are at the
head of such houses as I have mentioned, that neither they nor their wives ever touch a piece of work
with their own hands, but live as nicely and delicately as if they were kings and queens. The wives
indeed are most dainty and angelical creatures! Moreover it was an ordinance laid down by the King
that every man should follow his father's business and no other, no matter if he possessed 100,000
bezants [note: a Byzantine coin, often used as a standard coinage].
Inside the city there is a Lake which has a compass of some 30 miles [note: probably 30 li] and all
round it are erected beautiful palaces and mansions, of the richest and most exquisite structure that
you can imagine, belonging to the nobles of the city. There are also on its shores many abbeys and
churches of the Idolaters. In the middle of the Lake are two Islands, on each of which stands a rich,
beautiful and spacious edifice, furnished in such style as to seem fit for the palace of an Emperor. And
when any one of the citizens desired to hold a marriage feast, or to give any other entertainment, it
used to be done at one of these palaces. And everything would be found there ready to order, such as
silver plate, trenchers, and dishes, napkins and table-cloths, and whatever else was needful. The King
made this provision for the gratification of his people, and the place was open to every one who
desired to give an entertainment. Sometimes there would be at these palaces an hundred different
parties; some holding a banquet, others celebrating a wedding; and yet all would find good
accommodation in the different apartments and pavilions, and that in so well ordered a manner that
one party was never in the way of another.
The houses of the city are provided with lofty towers of stone in which articles of value are stored for
fear of fire; for most of the houses themselves are of timber, and fires are very frequent in the city.
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The people are Idolaters; and since they were conquered by the Great Khan they use paper-money.
Both men and women are fair and comely, and for the most part clothe themselves in silk, so vast is
the supply of that material, both from the whole district of Kinsay, and from the imports by traders
from other provinces. And you must know they eat every kind of flesh, even that of dogs and other
unclean beasts, which nothing would induce a Christian to eat.
Since the Great Khan occupied the city he has ordained that each of the 12,000 bridges should be
provided with a guard of ten men, in case of any disturbance, or of any being so rash as to plot treason
or insurrection against him. Each guard is provided with a hollow instrument of wood and with a
metal basin, and with a time-keeper to enable them to know the hour of the day or night. And so when
one hour of the night is past the sentry strikes one on the wooden instrument and on the basin, so that
the whole quarter of the city is made aware that one hour of the night is gone. At the second hour he
gives two strokes, and so on, keeping always wide awake and on the lookout. In the morning again,
from the sunrise, they begin to count anew, and strike one hour as they did in the night, and so on
hour after hour.
Part of the watch patrols the quarter, to see if any light or fire is burning after the lawful hours; if they
find any they mark the door, and in the morning the owner is summoned before the magistrates, and
unless he can plead a good excuse he is punished. Also if they find any one going about the streets at
unlawful hours they arrest him, and in the morning they bring him before the magistrates. Likewise if
in the daytime they find any poor cripple unable to work for his livelihood, they take him to one of the
hospitals, of which there are many, founded by the ancient kings, and endowed with great revenues.
Or if he be capable of work they oblige him to take up some trade. If they see that any house has
caught fire they immediately beat upon that wooden instrument to give the alarm, and this brings
together the watchmen from the other bridges to help to extinguish it, and to save the goods of the
merchants or others, either by removing them to the towers above mentioned, or by putting them in
boats and transporting them to the islands in the lake. For no citizen dares leave his house at night, or
to come near the fire; only those who own the property, and those watchmen who flock to help, of
whom there shall come one or two thousand at the least.
Moreover, within the city there is an eminence on which stands a Tower, and at the top of the tower is
hung a slab of wood. Whenever fire or any other alarm breaks out in the city a man who stands there
with a mallet in his hand beats upon the slab, making a noise that is heard to a great distance. So when
the blows upon this slab are heard, everybody is aware that fire has broken out, or that there is some
other cause of alarm.
The Khan watches this city with especial diligence because it forms the head of all Manzi-, and
because he has an immense revenue from the duties levied on the transactions of trade therein, the
amount of which is such that no one would credit it on mere hearsay.
All the streets of the city are paved with stone or brick, as indeed are all the highways throughout
Manzi, so that you ride and travel in every direction without inconvenience. Were it not for this
pavement you could not do so, for the country is very low and flat, and after rain 'tis deep in mire and
water. But as the Great Khan's couriers could not gallop their horses over the pavement, the side of
the road is left unpaved for their convenience. The pavement of the main street of the city also is laid
out in two parallel ways of ten paces in width on either side, leaving a space in the middle laid with
fine gravel, under which are vaulted drains which convey the rain water into the canals; and thus the
road is kept ever dry.
You must know also that the city of Kinsay has some 3000 baths, the water of which is supplied by
springs. They are hot baths, and the people take great delight in them, frequenting them several times
a month, for they are very cleanly in their persons. They are the finest and largest baths in the world;
large enough for 100 persons to bathe together.
And the Ocean Sea comes within 25 miles of the city at a place called Ganfu, where there is a town
[note: since covered by the sea, which is much closer] and an excellent haven, with a vast amount of
shipping which is engaged in the traffic to and from India and other foreign parts, exporting and
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importing many kinds of wares, by which the city benefits. And a great river [the Ts'ien T'ang] flows
from the city of Kinsay to that sea-haven, by which vessels can come up to the city itself. I This river
extends also to other places further inland.
Know also that the Great Khan hath distributed the territory of Manzi into nine parts, which he hath
constituted into nine kingdoms. To each of these kingdoms a king is appointed who is subordinate to
the Great Khan, and every year renders the accounts of his kingdom to the fiscal office at the capital.
This city of Kinsay is the seat of one of these kings, who rules over 140 great and wealthy cities. For
in the whole of this vast country of Manzi there are more than 1200 great and wealthy cities, without
counting the towns and villages, which are in great numbers. And you may receive it for certain that
in each of those 1200 cities the Great Khan has a garrison, and that the smallest of such garrisons
musters 1000 men; whilst there are some of 10,000, 20,000, and 30,000; so that the total number of
troops is something scarcely calculable. The troops forming these garrisons are not all Tartars. Many
are from the province
of Cathay, [note: Cathay means China north of the Hwang-ho] and good soldiers too. But you must
not suppose they are by any means all of them cavalry; a very large proportion of them are foot-
soldiers, according to the special requirements of each city. And all of them belong to the army of the
Great Khan.
I repeat that everything appertaining to this city is on so vast a scale, and the Great Khan's yearly
revenues therefrom are so immense, that it is not easy even to put it in writing, and it seems past belief
to one who merely hears it told. But I will write it down for you.
First, however, I must mention another thing. The people of this country have a custom, that as soon
as a child is born they write down the day and hour and the planet and sign under which its birth has
taken place; so that everyone among them knows the day of his birth. And when any one intends a
journey he goes to the astrologers, and gives the particulars of his nativity in order to learn whether he
shall have good luck or no. Sometimes they will say no, and in that case the journey is put off till such
day as the astrologer may recommend. These astrologers are very skillful at their business, and of-ten
their words come to pass, so the people have great faith in them.
They burn the bodies of the dead. And when any one dies the friends and relations make a great
mourning for the deceased, and clothe themselves in hempen garments, and follow the corpse playing
on a variety of instruments and singing hymns to their idols. And when they come to the burning
place, they take representations of things cut out of parchment, such as caparisoned horses, male and
female slaves, camels, armour, suits of cloth of gold (an money), in great quantities, and these things
they put on the fire along with the corpse, so that they are all burnt with it. And they tell you that the
dead man shall have all these slaves and animals of which the effigies are burnt, alive in flesh and
blood, and the money in gold, at his disposal in the next world; and that the instruments which they
have caused to be played at his funeral, and the idol hymns that have been chanted, shall also be
produced again to welcome him in the next world; and that the idols themselves will come to do him
honour.
Furthermore there exists in this city the palace of the king who fled, him who was Emperor of Manzi
[the Emperor Tu-Tsong], and that is the greatest palace in the world, as I shall tell you more
particularly. For you must know its demesne hath a compass of ten miles, all enclosed with lofty
battlemented walls; and inside the walls are the finest and most delectable gardens upon earth, and
filled too with the finest fruits. There are numerous fountains in it also, and lakes full of fish. In the
middle is the palace itself, a great and splendid building. It contains 20 great and handsome halls, one
of which is more spacious than the rest, and affords room for a vast multitude to dine. It is all painted
in gold, with many histories and representations of beasts and birds, of knights and dames, and many
marvellous things. It forms a really magnificent spectacle, for over all the walls and all the ceiling you
see nothing but paintings in gold. And besides these halls the palace contains 1000 large and
handsome chambers, all painted in gold and divers colours.
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Moreover, I must tell you that in this citv there are 160 tomans of fires, or in other words 160 tomans
of houses. Now I should tell you that the toman is 10,000, so that you can reckon the total as
altogether 1,600,000 houses, among which are a great number of rich palaces. There is one church
only, belonging to the Nestorian Christians.
There is another thing I must tell you. It is the custom for every burgess of this city, and in fact for
every description of person in it, to write over his door his own name, the name of his wife, and those
of his children, his slaves, and all the inmates of his house, and also the number of animals that he
keeps. And if any one dies in the house then the name of that person is erased, and if any child is born
its name is added. So in this way the sovereign is able to know exactly the population of the city. And
this is the practice also throughout all Manzi and Cathay.
And I must tell you that every hosteler who keeps a hostel for travelers is bound to register their
names and surnames, as well as the day and month of their arrival and departure. And thus the
sovereign hath the means of knowing, whenever it pleases him, who come and go throughout his
dominions. And certes this is a wise order and a provident.
Ibn Battutø, My Travels (1355)
I left Tangier, my birthplace, on June 14, 1325, being at that time twenty-one years of age with the
intention of making the Pilgrimage to the Holy House [at Mecca] and the Tomb of the Prophet [at
Medina]. I set out alone, finding no companion to cheer the way with friendly intercourse, and no
party of travelers with whom to associate myself. Swayed by an overmastering impulse within met
and a long-cherished desire to visit those glorious sanctuaries, I resolved to quit all my friends and
tear myself away from my home. As my parents were still alive, it weighed grievously upon me to
part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow. . .

Visiting the Holy Sites of Medina & Mecca

[One] evening . . . we entered the holy sanctuary and reached the illustrious mosque, halting in
salutation at the Gate of Peace; then we prayed in the illustrious garden between the tomb of the
Prophet and the noble pulpit, and reverently touched the fragment that remains of the palm-trunk
against which the Prophet stood when he preached. Having paid our respects to the lord of men
from first to last, the intercessor for sinners, the Prophet of Mecca, Muhammad . . we returned to
our camp, rejoicing at this great favor bestowed upon us, praising Cod for our having reached the
former abodes and the magnificent sanctuaries of His Holy Prophet, and praying [to] Him to grant
that this visit should not be our last and that we might be of those whose pilgrimage is accepted.
On this journey, our stay at Medina lasted four days. We used to spend every night in the
illustrious mosque, where the people, after forming circles in the courtyard and, lighting large
numbers of candles, would pass the time either in reciting the Koran from volumes set on rests in
front of them, or in intoning litanies, or in visiting the sanctuaries of the holy tomb. . . . We departed
at night . . . with hearts full of joy at reaching the goal of our hopes, and in the morning arrived at
the City of Surety, Mecca (may God ennoble her!), where we immediately entered the holy
sanctuary and began the rites of pilgrimage.
The inhabitants of Mecca are distinguished by many excellent and noble activities and
qualities, by their beneficence to the humble and weak, and by their kindness to strangers. When
any of them makes a feast, he begins by giving food to the religious devotees who are poor and
without resources, inviting them first with kindness and delicacy. The majority of these
unfortunates are to be found by the public bakeries, and when anyone has his bread baked and
takes it away to his house, they follow him and he gives each one of them some share of it, sending
away none disappointed. Even if he has but a single loaf, he gives away a third or a half of it,
cheerfully and without any ill-feeling.
Another good habit of theirs is this. The orphan children sit in the bazaar, each with two
baskets, one large and one small. When one of the townspeople comes to the bazaar and buys
cereals, meat and vegetables, he hands them to one of these boys, who puts the cereals in one
basket and the meat and vegetables in the other and takes them to the man's house, so that his meal
may be prepared. Meanwhile the man goes about his devotions and his business. There is no
instance of any of the boys having ever abused their trust in this matter, and they are given a fixed
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fee of a few coppers.

The Meccans are very elegant and clean in their dress, and most of them wear white
garments, which you always see fresh and snowy. They use a great deal of perfume and kohl and
make free use of toothpicks of green arak-wood. The Meccan women are extraordinarily beautiful
and very pious and modest. They too make great use of perfumes to such a degree that they will
spend the night hungry in order to buy perfumes with the price of their food. They visit the mosque
every Thursday night, wearing their finest apparel; and the whole sanctuary is saturated with the
smell of their perfume. When one of these women goes away the odor of the perfume clings to the
place after she has gone.

Voyage to China
The land of China is of vast extent, and abounding in produce, fruits, gold, and silver. In this
respect there is no country in the world that can rival it. It is traversed by the river called the
"Water of Life." * It is bordered by villages, fields, fruit gardens, and bazaars, just like the
Egyptian Nile, only that [China] is even more richly cultivated and populous. . . . All of the fruits
we have in our country are to be found here, either the same or better quality. . . . [As for Chinese
pottery], it is exported to India and other countries, even reaching us as far as our own lands in
the West, and it is the finest of all makes of pottery.
The Chinese themselves are infidels, who worship idols and burn their dead like the
Hindus. The king of China is a Tatar [Mongol], one of the descendants of Genghis Khan. In
every Chinese city there is a quarter for Muslims, in which they live by themselves, and in which
they have mosques both for Friday services and for other religious purposes.
The land of China, in spite of all that is agreeable in it, did not attract me. On the contrary,
I was sorely grieved that heathendom had such a strong hold over it. Whenever I went out of my
house I used to see any number of revolting things, and that distressed me so much that I used
to keep indoors and go out only in case of necessity. When I met Muslims in China, I always
felt just as though I were meeting with my own faith and kin.

Travels to the Kingdom of Mali in West Africa

When I decided to make the journey to Mali, which is reached in twenty-four days from Walata
[an oasis in the Sahara] if the traveler pushes on rapidly, I hired a guide . . . for there is no
necessity to travel in a company on account of the safety of that road, and set out with three of
my companions. .
A traveler in this country carries no provisions, whether plain food or seasonings, and
neither gold nor silver. He takes nothing but pieces of salt and glass ornaments, which the
people call beads, and some aromatic goods. When he comes to a village the womenfolk of the
blacks bring out millet, milk, chickens, pulped fruit, rice, and pounded beans. The traveler buys
whatever of these foods he wants.
Thus I reached the city of Mali, the capital of the king of the blacks. I stopped at the
cemetery and went to [he quarter occupied by the whites [Arab merchants}, where I asked for
Muhammad ibn al-Faqih. I found that he had hired a house for me and went there. His son-in-
law brought me candles and food, and next day Ibn al-Faqih himself came to visit me, with
other prominent residents. I met the judge of Mali, Abd ar-Rahman, who came to see me; he is
a Negro, a devout Muslim, and a man of fine character. t met also the interpreter Dugha, who is
one of the principal men among the blacks. All these persons sent me hospitality gifts of food
and treated me with the utmost generosity. May God reward them for their kindnesses!
The sultan of Mali is Mansa Sulayman, "mansa" meaning [in Mandingo*] sultan, and
Sulayman being his proper name. He is a miserly king, not a man from whom one might hope
for a rich present. It happened that I spent these two months without seeing him, on account of
my illness. Later on he held a banquet to which the commanders, doctors, judges, and preachers
were invited, and I went along with them. Reading desks were brought int and the Koran was
read through, then they prayed for . . . Mansa Sulayman.
When the ceremony was over I went forward and saluted Mansa Sulayman. The judge,
the preacher, and [my host ] Ibn al-Faqih told him who I was. They said to me, "The sultan says
to you 'Give thanks to God,' so I said, '"Praise be to God and thanks under all circumstances."
When I withdrew the sultan's welcoming gift was sent to me. . . . Ibn al-Faqih came hurrying
out of his house barefooted, and entered my room saying, "Stand up; here comes the sultan's
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gift to you." So stood up, thinking that it would consist of robes of honor and money, and
behold! It was three cakes of bread, and a piece of beef fried in native oil, and a calabash of
sour curds. When I saw this I burst out laughing, and thought it a most amazing thing that they
could be so foolish and {make so much of such a paltry matter. . .
The Negroes possess some admirable qualities. They are seldom unjust, and have a
greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people. Their sultan shows no mercy to anyone
who is guilty of the least act of it. There is complete security in their country. Neither traveler
nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence. They do not
confiscate the property of any white man who dies in their country, even if it be uncounted
wealth. On the contrary, they give it into the charge of some trustworthy person among the
whites, until the rightful heir takes possession of it. They are careful to observe the hours of
prayer, and assiduous in attending them in congregations, and in bringing up their children to
them. On Fridays, if a man does not go early to the mosque, he cannot find a corner to pray in,
on account of the crowd. it is a custom of theirs to send each man his boy [to the mosque] with
his prayer-mat; the boy spreads it out for his master in a place befitting him [and remains on it]
until he comes to the mosque. Their prayer-mats are made of the leaves of a tree resembling a
date-palm, but without fruit.
Another of their good qualities is their habit of wearing clean white garments on
Fridays. Even if a man has nothing but an old worn shirt, he washes it and cleans it, and wears
it to the Friday service. Yet another is their zeal for learning the Koran by heart. They put their
children in chains if they show any backwardness in memorizing it, and they are not set free
until they have it by heart I visited the qadi [judge] in his house on the day of the festival. His
children were chained up, so I said to him, "Will you not let them loose?" He replied, "l shall
not do so until they learn the Koran by heart."
Among their bad qualities are the following. The women servants, slave-girls, and
young girls go about in front of everyone naked, without a stitch of clothing on them. Women
go into the sultan's presence naked and without coverings, and his daughters also go about
naked. Then there is their custom of putting dust and ashes on their heads, as a mark of respect,
and the grotesque ceremonies we have described when the poets recite their verses. Another
reprehensible practice among many of them is the eating of carrion, dogs and asses.

Study Questions:

(1) What were the motivations behind Marco Polo’s trip? What were Iban Battutas?
(2) How did Marco Polo’s Christian background shape his observations of Chinese
culture?
(3) What aspects of Chinese culture does Marco Polo find most impressive?
(4) What does he think of the way Kinsay is governed?
(5) What does he think about family and social structures in Kinsay?
(6) What aspects of life in Kinsay are familiar to him from his life in Medieval Europe and
which are new?
(7) What does Ibn Battuta find is common and unique about the practice of Islam in
different regions? What does he praise? What does he condemn?
(8) What does he find attractive about the culture in Mecca and Medina?
(9) How do his impressions of China compare with Marco Polo’s? Why does he not enjoy
his time there?
(10) What are the good and bad qualities he observes in Mali?
(11) What are his observations about the role of women in society?
(12) Imagine Ibn Battuta had visited Europe at this time. What observations might
he have made?
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The Early Modern Middle-East

Sultan Selim of the Ottoman Empire, Letter to Shah Ismail (1514)

The Supreme Being who is at once the sovereign arbiter of the destinies of men and the
source of all light and knowledge, declares in the holy book that the true faith is that of the Muslims,
and that whoever professes another religion, far from being hearkened to and saved, will on the
contrary be cast out among the rejected on the great day of the Last Judgment; He says further, this
God of truth, that His designs and decrees are unalterable, that all human acts are perforce reported to
Him, and that he who abandons the good way will be condemned to hell-fire and eternal torments.
Place yourself, O Prince, among the true believers, those who walk in the path of salvation, and who
turn aside with care from vice and infidelity....
I, sovereign chief of the Ottomans, master of the heroes of the age;...I, the exterminator of
idolaters, destroyer of the enemies of the true faith, the terror of the tyrants and pharaohs of the age; I,
before whom proud and unjust kings have humbled themselves, and whose hand breaks the strongest
scepters; I, the great Sultan-Khan, son of Sultan Bayezid-Khan, son of Sultan Muhammad-Khan, son
of Sultan Murad-Khan, I address myself graciously to you, Emir Ismail, chief of the troops of Persia,
comparable in tyranny to Sohak and Afrasiab, and predestined to perish...in order to make known to
you that the works emanating from the Almighty are not the fragile products of caprice or folly, but
make up an infinity of mysteries impenetrable to the human mind. The Lord Himself says in his holy
book: "We have not created the heavens and the earth in order to play a game" [Quran, 21:16]. Man,
who is the noblest of the creatures and the summary of the marvels of God, is in consequence on earth
the living image of the Creator. It is He who has set up Caliphs on earth, because, joining faculties of
soul with perfection of body, man is the only being who can comprehend the attributes of the divinity
and adore its sublime beauties; but he possesses this rare intelligence, he attains this divine knowledge
only in our religion and by observing the precepts of the prince of prophets...the right arm of the God
of Mercy [Muhammad]; it is then only by practicing the true religion that man will prosper in this
world and merit eternal life in the other. As to you, Emir Ismail, such a recompense will not be your
lot; because you have denied the sanctity of the divine laws; because you have deserted the path of
salvation and the sacred commandments; because you have impaired the purity of the dogmas of
Islam; because you have dishonored, soiled, and destroyed the altars of the Lord, usurped the sceptre
of the East by unlawful and tyrannical means; because coming forth from the dust, you have raised
yourself by odious devices to a place shining with splendor and magnificence; because you have
opened to Muslims the gates of tyranny and oppression; because you have joined iniquity, perjury,
and blasphemy to your sectarian impiety; because under the cloak of the hypocrite, you have sowed
everywhere trouble and sedition; because you have raised the standard of irreligion and heresy;
because yielding to the impulse of your evil passions, and giving yourself up without rein to the most
infamous disorders, you have dared to throw off the control of Muslim laws and to permit lust and
rape, the massacre of the most virtuous and respectable men, the destruction of pulpits and temples,
the profanation of tombs, the ill-treatment of the ulama, the doctors and emirs descended from the
Prophet, the repudiation of the Quran, the cursing of the legitimate Caliphs. Now as the first duty of a
Muslim and above all of a pious prince is to obey the commandment, "O, you faithful who believe, be
the executors of the decrees of God!" the ulama and our doctors have pronounced sentence of death
against you, perjurer and blasphemer, and have imposed on every Muslim the sacred obligation to arm
in defense of religion and destroy heresy and impiety in your person and that of all your partisans.
Animated by the spirit of this fatwa (religious decree), conforming to the Quran, the code of
divine laws, and wishing on one side to strengthen Islam, on the other to liberate the lands and
peoples who writhe under your yoke, we have resolved to lay aside our imperial robes in order to put
on the shield and coat of mail [armor], to raise our ever victorious banner, to assemble our invincible
armies, to take up the gauntlet of the avenger, to march with our soldiers, whose sword strikes mortal
blows, and whose point will pierce the enemy even to the constellation of Sagittarius. In pursuit of
this noble resolution, we have entered upon the campaign, and guided by the hand of the Almighty,
we hope soon to strike down your tyrannous arm, blow away the clouds of glory and grandeur which
trouble your head and cause your fatal blindness, release from your despotism your trembling
 8

subjects, smother you in the end in the very mass of flames which your infernal jinn (evil spirit) raises
everywhere along your passage, accomplishing in this way on you the maxim which says: "He who
sows discord can only reap evils and afflictions." However, anxious to conform to the spirit of the law
of the Prophet, we come, before commencing war, to set out before you the words of the Quran, in
place of the sword, and to exhort you to embrace the true faith; this is why we address this letter to
you....
We urge you to look into yourself, to renounce your errors, and to march towards the good with a firm
and courageous step; we ask further that you give up possession of the territory violently seized from
our state and to which you have only illegitimate pretensions, that you deliver it back into the hands of
our lieutenants and officers; and if you value your safety and repose, this should be done without
delay.
But if, to your misfortune, you persist in your past conduct, puffed up with the idea of your
power and your foolish bravado, you wish to pursue the course of your iniquities, you will see in a
few days your plains covered with our tents and inundated with our battalions. Then prodigies of valor
will be done, and we shall see the decrees of the Almighty, Who is the God of Armies, and sovereign
judge of the actions of men, accomplished. For the rest, victory to him who follows the path of
salvation!

Muhammed Ibn Ahmed Ibn Iyas, An Account of the Ottoman Conquest of Egypt (1520)

Then the [Mamluk) Sultan sent for the letters brought by the emissaries, Whom he had not
given an interview. Amongst them were a number addressed to the Amirs, executive officials, and
Egyptian notables. It appeared after the Sultan's perusal of the letters that they were mostly expressed
in Turkish, the purport of them being as follows: From his Majesty to Amir Tfiman Bai. It has been
revealed to me that I shall become the possessor of the east and west, like Alexander the Great." Much
of the 'letter consisted of threats and violent language, as for example: "You are a Mamluk, who is
bought and sold, you are not fit to govern. I am a king, descended through twenty generations of
kings, and have taken possession of the country by agreement with the Khalifah and the judges." After
many similar, expressions, the letter continued: "If you wish to escape violent treatment let an issue of
coinage be struck in our name in Egypt, and let the Khutbah be delivered also in our name; and
become our governor from Gaza to Egypt, while we will rule from Syria to the Euphrates. But if you
do not obey us, then I will enter Egypt, and kill all the Circassians (Mamluk families) there, ripping
open those with child and destroying the unborn." He made so great a display of grandeur and power
that may be God will desert him on account of his excessive presumption.
When this letter was read to the Mamluk Sultan he wept and was terrified. The imported
Mamluks had agreed that if the emissary came up to the citadel they would fall upon him with their
swords, so he did not appear there. The contents of Ibn 'Othman’s the Ottoman sultan's communication
soon became known among the people, and led to great confusion. Everyone was on the watch for Ibn
'Othman, saying: "As his emissaries came to us when we did not expect so be may fall upon us
unexpectedly." People began to make strongholds for themselves in the neighbourhood of the city,
where they might be hidden if 'Othman entered Cairo. Others decided to take their families to Upper
Egypt should his approach be confirmed. A story was circulated that Khair Bey, Governor of Aleppo,
who had rebelled and submitted to Ibn Othman had written to some of the chief Amirs urging them to
tender their submission to Ibn Othman, extolling his virtues and just treatment of his subjects and
assuring them that if he came into Egypt they might all retain their posts and salaries. All this was mere
trickery and deceit to facilitate Ibn Othman’s entry into Egypt.
Then the Sultan proclaimed that the next issue of pay would take place on Wednesday the 23 rd;
he sat on the dais in his courtyard and the troops came up to receive it. Each Mamluk had thirty dinars
and three months pay, amounting to twenty dinars; but they threw it down before him and said “We
will not start until we have received one hundred dinars apiece moreover, we have neither horses, nor
clothing, nor equipment.” They left the citadel in anger. The Sultan extremely displeased left the dais.
. . He said “that he could not manage to pay one hundred dinars to each Mamluk for the state coffers
were empty; that if they were not content they might elect whom. they chose to be Sultan, and he would
go to Mecca or elsewhere." So there were disturbances that day. It was reported that some Mamluks
said to the Sultan himself, "If you are Sultan follow the custom of the former Sultans: if you resign,
 9

may the curse of Allah be upon you, and another will succeed you." The Sultan said to the troops, "You
received thirty dinars from the Sultan al-Ghiiirl, and then you did not fight. but forsook him and left
him to his death.' The troops went away in anger, and some said they quarrelled among themselves. . .
. On Thursday, the 24th, the Sultan took his seat again on the dais, and all the Amirs and troops
assembled. Seyyid Muhammed Ibn al-Sultan al-Ghfiri also attended. and the Sultan said, "Here is your
Master's son ask him if his father left any money in the treasury; he will tell you, and if you like to
make him Sultan will be the first to kiss the ground before him." To this the imported Mamluks replied,
will march without pay, to avenge our Master." But the Karanisah Memlooks said, "'We will not march
unless we receive one hundred and thirty dinars, like those who went on the former expedition." Then
the meeting dispersed. many still murmuring, and there was much irresponsible talk that day.

Konstantin Mihailovic, Memoirs of Janissary (1462)

Whenever the Turks invade foreign lands and capture their people an imperial scribe follows
immediately behind them. and whatever boys there are, he takes them all into the Janissaries and
gives five gold pieces for each one and sends them across the sea. There are about two thousand of
these boys. If, however. the of them from the enemy peoples does not suffice, then he takes from the
Christians in every village in his land who have boys, having established what is every village can
give so that the quota will always be full. And the boys who he takes in his own land are called cilik.
Each one of them can leave his property to whomever he wants after death. And those whom he takes
among the enemies are called pendik. These latter after their deaths can leave nothing; rather, it goes
to the emperor, except that if someone comports himself well and is so deserving that he be freed, he
may leave it to whomever he wants. And on the boys who are across the sea the emperor spends
nothing; rather, those to whom they are sent must maintain them and send them where he orders.
Then they take those who are suited for it on ships and there they study and train to skirmish in
battle. There the emperor already provides (or them and gives them a wage. From there he chooses
for his own court those who are trained and then raises their wages. The younger must serve the
older, and those who come of age and attain manhood he assigns to the fortress so that they will look
after them, as mentioned earlier.
And at the court there are about four thousand Janissaries, and among there is the following
organization. They have over them a senior hetman called an aga, a great lord. lie receives ten gold
pieces a day, and his steward, one gold piece a day. To each centurion they give a gold piece every
two days, and to their stewards a gold piece every four days. And all their sons who grow out of
boyhood have a wage from the emperor. And no courtier who permits himself something will be
punished by thee honest ones by fine, but rather by death; they dace not, however, punish any
courtier publicly, but secretly, because of the other courtiers, for they would revolt. And no Janissary
nor any Decurion of theirs dare ride a horse, save the hetman himself and the steward. And among
them it is so arranged that some are archers shoot bows. some are gunners who shoot mortars, others
muskets, and still others crossbows. And every day they must appear with their weapons before their
hetmans. And he gives each one a gold piece per year for a bow, and in addition a tunic, a shirt. and
large trousers made, as is their fashion, of three ells of cloth, and a shirt of eight cells. And this I
myself distributed to them for two years from the imperial court.

Study Questions:
(1) How does Selim assert his authority to Shah Ismail?
(2) What does this letter reveal about Islamic views about the relationship between God and
humans?
(3) Why does he condemn Ismail? How does he justify these accusations?
(4) What must Ismail do to pacify Selim?
(5) What Ottoman strategies for conquering Egypt as revealed here? Is it successful? Why?
(6) Why is the Sultan terrified after he hears the letters from the Ottomans?
(7) What is the relationship between the Mamluks and the Egyptian Sultan? Why does it
deteriorate?
(8) How is the janissary corps formed?
(9) Who are the different officers within the janissary system? What are their roles?
 10

(10) What aspects of Konstantin’s experience as a janissary can you gather from this
account?
(11) How effective do you think this system was for creating an effective fighting force
and public servants? What were its strengths and weaknesses?
(12) What does this source suggest about the position of non-Muslims within the Ottoman
Empire?
 11

The Age of Discovery

Christopher Columbus, The Barcelona Letter (1493)

Since I know that you will be pleased at the great victory with which Our Lord has crowned my
voyage, I write this to you, from which you will learn how in thirty-three days I passed from the
Canary Islands to the Indies, with the fleet which the most illustrious king and queen, our sovereigns,
gave to me. There I found very many islands, fitted with people innumerable, and of them all I have
taken possession for their Highnesses, by proclamation made and with the royal standard unfurled,
and no opposition was offered to me. To the first island which I found I gave the name "San
Salvador," in remembrance of the blessed Savior, who had marvelously bestowed all this and each
island received a new name from me.
When I came to Juana [Cuba], I followed its coast to the westward, and I found it to be so
extensive that I thought that it must be the mainland, the province of Cathay [China]. And since there
were neither towns nor villages on the seashore, but only small villages whose residents all fled
immediately, I continued along the coast, thinking that I could not fail to find great cities and towns.
At the end of many miles, seeing that there was no change. I retraced my path back to a remarkable
harbor known to me. From that point, I sent two men inland to learn if there were a king or great
cities. They traveled three clays' journey, finding many small villages and numerous people, but
nothing of importance, and so they returned.
I understood sufficiently from other Indians, whom I had previously seized there, that this land
was nothing but an island, and I therefore followed its coast eastward for over three hundred miles to
the point where it ended. From that point, I saw another island to the east, distant about fifty miles,
and [ gave it the name "Hispana" I sailed there and followed its northern coast eastward for over five
hundred miles.
Hispana [Hispaniola] is a marvel. The sierras and the mountains, the plains, the arable and
pasture lands, are so lovely and so rich for planting and sowing, for breeding cattle of every kind, and
for building towns and villages. The harbors of the sea here are such as cannot be believed to exist
unless they have been seen, and so with the rivers, many and great, and of good water, the majority of
which contain gold. In the trees} fruits and plants, there is a great difference from those of Juana
[Cuba]. In this island, there are many spices and great mines of gold and of other metals. The sea is
most sweet for sailing that there is in the world and with less danger for ships of all sorts, but for
discovery the caravels are the best because traveling along the coast and up rivers by necessity to
discover a great deal, they need little depth and can be aided by oars. Nor is there ever a storm for in
every cape where I have been I saw that the grass and the trees reached into the water.
The people of this island, and of all the other islands which I have found and of which I have
information, of which I do not care to say in the present letter, all go naked, men and women, as their
mothers bore them, although some of the women cover a single place with the leaf of a plant or with a
net of cotton which they make for the purpose. They have no iron or steel or weapons} nor are they
inclined to use them. This is not because they are not well built and of handsome stature, but because
they are very timid. They have no other arms than spears made of reeds, to which they fix a small
sharpened stick. They do not dare to make use of these weapons against us, for many times it has
happened that I have sent ashore two or three men to some town to have speech with them, and
countless people have come out to them, and as soon as they have seen my men approaching, they
have fled, a father not even waiting for his son. This is not because we have done them any harm; on
the contrary, at every place where I have been and have been able to have speech with them, I have
given gifts to them, such as cloth and many other things, receiving nothing in exchange. But they
remain by nature incurably timid.
It is true that, once they have been reassured and have lost their fear of us, they are so innocent
and so generous with all that they possess, that no one would believe it who has not seen it. They
refuse nothing that they possess if it be asked of them. On the contrary, they invite any one to share it
and display as much love as if they would give their hearts. They are content with whatever trifle or
gift that is given to them, whether it be of value or valueless. I forbade that they should be given
things so worthless as fragments of broken crockery, scraps of broken glass and ends of straps,
 12

although when they were able to get them, they fancied that they possessed the best jewel in the
world. A sailor once received gold equal to the weight of two and a half coins for a little piece of
strap, and others received much more for other things which were worth less. . . They took even the
pieces of the broken hoops of the wine barrels and, like savages, gave what they had, but this seemed
to me to be wrong and I forbade it. I gave them a thousand handsome good things, which had brought,
in order that they might conceive affection for us and, more than that, might become Christians and be
inclined to the love and service of your Highnesses and of the whole Spanish nation, and strive to aid
us and to give us of the things which they have in abundance and which are necessary to us.
They do not hold any creed nor are they idolaters; they only believe that power and good are in
the heavens. . . This belief is not the result of ignorance, for they are actually of a very acute
intelligence, they know how to navigate the seas, and it is amazing how good an account they give of
everything. [Instead], this belief is beyond cause they have never seen people clothed or ships such as
ours. As soon as I arrived in the Indies, I took by force some natives at the first island are that I found
in order that they might give me information about these places. And so it was that they soon
understood us, and I them, either by speech or signs, and they -the have been very helpful. I still have
them with me, and they are always assured that I come from Heaven, despite all the discussions which
they have had with me. They were the first to announce this wherever I went in the islands, and others
went running from house to house, and to neighboring towns, crying loudly "Come! Come! See the
men from Heaven!" So all, men and women alike, once their fear was set at rest, came out to welcome
us, and they all brought something to eat and drink, which they gave with extraordinary affection and
generosity. In all the islands, they have very many canoes, which are like our rowboats, except they
are not so broad, because they are made of a single log of wood. But a rowboat would not be able to
keep up with them, since their speed is incredible. In these they navigate among all the islands, and
carry their goods and conduct trade. In one of these canoes I have seen with seventy and eighty men,
each one with his oar.
In all these islands, I saw no great diversity in the appearance of the people or in their manners
and language. On the contrary, they all understand one another. and if their Highnesses assent, this
will [assist] their conversion to our holy faith of Christ, to which they are very ready and favorably
inclined.
I have taken possession of a large town, to which I gave the name "Villa de Navidad" [located on
the north coast of Haiti], and in it I have made a fort, which by now will be entirely completed. At this
fort, I have left enough men as seemed necessary, with arms and artillery and provisions for more than
a year, as well as one of our ships and enough skilled men to build others. I also established great
friendship with the king of that land, so much so that he was proud to call me "brother" and to treat
me as such. And even were the king to change his attitude to one of hostility towards the men left
behind, he does not have the power to hurt us.
In all these islands, it seems to me that each man is content with one wife, except the chiefs or
kings who may have as many as twenty wives. It appears to me that the women work more than the
men. I have not been able to learn if they hold private property, but it seemed to me that they all
shared what they had, especially of able things. In these islands I have so far found no human
monstrosities, as many expected. . . on the contrary, the whole population is very well formed. They
are not black like the people in Guinea [West Africa, but their hair is flowing. . .
And so I have found no monsters, nor have I heard of any, except on an island called Charis. . .
This island is inhabited by a people who are regarded in all the islands as very fierce, and they are
cannibals who eat human flesh. They have many canoes with which they range through all the islands
of India and pillage and take whatever they can. They are no more malformed than are the others,
except that they have the custom of wearing their hair long like women, and they use bows and large
rows. . . They are ferocious towards these other people who are excessively cowardly, but I regard
them as no more fearsome than the others. . . I have also been told of another island, which they
assure me is larger than Hispana, where the people have no hair. In this place there is reportedly
incalculable amounts of gold. . .
To conclude this report . . . their Highnesses can see that I can supply them much gold as they
may need if their Highnesses will continue to assist me. Moreover, I will provide them spices and
cotton, as much as their Highnesses shall command; and mastic and aloe, as much as they shall order
to be shipped; and slaves; as many as they shall order to be shipped and who will be from the
 13

idolaters. I believe also that I have found rhubarb and cinnamon, and I shall find a thousand other
things of value. . .
Our thanksgiving must be directed the most to the eternal God, Our Lord, Who gives to all those
who walk in His way triumph over things which appear to be impossible, and this was one such
glorious example. I can say that in seven years from today I can provide Your Highnesses with five
thousand mounted troops and fifty thousand foot-soldiers for the war and conquest of Jerusalem, upon
which proposition this enterprise was undertaken; and after five more years another five thousands
mounted soldiers and another fifty thousand foot and this with little cost now that you have expended
in the beginning. For although men have talked or have written of these distant lands, all was
conjectural and without evidence. . . our Redeemer who has given the victory to our most illustrious
king and queen, and to their renowned kingdom. . . and all Christendom ought to feel delight and
make great feasts and give solemn thanks to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with many solemn
prayers for the great exaltation which they shall have in the turning of so many pagan peoples to our
Holy Faith, and afterwards for the temporal benefits, because not only Spain but all Christendom will
have hence refreshment and gain.
These deeds that have been accomplished are thus briefly recorded while aboard ship, off the
Canary Islands, on the fifteenth of February, in the year one thousand four hundred and ninety-three. I
remain, at your orders and your service.

Pedro de Cieza de Leon Taxation and the Incas (1540)

As in the last chapter I wrote of the method adopted by the Incas in their conquests, it will be
well in this one to relate how they levied tribute from so many nations. It is a thing very well
understood that there was no village, either in the mountains or in the valleys of the coast, which did
not pay such tribute as was imposed on it by those who were in charge. It is said that when, in one
province, the people represented that they had nothing wherewith to pay the tribute, the king ordered
that each inhabitant should be obliged, every four months, to give a rather large cane full of live lice,
which was a sign of the care taken by the Inca to make every subject contribute something. Thus we
know that they paid their tribute of lice until such time as, having been supplied with flocks, they had
been industrious enough to multiply them, and to make cloth wherewith to pay more suitable 'tribute
in the time to come.
The system which the Orejones of Cuzco and the other native lords of the land say that the
Incas adopted in imposing tribute was as follows: He who reigned in Cuzco, sent some of his
principal officers to visit the empire, one by each of the four royal roads of which I have already
written. One was called Chincha Suyo, which included all the provinces as far as Quito, with all the
valleys of Chincha towards north. The second was Conde Suyo, which includes the provinces on the
sea coast, and many in the mountains. The third was called Colla Suyo, including all provinces to the
south as far as Chile. The last road led to Ande Suyo, which included the lands covered with forests at
the foot of mountains of the Andes.
So it was that when the lord desired to know what tribute would be due from all the provinces
between Cuzco and Chile, along a road of such great length, as I have often explained, he ordered
faithful persons whom he could trust, to go from village to village, examining the condition of the
people and their capacity payment. They also took note of the productiveness of the land, the quantity
flocks, the yield of metals, and of other things which they required and valued. Having performed this
service with great diligence they returned to the lord to submit their reports. He then ordered a general
assembly of the principal persons the kingdom to meet. The lords of the provinces which had to pay
the tribute being present, he addressed them lovingly, saying that as they received him as heir sole
lord and monarch of so many and such vast districts, they should take it in good part, without feeling
it burdensome to give the tribute that was due t the royal persons, who would take care that it was
moderate and so light that they could easily pay it. Having been answered in conformity with his
wishes the lords of provinces returned to their homes, accompanied by certain Orejones who fixed the
tribute. In some parts it was higher than is paid to the Spaniards at present. But seeing that the system
of the Incas was so perfect, the people did not feel the burden, rather increasing and multiplying in
 14

numbers and well being. On the other hand, the disorder introduced by the Spaniards, and their
extreme covetousness, have caused the prosperity of the country to decrease in such a way that a great
part of the population has disappeared. Their greed and avarice will destroy the remainder, unless the
mercy of God should grant a remedy by causing the wars to cease. Those wars have been permitted as
a just scourge. The country can only be saved by the taxation being fixed by moderate rules so that
the Indians may enjoy liberty and be masters of their own persons and estates, without other duty than
the payment by each village of what has been fixed by rule. I shall treat of this subject a little more
fully later on.
When the officers sent by the Incas make their inspection, they enetered a province and
ascertained, by means of the quipus, the number of men and women, of old and young. Then they
took account of the mines of gold and silver, and, with so many thousand Indians at work, the
quantity that should be extracted was fixed. An order was given that such quantity should be delivered
to the overseers. As those who were employed to work at the extraction of slver could not attend to
the cultivation of their fields, the Inca imposed the duty upon the neighboring province to find labor
for the sowing and reaping of the crops of the miners. If the mining province was large, its own
inhabitants were able to both carry on the mining works and to cultivate the ground. In case one of the
miners fell ill, it was arranged that he should return to his home and that another should take his place.
No one was employed in the mines who was not married, because the wives had to supply their food
and liquor; besides which, arrangements were made to send sufficient provisions to the mines. In this
manner, although the men might be at the mines all their lives they were not overworked. Besides,
there was provision to rest for certain days in each month, for their festivals and for pleasure. But in
fact the same Indians did not always remain at the mines; for there were periodical reliefs.
The Incas so arranged the mining industry that they extracted great abundance of gold and
silver throughout the empire, and there must have been years when more than fifty thousand arrobas
of silver and fifteen thousand of gold were produced. It was always used for the royal service. The
metal was brought to the principal place of the province and in the manner that the mines wer worked
in one district in the same way they were ordered in all the others throughout the empire. If there were
provinces where no metal could be extracted as a tribute, the people paid taxes in smaller things, and
in women and boys, who were taken from the villages without causing any discontent. For if a man
had an only child it was not taken, but if he had three or four children, one was required in payment of
his dues.
Other provinces made their contributions in the form of so many thousand loads of maize, at
each harvest. Others provided on the same scale, a certain number of loads of dried chunus, or in
other products. In other provinces the tribute consisted of so many cloth mantles, and in others of
shirts, according to the number of inhabitants. Another form of tribute was the supply of so many
thousand loads of lances, another of slings and all other kinds of weapons that they used. Other
provinces were required to send so many thousand laborers to Cuzco to be employed on the public
edifices of the city and of the kings, with supplies of their needful provisions. Other provinces
contributed cables to move the great stones, while others paid tribute in coca. The system was so
arranged that all the provinces of Peru paid something to the Incas in tribute, from the smallest to the
most important. Such perfect regularity was maintained that while the people did not fail to provide
what was required, those who made the collections never took even a grain of maize too much. All
the provisions and warlike stores that were contributed were served out to the soldiers or supplied to
the garrisons which were formed in different parts for the defense of the empire.
When there was no war, a large proportion was eaten and used by the poor; for when the
kings were at Cuzco they were served by perpetual servants, who sufficed to till royal fields and do
service in the palace. Besides which, there was always brought for the royal table from the provinces,
many lambs and birds, fish, maize, coca, edible roots, and all kinds of fruits. Such order was
maintained in the tribute paid by the Indians that the Incas became very powerful and never entered
upon any war which did not extend their dominions.
To understand hw, and in what manner, the tributes were paid, it must be known that in each
province for a year certain Orejones were sent as judges, but only with powers to inspect the
provinces, and give notice to the inhabitants that if any felt aggrieved he was to state his complaints in
 15

order that the officer who had done him the injury might be punished. Having received the
complaints, and also ascertained whether any tribute had not been paid, the judges returned to cuzco;
whence others set out with the power to inflict punishment on those who were in fault. Besides this it
was the rule that, from time to time, the principal men of the provinces should be permitted to appear
before the lord and report upon the conditions of the provinces, on their needs, and on the incidence
of taxation. Their representations then received attention, the Lords Incas being certain that they did
not lie, but spoke the truth; for any deceit was severely punished, and in that case the tribute was
increased. The women contributed by the provinces were divided between the service of the kings and
that of the temple of the Sun.

Alonso Ortiz Letter to his Wife (1571)

My lady,
This will be to give you an account of what is happening here and how I am doing up to the day this
letter is dated. For about a year now I have been in good health and working at my trade, though I had
few Indian helpers. I couldn’t find any who were trained since the other tanner had them and it was
not for me to take them away from them. In this year I must have made 500 pesos profit and if I said
600 I wouldn’t be lying; it’s about the same as 500 ducats of Castile. But I no longer have to take off
my shoes to work because now I have eight Indians who work steadily and a black belonging to my
partner who aids me very well, and all I do is give instructions, buy and sell. That is enough work and
indeed it is not little though it seems little for me; actually I don’t want to work at more than my
supervision so I won’te get some sickness that would be the end of me, because great is my desire to
see you again. My partner is sending for you and has sent 150 pesos just for your sustenance, the rest
can be paid when you get here.

Study Questions:

(1) How is Christopher Columbus able to fund his expedition?

(2) What does he hope to find? What do you think he was expecting to find?
(3) What does he mean by “Christendom”?
(4) How does he think this voyage will benefit Spain?
(5) Are his motives economic or religious?
(6) What did he consider the chief attractions of the New World?
(7) How did he perceive the indigenous inhabitants?
(8) How would you describe Inca imperial values as relayed by Pedro de Cieza de Leon?
(9) What are the strengths of the Inca taxation system? What are the weaknesses? Could it be
improved?
(10) What role does Pedro see taxation playing in the life of an empire?
(11) How do you think Pedro gained his information?
(12) How do you think an Inca would view the government systems of Early Modern Europe?
(13) What are the main concerns and challenges Alonzo Ortiz faces?
(14) What is the evidence in this source that his life is improving?
(15) Was it a distinctive European cultural trait or are there other factors that best explain the
new European surge in global commerce and exploration around 1500?
 16

The Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther, Against Catholicism, (1535)

The chief cause that I fell out with the pope was this: the pope boasted that he was the head of
the Church, and condemned all that would not be under his power and authority; for he said, although
Christ be the head of the Church, yet, notwithstanding, there must be a corporal head of the Church
upon earth. With this I could have been content, had he but taught the gospel pure and clear, and not
introduced human inventions and lies in its stead. Further, he took upon him power, rule, and
authority over the Christian Church, and over the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God; no man must
presume to expound the Scriptures, but only he, and according to his ridiculous conceits; so that he
made himself lord over the Church, proclaiming her at the same time a powerful mother, and empress
over the Scriptures, to which we must yield and be obedient; this was not to be endured. They who,
against God's Word, boast of the Church's authority, are mere idiots. The pope attributes more power
to the Church, which is begotten and born, than to the Word, which has begotten, conceived, and born
the Church.
We, through God's grace, are not heretics, but schismatics, causing, indeed, separation and
division, wherein we are not to blame, but our adversaries, who gave occasion thereto, because they
remain not by God's Word alone, which we have, hear, and follow. When our Lord God intends to
plague and punish one, He leaves him in blindness, so that he regards not God's Word, but condemns
the same, as the papists now do. They know that our doctrine is God's Word, but they will not allow
of this syllogism and conclusion: When God speaks, we must hear him; now God speaks through the
doctrine of the gospel; therefore we must hear Him. But the papists, against their own consciences,
say, No; we must hear the Church. It is very strange: they admit propositions, but will not allow of the
consequences, or permit the conclusions to be right. They urge some decree or other of the Council of
Constance, and say, though Christ speak, who is the truth itself, yet an ancient custom must be
preferred, and observed for law. Thus do they answer, when they seek to wrest and pervert the truth.
If this sin of antichrist be not a sin against the Holy Ghost, then I do not know how to define
and distinguish sins. They sin herein wilfully against the revealed truth of God's Word, in a most
stubborn and stiff-necked manner. I pray, who would not, in this case, resist these devilish and
shameless lying lips? I marvel not John Hus died so joyfully, seeing he heard of such abominable
impieties and wickedness of the papists. I pray, how holds the pope concerning the Church? He
preserves her, but only in an external luster, pomp, and succession. But we judge her according to her
essence, as she is in herself, in her own substance, that is, according to God's Word and sacraments.
The pope is reserved for God's judgment, therefore only by God's judgment he shall be destroyed.
Henry VIII, king of England, is now also an enemy to the pope's person, but not to his essence and
substance; he would only kill the body of the pope, but suffer his soul, that is, his false doctrine, to
live; the pope can well endure such an enemy; he hopes within the space of twenty years to recover
his rule and government again. But I fall upon the pope's soul, his doctrine, with God's word, not
regarding his body, that is, his wicked person and life. I not only pluck out his feathers, as the king of
England and prince Georg of Saxony do, but I set the knife to his throat, and cut his windpipe
asunder. We put the goose on the spit; did we but pluck her, the feathers would soon grow again.
Therefore is Satan so bitter an enemy unto us, because we cut the pope's throat, as does also the king
of Denmark, who aims at the essence of popery.
'Tis wonderful how, in this our time, the majesty of the pope is fallen. Heretofore, all
monarchs, emperors, kings, and princes feared the pope's power, who held them all at his nod; none
durst so much as mutter a word against him. This great god is now fallen; his own creatures, the friars
and monks, are his enemies, who, if they still continue with him, do so for the sake of gain; otherwise
they would oppose him more fiercely than we do. The pope's crown is named regnum mundi, the
kingdom of the world. I have heard it credibly reported at Rome, that this crown is worth more than
all the princedoms of Germany. God placed popedom in Italy not without cause, for the Italians can
make out many things to be real and true, which in truth are not so: they have crafty and subtle brains.
 17

If the pope were the head of the Christian Church, then the Church were a monster with two heads,
seeing that St. Paul says that Christ is her head. The pope may well be, and is, the head of the false
Church. Where the linnet is, there is also the cuckoo, for he thinks his song a thousand times better
than the linnet's. Even thus, the pope places himself in the Church, and so that his song may be heard,
overcrows the Church. The cuckoo is good for something, in that its appearance gives tidings that
summer is at hand; so the pope serves to show us that the last day of judgment approaches. There are
many that think I am too fierce against popedom; on the contrary, I complain that I am, alas! too mild;
I wish I could breathe out lightning against pope and popedom, and that every word were a
thunderbolt.
'Tis an idle dream the papists entertain of antichrist; they suppose he should be a single
person, that should govern, scatter money amongst them, do miracles, carry a fiery oven about him,
and kill the saints. In popedom they make priests, not to preach and teach God's Word, but only to
celebrate mass, and to gad about with the sacrament. For, when a bishop ordains a man, he says: Take
unto thee power to celebrate mass, and to offer for the living and the dead. But we ordain priests
according to the command of Christ and St. Paul, namely, to preach the pure gospel and God's Word.
The papists in their ordinations make no mention of preaching and teaching God's Word, therefore
their consecrating and ordaining is false and unright, for all worshiping which is not ordained of God,
or erected by God's Word and command, is nothing worth, yea, mere idolatry.
Next unto my just cause the small repute and mean aspect of my person gave the blow to the
pope. For when I began to preach and write, the pope scorned and contemned me; he thought: 'Tis but
one poor friar; what can he do against me? I have maintained and defended this doctrine in popedom,
against many emperors, kings, and princes, what then shall this one man do? If he had condescended
to regard me, he might easily have suppressed me in the beginning.
A German, making his confession to a priest at Rome, promised, on oath, to keep secret
whatsoever the priest should impart unto him, until he reached home; whereupon the priest gave him a
leg of the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem, very neatly bound up in silk, and said: This is the
holy relic on which the Lord Christ corporally did sit, with his sacred legs touching this ass's leg.
Then was the German wondrous glad, and carried the said holy relic with him into Germany. When he
got to the borders, he bragged of his holy relic in the presence of four others, his comrades, when, lo!
it turned out that each of them had likewise received from the same priest a leg, after promising the
same secrecy. Thereupon, all exclaimed, with great wonder: Lord! had that ass five legs?
A picture being brought to Luther, in which the pope, with Judas the traitor, were represented
hanging on the purse and keys, he said: 'Twill vex the pope horribly, that he, whom emperors and
kings have worshiped, should now be figured hanging on his false pick-locks. It will also grieve the
papists, for their consciences will be touched. The purse accords well with the cardinal's hats and their
incomes, for the pope's covetousness has been so gross, that in all kingdoms he has not only raked to
himself Annates, Pallium-money, &c., but has also sold for money the holy sacrament, indulgences,
fraternities, Christ's blood, matrimony, etc. Therefore, his purse is filled with robberies, upon which
justly ought to be exclaimed, as in the Revelations; "Recompense them as they have done to you, and
make it double unto them, according to their works." Therefore, seeing the pope has damned me and
given me over to the devil, so will I, in requital, hang him on his own keys.
It is abominable that in so many of the pope's decrees, there is not one single sentence of Holy
Scripture, or one article of the Catechism mentioned. The pope intending to conduct the government
of his Church in an external way, his teachings were blasphemous; such as that a stinking friar's hood,
put upon a dead body, procured remission of sins, and was of equal value with the merits of our
blessed Savior Christ Jesus.
It is no marvel that the papists hate me so vehemently, for I have well deserved it at their
hands. Christ more mildly reproved the Jews than I the papists, yet they killed him. These, therefore,
think they justly persecute me, but, according to God's laws and will, they shall find their mistake. In
the day of the last judgment I will denounce the pope and his tyrants, who scorn and assail the Word
 18

of God, and his sacraments. The pope destroys poor married priests, that receive and observe God's
Word and statutes, whereas by all their laws they are only to be displaced from their office. So Prince
Georg has banished and driven away from Oschitz ten citizens and householders, with twenty-seven
children, martyrs to the Word. Their sighs will rise up to heaven against him.
The pope and his crew can in nowise endure the idea of reformation; the mere word creates
more alarm at Rome, than thunderbolts from heaven, or the day of judgment. A cardinal said, the
other day: Let them eat, and drink, and do what they will; but as to reforming us, we think that is a
vain idea; we will not endure it. Neither will we Protestants be satisfied, though they administer the
sacrament in both kinds, and permit priests to marry; we will also have doctrine of the faith pure and
unfalsified, and the righteousness that justifies and saves before God, and which expels and drives
away all idolatry and false-worshiping; these gone and banished, the foundation on which popedom is
built falls also.
We will have the holy sacrament administered in both kinds, that it shall be free for priests to
marry, or to forbear, and we will in no way suffer ourselves to be bereaved of the article of
justification: "That by faith only in Jesus Christ we are justified and saved before God; without any
works, merits and deserts, merely by grace and mercy." This we must keep and preserve, pure and
unfalsified, if we intend to be saved. As to private mass, we cannot hinder it, but must leave it to God,
to be acted by those over whom we have neither power nor command; yet, nevertheless, we will
openly teach and preach against it, and show that it is abominable blasphemy and idolatry. Either we
must go together by the ears, or else they, in our countries, must yield unto us in this particular; if it
come to pass that herein they yield unto us, then must we be contented; for, like as the Christians dealt
with the Arians, and as St. Paul was constrained to carry himself towards the Jews, even so must we
also leave the papists to their own consciences, and seeing they will not follow us, so we neither can
nor will force them, but must let them go and commit it to God's judgment; and truly, sincerely, and
diligently hold unto and maintain our doctrine, let the same vex, anger, and displease whom it will.
The papists see they have an ill cause, and, therefore, labor to maintain it with very poor
arguments, that can not endure the proof, and may be easily confuted. They say: "The praising of
anything is an invocation; the saints are to be praised, therefore they are to be invoked." I answer: No,
in nowise; for every praising is not invoking: married people are to be praised, but not to be invoked;
for invocation belongs only to God and not to any creature, either in heaven or on earth; no, not to any
angel. They say: "The doctrine of the remission of sins is necessary: indulgences, pardons, and graces
are remissions of sins; therefore they are necessary." No: the pope's pardons are not remissions of
sins, but satisfactions of sins, but satisfactions for remitting the punishments: mere fables and fictions.
When I was in Rome, a disputation was held, at which were present thirty learned doctors
besides myself, against the pope's power; he boasting, that with his right hand he commands the
angels in heaven, and with his left draws souls out of purgatory, and that his person is mingled with
the godhead. Calixtus disputed against these assertions, and showed that it was only on earth that
power was given to the pope to bind and to loose. The other doctors hereupon assailed him with
exceeding vehemence, and Calixtus discontinued his arguments, saying, he had only spoken by way
of disputation, and that his real opinions were far otherwise.
For the space of many hundreds years there has not been a single bishop that has shown any
zeal on the subject of schools, baptism, and preaching; 'twould have been too great trouble for them,
such enemies were they to God. I have heard divers worthy doctors affirm, that the Church has long
since stood in need of reformation; but no man was so bold as to assail popedom; for the pope had on
his banner, Noli me tangere; therefore every man was silent. Dr. Staupitz said once to me: "If you
meddle with popedom, you will have the whole world against you;" and he added "yet the Church is
built on blood, and with blood must be sprinkled."
I would have all those who intend to preach the gospel, diligently read the popish
abominations, their decrees and books; and, above all things, thoroughly consider the horrors of the
 19

mass--on account of which idol God might justly have drowned and destroyed the whole earth--to the
end their consciences may be armed and confirmed against their adversaries.
The fasting of the friars is more easy to them than our eating to us. For one day of fasting
there are three of feasting. Every friar for his supper has two quarts of beer, a quart of wine, and spice-
cakes, or bread prepared with spice and salt, the better to relish their drink. Thus go on these poor
fasting brethren; getting so pale and wan, they are like the fiery angels. If the emperor would merit
immortal praise, he would utterly root out the order of the Capuchins, and, for an everlasting
remembrance of their abominations, cause their books to remain in safe custody. 'Tis the worst and
most poisonous sect. The Augustine and Bernardine friars are no way comparable with these
confounded lice.
Francis was an Italian, born in the city of Assisi, doubtless an honest and just man. He little
thought that such superstition and unbelief would proceed out of his life. There have been so many of
those grey friars, that they offered to send forty thousand of their number against the Turks, and yet
leave their monasteries sufficiently provided for. The Franciscan and grey friars came up under the
emperor Frederick II, at the time St. Elisabeth was canonized, in the year 1207. Francis worked his
game eighteen years; two years under the emperor Philip, four years under the emperor Otho, and
twelve years under the emperor Frederick II. They feign, that after his death he appeared to the pope
in a dream, held a cup in his hand, and filled the same with blood that ran out of his side. Is not this,
think ye, a fine and proper piece of government, that began with dreams and with lies? The pope is
not God's image, but his ape. He will be both God and emperor; as pope Innocent III said: I will either
take the crown from the emperor Philip, or he shall take mine from me. Oh, such histories ought
diligently to be written, to the end posterity may know upon what grounds popedom was erected and
founded; namely, upon mere lies and fables. If I were younger, I would write a chronicle of the popes.
If the pope should seek to suppress the mendicant friars, he would find fine sport; he has
made them fat, and cherished them in his bosom, and assigned them the greatest and most powerful
princes for protectors. If he should attempt to abolish them, they would all combine and instigate the
princes against him, for many kings and princes, and the emperor himself, have friars for confessors.
The friars were the pope's columns, they carried him as the rats carry their king; I was our Lord God's
quicksilver, which he threw into the fishpond; that is, which he cast among the friars. A friar is evil
every way, whether in the monastery or out of it. For as Aristotle gives an example touching fire, that
burns whether it be in Ethiopia or in Germany, even so is it likewise with the friars. Nature is not
changed by any circumstances of time or place.
In Italy was a particular order of friars, called Fratres Ignorantiae, that is, Brethren of
Ignorance, who took a solemn oath, that they would neither know, learn, nor understand anything at
all, but answer all questions with Nescio. Truly, all friars are well worthy of this title, for they only
read and babble out the words, but regard not their meaning. The pope and cardinals think: should
these brethren study and be learned, they would master us. Therefore, saccum per neccum, that is,
hang a bag about their necks, and send them a-begging through cities, towns and countries.
An honest matron here in Wittenberg, widow of the consul Horndorff, complained of the
covetousness of the Capuchins, one of whom pressed her father, upon his deathbed, to bequeath
something to their monastery, and got from him four hundred florins, for the use of the monastery, the
friar constraining herself to make a vow, that she would mention the matter to no person. The man
kept the money, which course he usually took, to the great hurt of all the children and orphans in that
city. At last, by command of the magistrate, she told how the friar had acted. Many such examples
have been, yet no creature dared complain. There was no end of the robbing, filching, and stealing, of
those insatiable, money-diseased wretches.
When I was in the monastery at Erfurt, a preaching friar and a bare-foot friar wandered into
the country to beg for the brethren, and to gather alms. These two played upon each other in their
sermons. The bare-foot friar preaching first, said: "Loving country people, and good friends! take
heed of that bird the swallow, for it is white within, but upon the back it is black; it is an evil bird,
 20

always chirping, but profitable for nothing; and when angered, is altogether mad," hereby describing
the preaching friar, who wear on the outside black coats, and inside white linen. Now, in the
afternoon, the preaching friar came into the pulpit and played upon the bare-foot friar: "Indeed, loving
friends, I neither may nor can well defend the swallow; but the grey sparrow is far a worse and more
hurtful bird than the swallow; for it bites the kine, and when it fouls into people's eyes, makes them
blind, as ye may see in the book of Tobit. He robs, steals, and devours all he can get, as oats, barley,
wheat, rye, apples, pears, peas, cherries, &c. Moreover, he is a lascivious bird: his greatest art is to
cry: 'Scrip, scrip,'" etc. The bare-foot friar might in better colors have painted the preaching friars, for
they are proud buzzards and right epicureans; while the bare-foot friars, under color of sanctity and
humility, are more proud and haughty than kings or princes, and, most of all, have imagined and
devised monstrous lies.
St. Bernard was the best monk that ever was, whom I love beyond all the rest put together; yet
he dared to say, it were a sign of damnation if a man quitted his monastery. He had under him three
thousand monks, not one of whom was damned, if his opinion be true, sed vix credo. St. Bernard lived
in dangerous times, under the emperors Henry IV and V, Conrad and Lothaire. He was a learned and
able monk, but he gave evil example. The friars, especially the Minorites and Franciscans, had easy
days by their hypocrisy; they touched no money, yet they were vastly rich, and lived in luxury. The
evil friar's life began betimes, when people, under color of piety, abandoned temporal matters. The
vocation and condition of a true Christian, such as God ordained and founded it, consists in three
hierarchies---domestic, temporal, and Church government.
The state of celibacy is great hypocrisy and wickedness. Augustine, though he lived in a good
and acceptable time, was deceived through the exaltation of nuns. And although he gave them leave to
marry, yet he said they did wrong to marry, and sinned against God. Afterwards, when the time of
wrath and blindness came, and the truth was hunted away, and lying got the upper hand, the
generation of poor women was contemned, under the color of great holiness, but which, in truth, was
mere hypocrisy. Christ with one sentence confutes all their arguments: God created them male and
female.
Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises (1548)
To have the true sentiment which we ought to have in the Church Militant, Let the following Rules be
observed:
First Rule. The first: All judgment laid aside, we ought to have our mind ready and prompt to obey, in
all, the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our holy Mother the Church Hierarchical.

Second Rule. The second: To praise confession to a Priest, and the reception of the most Holy
Sacrament of the Altar once in the year, and much more each month, and much better from week to
week, with the conditions required and due.
Third Rule. The third: To praise the hearing of Mass often, likewise[40] hymns, psalms, and long
prayers, in the church and out of it; likewise the hours set at the time fixed for each Divine Office
and for all prayer and all Canonical Hours.
Fourth Rule. The fourth: To praise much Religious Orders, virginity and continence, and not so much
marriage as any of these.
Fiftn Rule. The fifth: To praise vows of Religion, of obedience, of poverty, of chastity and of other
perfections of supererogation. And it is to be noted that as the vow is about the things which
approach to Evangelical perfection, a vow ought not to be made in the things which withdraw from
it, such as to be a merchant, or to be Inarried, etc.
Sixth Rule. To praise relics of the Saints, giving veneration to them and praying to the Saints; and to
praise Stations, pilgrimages, Indulgences, pardons, Cruzadas, and candles lighted in the churches.
 21

Seventh Rule. To praise Constitutions about fasts and abstinence, as of Lent, Ember Days, Vigils,
Friday and Saturday; likewise penances, not only interior * exterior.
Eighth Rule. To praise the ornaments and the buildings of churches; likewise images, and to venerate
them according to what they represent.
Ninth Rule. Finally, to praise all precepts of the Church, keeping the mind prompt to find reasons in
their defence and in no manner against them.
Tenth Rule We ought to be more prompt to find good and praise as welt the Constitutions and
recommendations as the ways of our Superiors. Because, although some are not or have not been
such, to speak against them, whether preaching in public or discoursing before the common people,
would rather give rise to fault-finding and scandal than profit; and so the people would be incensed
against their Superiors, whether temporal or spiritual. So that, as it does harm to speak evil to the
common people of Superiors in their absence, so it can make profit to speak of the evil ways to the
persons themselves who can remedy them.
Eieventh Rule. To praise positive and scholastic learning. Because, as it is more proper to the Positive
Doctors, as St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Gregory, etc., to move the heart to love and serve God
our Lord in everything; so it is more proper to the Scholastics, as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and to
the Master of the Sentences, etc., to define or explain for our times[41] the things necessary for
eternal salvation; and to combat and explain better all errors and all fallacies. For the Scholastic
Doctors, as they are more modern, not only help themselves with the true understanding of the Sacred
Scripture and of the Positive and holy Doctors, but also, they being enlightened and clarified by the
Divine virtue, help themselves by the Councils, Canons and Constitutions of our holy Mother the
Church.
Twelfth Rule. We ought to be on our guard in making comparison of those of us who are alive to the
blessed passed away, because error is committed not a little in this; that is to say, in saying, this one
knows more than St. Augustine; he is another, or greater than, St. Francis; he is another St. Paul in
goodness, holiness, etc,
Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is
black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that betvveen Christ our Lord, the
Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the
salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments,
our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed.
Fourteenth Rule. Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself
without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the
manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things.
Fifteenth Rule. We ought not, by way of custom, to speak much of predestination; but if in some way
and at some times one speaks, let him so speak that the common people may not come into any error,
as sometimes happens, saying: Whether I have to be saved or condemned is already determined, and
no other thing can now be, through my doing well or ill; and with this, growing lazy, they become
negligent in the works which lead to the salvation and the spiritual[42] profit of their souls.
Sixteenth Rule. In the same way, we must be on our guard that by talking much and with much
insistence of faith, without any distinction and explanation, occasion be not given to the people to
be lazy and slothful in works, whether before faith is formed in charity or after.
Seventeenth Rule. Likewise, we ought not to speak so much with insistence on grace that the poison
of discarding liberty be engendered. So that of faith and grace one can speak as much as is possible
with the Divine help for the greater praise of His Divine Majesty, but not in such way, nor in such
 22

manners, especially in our so dangerous times, that works and free will receive any harm, or be held
for nothing.
Eighteenth Rule, Although serving God our Lord much out of pure love is to be esteemed above all;
we ought to praise much the fear of His Divine Majesty, because not only filial fear is a thing pious
and most holy, but even servile fear when the man reaches nothing else better or more useful -- helps
much to get out of mortal sin. And when he is out, he easily comes to filial fear, which is all
acceptable and grateful to God our Lord: as being at one with the Divine Love.
Study Questions:
(1) What are Luther’s main complaints against Catholicism?
(2) How does Ignatius respond to the challenge of Protestantism?
(3) What aspects of Catholicism is he most anxious to promote?
 23

State-building
Hans von Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus (1669)
Although it was not my intention to lead these riders to my dad's farm, truth demands that I
leave to posterity the cruelties committed in this our German war, to prove these evils were done to our
advantage. Who else would have told me there was a God in Heaven if the warriors had not destroyed
my father's house and forced me, through my captivity, to meet other people, for till this moment I had
imagined my dad, mum and the rest of our household to be the sole inhabitants of this earth as no other
man nor human dwelling were known to me but the one where I daily went in and out. Soon I had to
learn man's origin in this world. I was merely a human in shape and a Christian only in name, otherwise
just an animal. Our gracious God looked upon my innocence with pity and wished to bring me both to
his and my awareness, and although there were a thousand ways of doing this, he used the one by which
my dad and mum were punished as an example to others for their careless education of me.
The first thing that the riders did was to stable their horses. After that each one started his own
business which indicated nothing but ruin and destruction. While some started to slaughter, cook and
fry, so that it looked as though they wished to prepare a gay feast, others stormed through the house
from top to bottom as if the golden fleece of Colchis were hidden there. Others again took linen, clothing
and other goods, making them into bundles as if they intended going to market; what they did not want
was broken up and destroyed. Some stabbed their swords through hay and straw as if they had not
enough pigs to stab. Some shook the feathers out of the beds and filled the ticks with ham and dried
meat as if they could sleep more comfortably on these. Others smashed the ovens and windows as if to
announce an eternal summer. They beat copper and pewter vessels into lumps and packed the mangled
pieces away. Bedsteads, tables, chairs and benches were burned although many stacks of dried wood
stood in the yard. Earthenware pots and pans were all broken, perhaps because our guests preferred
roasted meats, or perhaps they intended to eat only one meal with us. Our maid had been treated in the
stable in such a way that she could not leave it any more—a shameful thing to tell! They bound the
farm-hand and laid him on the earth, put a clamp of wood in his mouth, and emptied a milking churn
full of horrid dung water into his belly. This they called the Swedish drink, and they forced him to lead
a party of soldiers to another place, where they looted men and cattle and brought them back to our
yard. Among them were my dad, my mum and Ursula.
The soldiers now started to take the flints out of their pistols and in their stead screwed the
thumbs of the peasants, and they tortured the poor wretches as if they were burning witches. They put
one of the captive peasants into the baking-oven and put fire on him, although he had confessed nothing.
Then they tied a rope round the head of another one, and twisted it with the help of a stick so tightly
that blood gushed out through his mouth, nose and ears. In short everybody had his own invention to
torture the peasants and each peasant suffered his own martyrdom. My dad alone appeared to me the
most fortunate for he confessed with laughter what others were forced to say under pains and miserable
lament, and such honour was done to him without doubt because he was the master of the house. They
put him next to a fire, tied him so that he could move neither hands nor feet, and rubbed the soles of his
feet with wet salt, which our old goat had to lick off. This tickled him so much that he almost wanted
to burst with laughter, and it seemed to me so gentle and pleasant—for I had never seen nor heard my
dad making such long-lasting laughter—that I half in companionship and half in ignorance joined
heartily with him. In such merriment he confessed his guilt and revealed the hidden treasure, which was
richer in gold, pearls and jewels than might have been expected of a peasant. What happened to the
captive women, maids and daughters I do not know as the soldiers would not let me watch how they
dealt with them. I only very' well remember that I heard them miserably crying in corners here and
there, and I believe my mum and Ursula had no better fate than the others.
In the midst of this misery I turned the spit and did not worry as I hardly understood what all
this meant. In the afternoon I helped to water the horses and so found our maid in the stable looking
amazingly dishevelled. I did not recognise her but she spoke to me with pitiful voice: 'Oh, run away,
boy, or the soldiers will take you with them. Look out, escape! Can't you see how evil. . . More she
could not say.
So I made my way to a village but when I arrived found it in full flame; a troop of horsemen
had just looted it and put it on fire. They had killed some of the peasants, driven away many and captured
a few amongst whom was the vicar. Oh, God, how human life is full of pain and misery! Scarcely one
misfortune has ended when we are overcome by another. The riders were ready to go and were leading
the vicar on a rope. Some shouted: 'Shoot the rascal down!' and others demanded money from him. He
 24

raised his hands and asked for the sake of the Last Judgment for pardon and Christian charity. But in
vain. One of them rode toward him giving him a blow over the head so that he fell to the ground and
recommended his soul to God. Nor had the other captive peasants any better fate.
The day following the burning of the village, as I was sitting in my hut saying my prayers and
cooking carrots for sustenance, about forty to fifty musketeers surrounded me. These, although
astonished at my unusual appearance, stormed through my hut seeking that which was not to be found;
for I had nothing but books which they threw about as they were of no value to them. Finally, looking
at me more carefully and seeing what a poor bird they had trapped, they realised that there was no good
booty to be gained from me. My hard life amazed them and they had great pity for my tender youth,
especially the officer who was in command. Indeed he honoured me and politely requested me to show
him and his men the way out of the wood in which they had been lost for a long time. I did not refuse
but led them by the nearest path toward the village where the vicar had been so badly treated, as I knew
no other way. Before we left the wood we saw about ten peasants partly armed with blunderbusses and
others occupied in burying something. The musketeers went up to them shouting: 'Halt! Halt!' The
peasants answered with their guns but when they saw they were overpowered by the soldiers, they
dispersed so that the tired musketeers could not follow them.
When I arrived back I discovered that my flintbox and all my belongings, including my whole
store of miserable victuals, which I had grown all through the summer in my garden and saved up for
the winter, had disappeared. Whither now, I thought. Need taught me to pray the more. I exercised all
my poor wit to find out what to do and what not to do—but with my small experience I could not come
to any real decision. The best was to recommend myself to God and put all my trust in him, otherwise
I would have despaired and perished. My mind was still full of that which I had seen and heard that
very day. I did not think so much about food and own preservation as about the hatred the between
soldiers and peasants, and in my foolishness there seemed no other explanation than i that there must
undoubtedly be two kinds of men in the world, not one single stock derived from Adam, but as different
as wild and tame animals, for they persecute each other so cruelly. Once at the end of May when I again
in my usual although forbidden way crept into a farmyard to fetch my food, I found myself in the
kitchen, but soon realised that the folk were still awake (where dogs hung about I wisely never went).
I kept the kitchen door leading into the courtyard wide open so that if danger came I should be able to
run away, and there I remained quiet as a mouse, waiting until the people would go to bed. In the
meantime I noticed a slit in the kitchen-hatch leading to the living room. There I stealthily crept to see
whether the peasants would not soon go to sleep. But my hopes came to nothing, as they had just dressed
themselves, and instead of a candle a sulphurous blue flame stood I on a bench, near which they smeared
grease on sticks, brooms, forks, stools and benches, and rode out on these through the windows. At this
I was terribly amazed and felt great horror, but as I had been accustomed to still more horrible things
and had all my life neither read nor heard of witches, I did not take it too seriously, mostly because
everything happened so quietly.
After all had flown away, I went into the room and here I considered what I could take
with me and where to look for it. With such thoughts I sat down astride on a bench but as soon
as I did so, I flew with the bench out through the window, leaving behind knapsack and
blunderbuss, which I had put down almost as a reward for witches' ointment. My sitting down,
flying off and descent happened in one moment, for I arrived as it seemed to me instantly
amongst a great mass of people; possibly because of fear I did not realise the length of my
journey. These people were dancing a remarkable dance such as I had never seen in my life.
They held hands and turned their backs inwards as one has seen the Three Graces painted, so
that their faces turned outwards, forming many rings one within the other. The innermost ring
consisted of seven or eight persons; the next one of double this number; the third more than
both and so on, so that in the outer circle were more than two hundred. And as always once
circle danced to the left and the other to the right, I could not see how many rings they had
formed nor what stood in the middle around which they danced. It looked strange and horrid
as all bobbed their heads ludicrously, and just as strange was the music. Everyone, it appeared
to -me, sang as he danced which gave an amazing harmony. My bench which carried me there
came to rest near the musicians who stood about outside the rings of the dancers. Some of the
musicians had instead of flutes, bagpipes and shawms, nothing but adders, vipers and
blindworms, on which they whistled merrily. Some had cats into whose behinds they blew and
 25

fingered on the tail, which sounded similar to bagpipes. Others bowed on the skulls of horses
as on the best fiddles, and others played the harp upon cow skeletons like those which lie in
the flayer's pit. One held a bitch under his arm whose tail he turned and fingered her teats. In
between devils trumpeted through their noses that the whole forest echoed, and when the
dance came to an end, the whole hellish crowd started to rage, shriek, rustle, roar, howl and
storm as if they were all mad and senseless. And so one can imagine how I was struck by
horror and fear.
In this turmoil a fellow approached me with a gigantic toad under his arm, easily as big as
a kettledrum. Its guts had been pulled out through the arse and pushed into its mouth, which
looked so revolting that I had to vomit. 'Look here, Simplicius,' he said, 'I know that you are a
good lute player. Let's hear a fine tune!' I was so terrified that I almost fell down on hearing
the fellow call me by name; out of fear I became completely speechless and imagined I lay in
a deep dream and prayed fervently in my heart that I might wake up. The fellow with the toad
however at whom I stared, pushed his nose backwards and forwards like a Calcutta cock and
at last he knocked me with it on the breast so that I nearly choked. At this point I started to cry
loudly to God and thereupon the whole host disappeared and in a flash it was pitch dark and
my heart felt so fearful that I fell to the ground , making the sign of the cross well nigh a
hundred times.

Saint Simone, Memoirs (1680)

I shall pass over the stormy period of Louis XIV's minority. At twenty-three years of age he entered
the great world as King, under the most favorable auspices. His ministers were the most skillful in all
Europe; his generals the best; his Court was filled with illustrious and clever men, formed during the
troubles which had followed the death of Louis XIII.

Louis XIV was made for a brilliant Court. In the midst of other men, his figure, his courage, his grace,
his beauty, his grand mien, even the tone of his voice and the majestic and natural charm of all his
person, distinguished him till his death as the King, and showed that if he had only been born a simple
private gentleman, he would equally have excelled in fetes, pleasures, and gallantry, and would have
had the greatest success in love. The intrigues and adventures which early in life he had been engaged
in--when the Comtesse de Soissons lodged at the Tuileries, as superintendent of the Queen's
household, and was the center figure of the Court troup--had exercised an unfortunate influence upon
him: he received those impressions with which he could never- after successfully struggle. From this
time, intellect, education, nobility of sentiment, and high principle, in others, became objects of
suspicion to him, and soon of hatred. The more he advanced in years the more this sentiment was
confirmed in him. He wished to reign by himself. His jealousy on this point unceasingly became
weakness. He reigned, indeed, in little things; the great he could never reach: even in the former, too,
he was often governed. The superior ability of his early ministers and his early generals soon wearied
him. He liked nobody to be in any way superior to him. Thus he chose his ministers, not for their
knowledge, but for their ignorance; not for their capacity, but for their want of it. He liked to form
them, as he said; liked to teach them even the most trifling things. It was the same with his generals.
He took credit to himself for instructing them; wished it to be thought that from his cabinet he
commanded and directed all his armies. Naturally fond of trifles, he unceasingly occupied himself
with the most petty details of his troops, his household, his mansions; would even instruct his cooks,
who received, like novices, lessons they had known by heart for years. This vanity, this unmeasured
and unreasonable love of admiration, was his ruin. His ministers, his generals, his mistresses, his
courtiers, soon perceived his weakness. They praised him with emulation and spoiled him. Praises, or
to say truth, flattery, pleased him to such an extent, that the coarsest was well received, the vilest even
better relished. It was the sole means by which you could approach him. Those whom he liked owed
his affection for them, to their untiring flatteries. This is what gave his ministers so much authority,
and the opportunities they had for adulating him, of attributing everything to him, and of pretending to
 26

learn everything from him. Suppleness, meanness, an admiring, dependent, cringing manner--above
all, an air of nothingness--were the sole means of pleasing him.

This poison spread. It spread, too, to an incredible extent, in a prince who, although of intellect
beneath mediocrity, was not utterly without sense, and who had had some experience. Without voice
or musical knowledge, he used to sing, in private, the passages of the opera prologues that were fullest
of his praises! He was drowned in vanity; and so deeply, that at his public suppers--all the Court
present, musicians also--he would hum these self-same praises between his teeth, when the music they
were set to was played!

And yet, it must be admitted, he might have done better. Though his intellect, as I have said, was
beneath mediocrity, it was capable of being formed. He loved glory, was fond of order and regularity;
was by disposition prudent, moderate, discreet, master of his movements and his tongue. Will it be
believed? He was also by disposition good and just! God had sufficiently gifted him to enable him to
be a good King; perhaps even a tolerably great King! All the evil came to him from elsewhere. His
early education was so neglected that nobody dared approach his apartment. He has often been heard
to speak of those times with bitterness, and even to relate that one evening he was found in the basin
of the Palais Royale garden fountain, into which he had fallen! He was scarcely taught how to read or
write and remained so ignorant that the most familiar historical and other facts were utterly unknown
to him! He fell, accordingly, and sometimes even in public, into the grossest absurdities.

It was his vanity, his desire for glory, that led him, soon after the death of the King of Spain, to make
that event the pretext for war; in spite of renunciations so recently made, so carefully stipulated, in the
marriage contract. He marched into Flanders; his conquests there were rapid; the passage of the Rhine
was admirable; the triple alliance of England, Sweden, and Holland only animated him. In the midst
of winter he took Franche-Comte, by restoring which at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, he preserved
his conquests in Flanders. All was flourishing then in the state. Riches everywhere. Colbert had
placed the finances, the navy, commerce, manufactures, letters even, upon the highest point; and this
age, like that of Augustus, produced in abundance illustrious men of all kinds--even those illustrious
only in pleasures.

Thus, we see this monarch grand, rich, conquering, the arbiter of Europe; feared and admired as long
as the ministers and captains existed who really deserved the name. When they were no more, the
machine kept moving some time by impulsion, and from their influence. But soon afterwards we saw
beneath the surface; faults and errors were multiplied, and decay came on with giant strides; without,
however, opening the eyes of that despotic master, so anxious to do everything and direct everything
himself, and who seemed to indemnify himself for disdain abroad by increasing fear and trembling at
home.

So much for the reign of this vain-glorious monarch. Let me touch now upon some other incidents in
his career, and upon some points in his character.

He early showed a disinclination for Paris. The troubles that had taken place there during the minority
made him regard the place as dangerous; he wished, too, to render himself venerable by hiding
himself from the eyes of the multitude; all these considerations fixed him at St. Germains soon after
the death of the Queen, his mother. It was to that place he began to attract the world by fetes and
gallantries, and by making it felt that he wished to be often seen.

His love for Madame de la Valliere, which was at first kept secret, occasioned frequent excursions to
Versailles, then a little card castle, which had been built by Louis XIII--annoyed, and his suite still
more so, at being frequently obliged to sleep in a wretched inn there, after he had been out hunting in
the forest of Saint Leger. That monarch rarely slept at Versailles more than one night, and then from
necessity; the King, his son, slept there, so that he might be more in private with his mistress,
pleasures unknown to the hero and just man, worthy son of Saint Louis, who built the little chateau.
 27

These excursions of Louis XIV by degrees gave birth to those immense buildings he erected at
Versailles; and their convenience for a numerous court, so different from the apartments at St.
Germains, led him to take up his abode there entirely shortly after the death of the Queen. He built an
infinite number of apartments, which were asked for by those who wished to pay their court to him;
whereas at St. Germains nearly everybody was obliged to lodge in the town, and the few who found
accommodation at the chateau were strangely inconvenienced.

The frequent fetes, the private promenades at Versailles, the journeys, were means on which the King
seized in order to distinguish or mortify the courtiers, and thus render them more assiduous in
pleasing him. He felt that of real favors he had not enough to bestow; in order to keep up the spirit of
devotion, he therefore unceasingly invented all sorts of ideal ones, little preferences and petty
distinctions, which answered his purpose as well.

He was exceedingly jealous of the attention paid him. Not only did he notice the presence of the most
distinguished courtiers, but those of inferior degree also. He looked to the right and to the left, not
only upon rising but upon going to bed, at his meals, in passing through his apartments, or his gardens
of Versailles, where alone the courtiers were allowed to follow him; he saw and noticed everybody;
not one escaped him, not even those who hoped to remain unnoticed. He marked well all absentees
from the court, found out the reason of their absence, and never lost an opportunity of acting towards
them as the occasion might seem to justify. With some of the courtiers (the most distinguished), it was
a demerit not to make the court their ordinary abode; with others it was a fault to come but rarely; for
those who never or scarcely ever came it was certain disgrace. When their names were in anyway
mentioned, "I do not know them," the King would reply haughtily. Those who presented themselves
but seldom were thus characterized: "They are people I never see"; these decrees were irrevocable. He
could not bear people who liked Paris.

Louis XIV took great pains to be well informed of all that passed everywhere; in the public places, in
the private houses, in society and familiar intercourse. His spies and tell-tales were infinite. He had
them of all species; many who were ignorant that their information reached him; others who knew it;
others who wrote to him direct, sending their letters through channels he indicated; and all these
letters were seen by him alone, and always before everything else; Others who sometimes spoke to
him secretly in his cabinet, entering by the back stairs. These unknown means ruined an infinite
number of people of all classes, who never could discover the cause; often ruined them very unjustly;
for the King, once prejudiced, never altered his opinion, or so rarely, that nothing was more rare. He
had, too, another fault, very dangerous for others and often for himself, since it deprived him of good
subjects. He had an excellent memory; in this way, that if he saw a man who, twenty years before,
perhaps, had in some manner offended him, he did not forget the man, though he might forget the
offense. This was enough, however, to exclude the person from all favor. The representations of a
minister, of a general, of his confessor even, could not move the King. He would not yield.

The most cruel means by which the King was informed of what was passing--for many years before
anybody knew it--was that of opening letters. The promptitude and dexterity with which they were
opened passes understanding. He saw extracts from all the letters in which there were passages that
the chiefs of the post-office, and then the minister who governed it, thought ought to go before him;
entire letters, too, were sent to him, when their contents seemed to justify the sending. Thus the chiefs
of the post, nay, the principal clerks were in a position to suppose what they pleased and against
whom they pleased. A word of contempt against the King or the government, a joke, a detached
phrase, was enough. It is incredible how many people, justly or unjustly, were more or less ruined,
always without resource, without trial, and without knowing why. The secret was impenetrable; for
nothing ever cost the King less than profound silence and dissimulation.
 28

The King’s Daily Routine

At eight o'clock the chief valet de chamber on duty, who alone had slept in the royal chamber, and
who had dressed himself, awoke the King. The chief physician, the chief surgeon, and the nurse (as
long as she lived), entered at the same time. The latter kissed the King; the others rubbed and changed
his shirt, because he was in the habit of sweating a great deal. At the quarter, the grand chamberlain
was called (or, in his absence, the first gentleman of the chamber), and those who had what was called
the grandes entrées. The chamberlain (or chief chamberlain) drew back the curtains which had been
closed again, and presented the holy water from the vase, at the head of the bed. These gentlemen
stayed but a moment, and that was the time to speak to the King, if anyone had anything to ask of
him; in which case the rest stood aside. Then all passed into the cabinet of the council. A very short
religious service being over, the King called, they reentered. The same officer gave him his dressing
gown; immediately after, other privileged courtiers entered, and then everybody, in time to find the
King putting his shoes and stockings, for he did almost everything himself and with address and
grace. Every other day we saw the King shave himself; and he had a little short wig in which he
always appeared, even in bed, and on medicine days. He often spoke of the chase, and sometimes said
a word to somebody. No toilet table was near him; he had simply a mirror held before him.

As soon as he was dressed, he prayed to God, at the side of this bed, where all the clergy present knelt,
the cardinals without cushions, all the laity remaining standing; and the captain of the guards came to
the balustrade during the prayer, after which the King passed into his cabinet. He found there, or was
followed by all who had the entrée, a very numerous company, for it included everybody in any office.
He gave orders to each for the day; thus within a half a quarter of an hour it was known what he meant
to do; and then all this crowd left directly. The bastards, a few favorites, and the valets alone were left.
It was then a good opportunity for talking with the King; for example, about plans of gardens and
buildings; and conversation lasted more or less according to the person engaged in it...

The King went to mass, where his musicians always sang an anthem. During the mass the ministers
assembled in the King's chamber where distinguished people could go and speak or chat with them.
The King amused himself a little upon returning from mass and asked almost immediately for the
Council. Then the morning was finished.

The dinner was always au petit couvert, that is, the King ate by himself in his chamber upon a
square table in front of the middle window. It was more or less abundant, for he ordered in the
morning whether it was to be "a little", or "very little" service.

Upon leaving the table the King immediately entered his cabinet. That was the time for distinguished
people to speak to him. He stopped at the door a moment to listen, then entered; very rarely did anyone
follow him, never without asking him for permission to do so; and for this few had the courage. If
followed he placed himself in the embrasure of the window nearest to the door of the cabinet, which
immediately closed of itself, and which you were obliged to open yourself on quitting the King. This
also was the time for the bastards and the valets. The King amused himself by feeding his dogs, and
remained with them more or less time, then asked for his wardrobe, changed before the very few
distinguished people it pleased the first gentleman of the chamber to admit there, and immediately went
out by the back stairs into the court of marble to get into his coach.

The king was fond of air, and when deprived of it his health suffered; he had headaches and vapors
caused by the undue use he had formerly made of perfumes, so that for many years he could not endure
any, except the odor of orange flowers; therefore if you had to approach anywhere near him you did
well not to carry them.

As he was but little sensitive to heat or cold, or even rain, the weather was seldom sufficiently bad to
prevent his going abroad. He went for three objects: stag hunting, once or more each week; shooting in
 29

his parks (and no man handled a gun with more grace and skill), once or twice each week; and walking
in his gardens for exercise, and to see his workmen. Sometimes he made picnics with ladies, in the
forest at Marly or at Fontainebleau, and in this last place, promenades with all the court around the
canal, which was a magnificent spectacle. Upon returning home from walks or drives, anybody, as I
have said, might speak to the King from the moment he left his coach till he reached the foot of his
staircase. He changed his dress again, and rested in his cabinet an hour or more, then went to Madame
de Maintenonls and on the way anyone who wished might speak to him.

At ten o'clock his supper was served. This supper was always on a grand scale. After supper the
King stood some moments, his back to the balustrade of the foot of his bed* encircled by all his
Court; then, with bows to the ladies, passed into his cabinet, where on arriving, he gave his orders. He
passed a little less than an hour there, seated in an armchair, with his legitimate children and bastards,
his grandchildren, legitimate and otherwise, and their husbands or wives.

The King, wishing to retire, went and fed his dogs; then said good night, passed into his chamber to the
foot of his bed, where he said his prayers, as in the morning, then undressed. He said good night with
an inclination of the head. And while everybody was leaving the room stood at the corner of the
mantelpiece, where he gave the order to the colonel of the guards alone. Then commenced what was
called the petit coucher, at which only the specially privileged remained. That was short. They did not
leave until he got into bed. It was a moment to speak to him.

On medicine days, which occurred about once a month, the King remained in bed, then heard mass.
The royal household came to see him for a moment, and Madame de Maintenon seated herself in the
armchair at the head of his bed. The King dined in bed about three o'clock, everybody being allowed to
enter the room, then rose, and the privileged alone remained.

Study Questions:

(1) What is the nature of war in the seventeenth century? Who appear to suffer most?
(2) What is Grimmelshausen’s religious affiliation? What do you think of his practice of
Christianity? How does he survive?
(3) Why were the soldiers so brutal to the common people who crossed their path?
(4) Grimmelshausen’s description of a witches coven is typical of many such accounts.
Why is it like? How does it demonstrate the taboos and dark fears of the age?
(5) What do you think was Sainte Simone’s social background? What aspects of Louis
XIV’s government does he praise? Which does he condemn?
(6) According to Sainte Simone, what is Louis XIV’s main goal as a ruler?
(7) How is the daily routine of Louis XIV structured? What are the most important points
of the day? Why?
(8) Why does Louis XIV build the palace of Versailles?
 30

The Revolution of Ideas

Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

Some years ago, as Your Serene Highness well knows, I discovered in the heavens many things that
had not been seen before our own age. The novelty of these things, as well as some consequences
which followed from them in contradiction to the physical notions commonly held among academic
philosophers, stirred up against me no small number of professors-as if I had placed these things in
the sky with my own hands in order to upset nature and overturn the sciences. They seemed to forget
that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts;
not their diminution or destruction.

Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth they sought to deny and disprove the
new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have
demonstrated to them. To this end they hurled various charges and published numerous writings filled
with vain arguments, and they made the grave mistake of sprinkling these with passages taken from
places in the Bible which they had failed to understand properly, and which were ill-suited to their
purposes

Well, the passage of time has revealed to everyone the truths that I previously set forth; and, together
with the truth of the facts, there has come to light the great difference in attitude between those who
simply and dispassionately refused to admit the discoveries to be true, and those who combined with
their incredulity some reckless passion of their own. Men who were well grounded in astronomical
and physical science were persuaded as soon as they received my first message. There were others
who denied them or remained in doubt only because of their novel and unexpected character, and
because they had not yet had the opportunity to see for themselves. These men have by degrees come
to be satisfied. But some, besides allegiance to their original error, possess I know not what fanciful
interest in remaining hostile not so much toward the things in question as toward their discoverer. No
longer being able to deny them, these men now take refuge in obstinate silence, but being more than
ever exasperated by that which has pacified and quieted other men, they divert their thoughts to other
fancies and seek new ways to damage me.

I should pay no more attention to them than to those who previously contradicted me-at whom I
always laugh, being assured of the eventual outcome-were it not that in their new calumnies and
persecutions I perceive that they do not stop at proving themselves more learned than I am (a claim
which I scarcely contest), but go so far as to cast against me the imputations of crimes which must be,
and are, more abhorrent to me than death itself. I cannot remain satisfied merely to know that the
injustice of this is recognized by those who are acquainted with these men and with me, as perhaps it
is not known to others.

Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can think of,
these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to the arrangement
of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of
the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position
not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-
arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned
in no other way. In addition there are astronomical arguments derived from many things in my new
celestial discoveries that plainly confute the Ptolemaic system while admirably agreeing with and
confirming the contrary hypothesis. Possibly because they are disturbed by the known truth of other
propositions of mine which differ from those commonly held, and therefore mistrusting their defense
so long as they confine themselves to the field of philosophy, these men have resolved to fabricate a
shield for their fallacies out of the mantle of pretended religion and the authority of the Bible. These
 31

they apply with little judgement to the refutation of arguments that they do not understand and have
not even listened to.

First they have endeavored to spread the opinion that such propositions in general are contrary to the
Bible and are consequently damnable and heretical. They know that it is human nature to take up
causes whereby a man may oppress his neighbor, no matter how unjustly, rather than those from
which a man may receive some just encouragement. Hence they have had no trouble in finding men
who would preach the damnability and heresy of the new doctrine from their very pulpits with
unwonted confidence, thus doing impious and inconsiderate injury not only to that doctrine and its
followers but to all mathematics and mathematicians in general. Next, becoming bolder, and hoping
(though vainly) that this seed which first took root in their hypocritical minds would send out
branches and ascend to heaven, they began scattering rumors among the people that before long this
doctrine would be condemned by the supreme authority. They know, too, that official condemnation
would not only suppress the two propositions which I have mentioned, but would render damnable all
other astronomical and physical statements and observations that have any necessary relation or
connection with these.

In order to facilitate their designs, they seek so far as possible (at least among the common people) to
make this opinion seem new and to belong to me alone. They pretend not to know that its author, or
rather its restorer and confirmer, was Nicholas Copernicus; and that he was not only a Catholic, but a
priest and a canon. He was in fact so esteemed by the church that when the Lateran Council under Leo
X took up the correction of the church calendar, Copernicus was called to Rome from the most remote
parts of Germany to undertake its reform. At that time the calendar was defective because the true
measures of the year and the lunar month were not exactly known. The Bishop of Culm, then
superintendent of this matter, assigned Copernicus to seek more light and greater certainty concerning
the celestial motions by means of constant study and labor. With Herculean toil he set his admirable
mind to this task, and he made such great progress in this science and brought our knowledge of the
heavenly motions to such precision that he became celebrated as an astronomer. Since that time not
only has the calendar been regulated by his teachings, but tables of all the motions of the planets have
been calculated as well.

Having reduced his system into six books, he published these at the instance of the Cardinal of Capua
and the Bishop of Culm. And since he had assumed his laborious enterprise by order of the supreme
pontiff, he dedicated this book On the celestial revolutions to Pope Paul III. When printed, the book
was accepted by the holy Church, and it has been read and studied by everyone without the faintest
hint of any objection ever being conceived against its doctrines. Yet now that manifest experiences
and necessary proofs have shown them to be well grounded, persons exist who would strip the author
of his reward without so much as looking at his book, and add the shame of having him pronounced a
heretic. All this they would do merely to satisfy their personal displeasure conceived without any
cause against another man, who has no interest in Copernicus beyond approving his teachings.

Now as to the false aspersions which they so unjustly seek to cast upon me, I have thought it
necessary to justify myself in the eyes of all men, whose judgment in matters of` religion and of
reputation I must hold in great esteem. I shall therefore discourse of the particulars which these men
produce to make this opinion detested and to have it condemned not merely as false but as heretical.
To this end they make a shield of their hypocritical zeal for religion. They go about invoking the
Bible, which they would have minister to their deceitful purposes. Contrary to the sense of the Bible
and the intention of the holy Fathers, if I am not mistaken, they would extend such authorities until
even in purely physical matters - where faith is not involved - they would have us altogether abandon
reason and the evidence of our senses in favor of some biblical passage, though under the surface
meaning of its words this passage may contain a different sense.

I hope to show that I proceed with much greater piety than they do, when I argue not against
condemning this book, but against condemning it in the way they suggest that is, without
 32

understanding it, weighing it, or so much as reading it. For Copernicus never discusses matters of
religion or faith, nor does he use arguments that depend in any way upon the authority of sacred
writings which he might have interpreted erroneously. He stands always upon physical conclusions
pertaining to the celestial motions, and deals with them by astronomical and geometrical
demonstrations, founded primarily upon sense experiences and very exact observations. He did not
ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if` his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict
the Scriptures when they were rightly understood and thus at the end of his letter of` dedication.
addressing the pope, he said:

"If there should chance to be any exegetes ignorant of` mathematics who pretend to skill in that
discipline, and dare to condemn and censure this hypothesis of mine upon the authority of some
scriptural passage twisted to their purpose, I value them not, but disdain their unconsidered judgment.
For it is known that Lactantius - a poor mathematician though in other respects a worthy author -
writes very childishly about the shape of the earth when he scoffs at those who affirm it to be a globe.
Hence it should not seem strange to the ingenious if people of that sort should in turn deride me. But
mathematics is written for mathematicians, by whom, if I am not deceived, these labors of mine will
be recognized as contributing something to their domain, as also to that of the Church over which
Your Holiness now reigns."

Therefore I declare (and my sincerity will make itself manifest) not only that I mean to submit myself
freely and renounce any errors into which I may fall in this discourse through ignorance of` matters
pertaining to religion, but that I do not desire in these matters to engage in disputes with anyone, even
on points that are disputable. My goal is this alone; that if, among errors that may abound in these
considerations of a subject remote from my profession, there is anything that may be serviceable to
the holy Church in making a decision concerning the Copernican system, it may be taken and utilized
as seems best to the superiors. And if not, let my book be torn and burnt, as I neither intend nor
pretend to gain from it any fruit that is not pious and Catholic. And though many of the things I shall
reprove have been heard by my own ears, I shall freely grant to those who have spoken them that they
never said them, if that is what they wish, and I shall confess myself to have been mistaken. Hence let
whatever I reply be addressed not to them, but to whoever may have held such opinions.

The reason produced for condemning the opinion that the earth moves and the sun stands still in many
places in the Bible one may read that the sun moves and the earth stands still. Since the Bible cannot
err; it follows as a necessary consequence that anyone takes a erroneous and heretical position who
maintains that the sun is inherently motionless and the earth movable.

With regard to this argument, I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm
that the holy Bible can never speak untruth-whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe
nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what
its bare words signify. Hence in expounding the Bible if one were always to confine oneself to the
unadorned grammatical meaning, one might; fall into error. Not only contradictions and propositions
far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. Thus it
would be necessary to assign to God feet, hands and eyes, as well as corporeal and human affections,
such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even the forgetting of` things past and ignorance of
those to come. These propositions uttered by the Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the
sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the capacities, Of the common people, who are rude
and unlearned. For the sake of those who deserve to be separated from the herd, it is necessary that
wise expositors should produce the true senses of such passages, together with the special reasons for
which they were set down in these words. This doctrine is so widespread and so definite with all
theologians that it would be superfluous to adduce evidence for it.

Hence I think that I may reasonably conclude that whenever the Bible has occasion to speak of any
physical conclusion (especially those which are very abstruse and hard to understand), the rule has
been observed of avoiding confusion in the minds of the common people which would render them
 33

contumacious toward the higher mysteries. Now the Bible, merely to condescend to popular capacity,
has not hesitated to obscure some very important pronouncements, attributing to God himself some
qualities extremely remote from (and even contrary to) His essence. Who, then, would positively
declare that this principle has been set aside, and the Bible has confined itself rigorously to the bare
and restricted sense of its words, when speaking but casually of the earth, of water, of the sun, or of
any other created thing? Especially in view of the fact that these things in no way concern the primary
purpose of the sacred writings, which is the service of God and the salvation of souls - matters
infinitely beyond the comprehension of the common people.

This being granted, I think that in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from the
authority of scriptural passages but from sense experiences and necessary demonstrations; for the holy
Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word the former as the dictate of
the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands. It is necessary for the
Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which
appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. But
Nature, on the other hand, is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon
her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men.
For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense experience sets before our eyes, or which
necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the
testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. For the
Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical
effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature's actions than in the sacred statements of
the Bible. Perhaps this is what Tertullian meant by these words:

"We conclude that God is known first through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by doctrine,
by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word."

From this I do not mean to infer that we need not have an extraordinary esteem for the passages of
holy Scripture. On the contrary, having arrived at any certainties in physics, we ought to utilize these
as the most appropriate aids in the true exposition of the Bible and in the investigation of those
meanings which are necessarily contained therein, for these must be concordant with demonstrated
truths. I should judge that the authority of the Bible was designed to persuade men of those articles
and propositions which, surpassing all human reasoning could not be made credible by science, or by
any other means than through the very mouth of the Holy Spirit.

Yet even in those propositions which are not matters of faith, this authority ought to be preferred over
that of all human writings which are supported only by bare assertions or probable arguments, and not
set forth in a demonstrative way. This I hold to be necessary and proper to the same extent that divine
wisdom surpasses all human judgment and conjecture.

But I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and
intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we
can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are
set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations. This must be
especially true in those sciences of which but the faintest trace (and that consisting of conclusions) is
to be found in the Bible. Of astronomy; for instance, so little is found that none of the planets except
Venus are so much as mentioned, and this only once or twice under the name of "Lucifer." If the
sacred scribes had had any intention of teaching people certain arrangements and motions of the
heavenly bodies, or had they wished us to derive such knowledge from the Bible, then in my opinion
they would not have spoken of these matters so sparingly in comparison with the infinite number of
admirable conclusions which are demonstrated in that science. Far from pretending to teach us the
constitution and motions of the heavens and other stars, with their shapes, magnitudes, and distances,
the authors of the Bible intentionally forbore to speak of these things, though all were quite well
known to them. Belief in Scripture is urged rather for the reason we have often mentioned; that is, in
 34

order that no one, through ignorance of divine passages, finding anything in our Bibles or hearing
anything cited from them of such a nature as may seem to oppose manifest conclusions, should be
induced to suspect their truth when they teach, relate, and deliver more profitable matters. Hence let it
be said briefly, touching the form of heaven, that our authors knew the truth but the Holy Spirit did
not desire that men should learn things that are useful to no one for salvation."

The same disregard of these sacred authors toward beliefs about the phenomena of the celestial bodies
is repeated to us by St. Augustine in his next chapter. On the question whether we are to believe that
the heaven moves or stands still, he writes thus:

"Some of the brethren raise a question concerning the motion of heaven, whether it is fixed or moved.
If it is moved, they say, how is it a firmament? If it stands still, how do these stars which are held
fixed in it go round from east to west, the more northerly performing shorter circuits near the pole, so
that the heaven (if there is another pole unknown to us) may seem to revolve upon some axis, or (if
there is no other pole) may be thought to move as a discus? To these men I reply that it would require
many subtle and profound reasonings to find out which of these things is actually so; but to undertake
this and discuss it is consistent neither with my leisure nor with the duty of those whom I desire to
instruct in essential matters more directly conducing to their salvation and to the benefit of the holy
Church."

From these things it follows as a necessary consequence that, since the Holy Ghost did not intend to
teach us whether heaven moves or stands still, whether its shape is spherical or like a discus or
extended in a plane, nor whether the earth is located at its center or off to one side, then so much the
less was it intended to settle for us any other conclusion of the same kind. And the motion or rest of
the earth and the sun is so closely linked with the things just named, that without a determination of
the one, neither side can be taken in the other matters. Now if the Holy Spirit has purposely neglected
to teach us propositions of this sort as irrelevant to the highest goal (that is, to our salvation), how can
anyone affirm that it is obligatory to take sides on them, that one belief is required by faith, while the
other side is erroneous? Can an opinion be heretical and yet have no concern with the salvation of
souls? Can the Holy Ghost be asserted not to have intended teaching us something that does concern
our salvation? I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent
degree: "That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven. not how heaven
goes."

But let us again consider the degree to which necessary demonstrations and sense experiences ought
to be respected in physical conclusions, and the authority they have enjoyed at the hands of holy and
learned theologians. From among a hundred attestations I have selected the following:

And in St. Augustine we read:

"If' anyone shall set the authority of Holy Writ against clear and manifest reason, he who does this
knows not what he has undertaken; for he opposes to the truth not the meaning of the Bible, which is
beyond his comprehension, but rather his own interpretation, not what is in the Bible, but what he has
found in himself and imagines to be there."

This granted, and it being true that two truths cannot contradict one another, it is the function of
expositors to seek out the true senses of scriptural texts. These will unquestionably accord with the
physical conclusions which manifest sense and necessary demonstrations have previously made
certain to us. Now the Bible, as has been remarked, admits in many places expositions that are remote
from the signification of the words for reasons we have already given. Moreover, we are unable to
affirm that all interpreters of the Bible speak by Divine inspiration for if that were so there would
exist no differences among them about the sense of a given passage. Hence I should think it would be
the part of prudence not to permit anyone to usurp scriptural texts and force them in some way to
maintain any physical conclusion to be true, when at some future time the senses and demonstrative or
 35

necessary reasons may show the contrary. Who indeed will set bounds to human ingenuity? Who will
assert that everything in the universe capable of being perceived is already discovered and known?
Let us rather confess quite truly that "Those truths which we know are very few in comparison with
those which we do not know."

We have it from the very mouth of the Holy Ghost that God delivered up the world to disputations, so
that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end. In my
opinion no one, m contradiction to that dictum, should close the road to free philosophizing about
mundane and physical things, as if everything had already been discovered and revealed with
certainty. Nor should it be considered rash not to be satisfied with those opinions which have become
common. No one should be scorned in physical disputes for not holding to the opinions which happen
to please other people best, especially concerning problems which have been debated among the
greatest philosophers for thousands of years.

Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, ‘Religion’

I MEDITATED last night; I was absorbed in the contemplation of nature; I admired the immensity,
the course, the harmony of these infinite globes which the vulgar do not know how to admire.

I admired still more the intelligence which directs these vast forces. I said to myself : " One must be
blind not to be dazzled by this spectacle; one must be stupid not to recognize the author of it; one
must be mad not to worship Him. What tribute of worship should I render Him? Should not this
tribute be the same in the whole of space, since it is the same supreme power which reigns equally in
all space? Should not a thinking being who dwells in a star in the Milky Way offer Him the same
homage as the thinking being on this little globe where we are? Light is uniform for the star Sirius and
for us; moral philosophy must be uniform. If a sentient, thinking animal in Sirius is born of a tender
father and mother who have been occupied with his happiness, he owes them as much love and care
as we owe to our parents. If someone in the Milky Way sees a needy cripple, if he can relieve him and
if he does not do it, he is guilty toward all globes. Everywhere the heart has the same duties: on the
steps of the throne of God, if He has a throne; and in the depth of the abyss, if He is an abyss."

I was plunged in these ideas when one of those genii who fill the intermundane spaces came down to
me. I recognized this same aerial creature who had appeared to me on another occasion to teach me
how different God's judgments were from our own, and how a good action is preferable to a
controversy.

He transported me into a desert all covered with piled up bones; and between these heaps of dead men
there were walks of ever-green trees, and at the end of each walk a tall man of august mien, who
regarded these sad remains with pity.

" Alas! my archangel," said I, " where have you brought me? "

" To desolation," he answered.

" And who are these fine patriarchs whom I see sad and motionless at the end of these green walks?
they seem to be weeping over this countless crowd of dead."

" You shall know, poor human creature," answered the genius from the intermundane spaces; " but
first of all you must weep."

He began with the first pile. " These," he said, " are the twenty-three thousand Jews who danced
before a calf, with the twenty-four thousand who were killed while lying with Midianitish women.
The number of those massacred for such errors and offences amounts to nearly three hundred
thousand.
 36

" In the other walks are the bones of the Christians slaughtered by each other for metaphysical
disputes. They are divided into several heaps of four centuries each. One heap would have mounted
right to the sky; they had to be divided."

" What! " I cried, " brothers have treated their brothers like this, and I have the misfortune to be of this
brotherhood!"

" Here," said the spirit, " are the twelve million Americans killed in their fatherland because they had
not been baptized."

" My God! why did you not leave these frightful bones to dry in the hemisphere where their bodies
were born, and where they were consigned to so many different deaths? Why assemble here all these
abominable monuments to barbarism and fanaticism? "

" To instruct you."

" Since you wish to instruct me," I said to the genius, " tell me if there have been peoples other than
the Christians and the Jews in whom zeal and religion wretchedly transformed into fanaticism, have
inspired so many horrible cruelties."

" Yes," he said. " The Mohammedans were sullied with the same inhumanities, but rarely; and when
one asked amman, pity, of them, and offered them tribute, they pardoned. As for the other nations
there has not been one right from the existence of the world which has ever made a purely religious
war. Follow me now." I followed him.

A little beyond these piles of dead men we found other piles; they were composed of sacks of gold
and silver, and each had its label: Substance of the heretics massacred in the eighteenth century, the
seventeenth and the sixteenth. And so on in going back: Gold and silver of Americans slaughtered,
etc., etc. And all these piles were surmounted with crosses, mitres, croziers, triple crowns studded
with precious stones.

" What, my genius! it was then to have these riches that these dead were piled up? "

" Yes, my son."

I wept; and when by my grief I had merited to be led to the end of the green walks, he led me there.

" Contemplate," he said, " the heroes of humanity who were the world's benefactors, and who were all
united in banishing from the world, as far as they were able, violence and rapine. Question them."

I ran to the first of the band; he had a crown on his head, and a little censer in his hand; I humbly
asked him his name. " I am Numa Pompilius," he said to me. " I succeeded a brigand, and I had
brigands to govern: I taught them virtue and the worship of God; after me they forgot both more than
once; I forbade that in the temples there should be any image, because the Deity which animates
nature cannot be represented. During my reign the Romans had neither wars nor seditions, and my
religion did nothing but good. All the neighbouring peoples came to honour me at my funeral: that
happened to no one but me."

I kissed his hand, and I went to the second. He was a fine old man about a hundred years old, clad in a
white robe. He put his middle-finger on his mouth, and with the other hand he cast some beans behind
him. I recognized Pythagoras. He assured me he had never had a golden thigh, and that he had never
been a cock; but that he had governed the Crotoniates with as much justice as Numa governed the
Romans, almost at the same time; and that this justice was the rarest and most necessary thing in the
 37

world. I learned that the Pythagoreans examined their consciences twice a day. The honest people!
how far we are from them! But we who have been nothing but assassins for thirteen hundred years,
we say that these wise men were arrogant.

In order to please Pythagoras, I did not say a word to him and I passed to Zarathustra, who was
occupied in concentrating the celestial fire in the focus of a concave mirror, in the middle of a hall
with a hundred doors which all led to wisdom. (Zarathustra's precepts are called doors, and are a
hundred in number.) Over the principal door I read these words which are the precis of all moral
philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the causistsa: "When in doubt if an action is good
or bad, refrain."

" Certainly," I said to my genius, "the barbarians who immolated all these victims had never read
these beautiful words."

We then saw the Zaleucus, the Thales, the Aniximanders, and all the sages who had sought truth and
practised virtue.

When we came to Socrates, I recognized him very quickly by his flat nose. " Well," I said to him, "
here you are then among the number of the Almighty's confidants! All the inhabitants of Europe,
except the Turks and the Tartars of the Crimea, who know nothing, pronounce your name with
respect. It is revered, loved, this great name, to the point that people have wanted to know those of
your persecutors. Melitus and Anitus are known because of you, just as Ravaillac is known because of
Henry IV.; but I know only this name of Anitus. I do not know precisely who was the scoundrel who
calumniated you, and who succeeded in having you condemned to take hemlock."

"Since my adventure," replied Socrates, " I have never thought about that man; but seeing that you
make me remember it, I have much pity for him. He was a wicked priest who secretly conducted a
business in hides, a trade reputed shameful among us. He sent his two children to my school. The
other discipfes taunted them with having a father who was a currier; they were obliged to leave. The
irritated father had no rest until he had stirred up all the priests and all the sophists against me. They
persuaded the counsel of the five hundred that I was an impious fellow who did not believe that the
Moon, Mercury and Mars were gods. Indeed, I used to think, as I think now that there is only one
God, master of all nature. The judges handed me over to the poisoner of the republic; he cut short my
life by a few days: I died peacefully at the age of seventy; and since that time I pass a happy life withh
all these great men whom you see, and of whom I am the least."

After enjoying some time in conversation with Socrates, Ih went forward with my guide into a grove
situated above the thickets where all the sages of antiquity seemed to be tasting sweet repose.

I saw a man of gentle, simple countenance, who seemed to me to be about thirty-five years old. From
afar he cast compassionate glances on these piles of whitened bones, across which I had had to pass to
reach the sages' abode. I was astonished to find his feet swollen and bleeding, his hands likewise, his
side pierced, and his ribs flayed with whip cuts. " Good Heavens! " I said to him, " is it possible for a
just man, a sage, to be in this state? I have just seen one who was treated in a very hateful way, but
there is no comparison between his torture and yours. Wicked priests and wicked judges poisoned
him; is it by priests anhd judges that you have been so cruelly assassinated? "

He answered with much courtesy--"Yes."

"And who were these monsters? "

"They were hypocrites."

 38

"Ah! that says everything; I understand by this single word that they must have condemned you to
death. Had you then proved to them, as Socrates did, that the Moon was not a goddess, and that
Mercury was not a god? "

"No, these planets were not in question. My compatriots did not know at all what a planet is; they
were all arrant ignoramuses. Their superstitions were quite different from those of the Greeks."

"You wanted to teach them a new religion, then? "

"Not at all; I said to them simply--' Love God with all your heart and your fellow-creature as yourself,
for that is man's whole duty.' Judge if this precept is not as old as the universe; judge if I brought
them a new religion. I did not stop telling them that I had come not to destroy the law bitt to fulfil it; I
had observed all their rites; circumcised as they all were, baptized as were the most zealous among
them, like them I paid the Corban; I observed the Passover as they did, eating standing up a lahmb
cooked with lettuces. I and my friends went to pray in the temple; my friends even frequented this
temple after my death; in a word, I fulfilled all their laws without a single exception."

"What! these wretches could not even reproach you with swerving from their laws? "

"No, without a doubt."

"Why then did they put you in the condition in which I now see you? "

"What do you expect me to say! they were very arrogant and selfish. They saw that I knew them; they
knew that I was making the citizens acquainted with them; they were the stronger; they took away my
life: and people like them will always do as much, if they can, to whoever does them too much justice.''

" But did you say nothing, do nothing that could serve them as a pretext? "

"To the wicked everything serves as pretext."

" Did you not say once that you were come not to send peace, but a sword? "

"It is a copyist's error; I told them that I sent peace and not a sword. I have never written anything;
what I said can have been changed without evil intention."

" You therefore contributed in no way by your speeches, badly reported, badly interpreted, to these
frightful piles of bones which I saw on my road in coming to consult you? "

"It is with horror only that I have seen those who have made themselves guilty oj these murders."

" And these monuments of power and wealth, of pride and avarice, these treasures, these ornaments,
these signs of grandeur, which I have seen piled up on the road while I was seeking wisdom, do they
come from you? "

"That is impossible; I and my people lived in poverty and meanness: my grandeur was in virtue only."

I was about to beg him to be so good as to tell me just who he was. My guide warned me to do
nothing of the sort. h lie told me that I was not made to understand these sublime mysteries. Only did
I conjure him to tell me in what true religion consisted. "Have I not already told you? Love God and
your fellow-creature as yourself."

" What! if one loves God, one can eat meat on Friday? "
 39

"I always ate what was given me; for I was too poor to give anyone food."

" In loving God, in being just, should one not be rather cautious not to confide all the adventures of
one's life to an unknown man?"

"That was always my practice."

" Can I not, by doing good, dispense with making a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella? "

"I have never been in that country."

" Is it necessary for me to imprison myself in a retreat with fools? "

"As for me, I always made little journeys from town to town.''

" Is it necessary for me to take sides either for the Greek Church or the Latin? "

"When I was in the world I never made any difference between the Jew and the Samaritan."

"Well, if that is so, I take you for my only master." Then he made me a sign with his head which filled
me with consolation. The vision disappeared, and a clear conscience stayed with me.

Concordet, The Future Progress of the Human Mind

No one has ever believed that the human mind could exhaust all the facts of nature, all the refinements
of measuring and analyzing these facts, the inter relationship of objects, and all the possible
combinations of ideas.... But because, as the number of facts known increases, man learns to classify
them, to reduce them to more general terms; because the instruments and the methods of observation
and exact measurement are at the same time reaching a new precision; . . . the truths whose discovery
has cost the most effort, which at first could be grasped only by men capable of profound thought, are
soon carried further and proved by methods that are no longer beyond the reach of ordinary
intelligence. If the methods that lead to new combinations are exhausted, if their application to
problems not yet solved requires labors that exceed the time or the capacity of scholars, soon more
general methods, simpler means, come to open a new avenue for genius....
...
Applying these general reflections to the different sciences, we shall give, for each, examples of their
successive improvement that will leave no doubt as to the certainty of the future improvements we
can expect. We shall indicate particularly the most likely and most imminent progress in those
sciences that are now commonly believed to be almost exhausted. We shall point out how more
universal education in each country, by giving more people the elementary knowledge that can inspire
them with a taste for more advanced study and give them the capacity for making progress in it, can
add to such hopes; how [these hopes] increase even more, if a more general prosperity permits a
greater number of individuals to pursue studies, since at present, in the most enlightened countries,
hardly a fiftieth part of those men to whom nature has given talent receive the education necessary to
make use of their talents; and that, therefore, the number of men destined to push back the frontiers of
the sciences by their discoveries will grow in the same proportion [as universal education increases].
We shall show how this equality of education, and the equality that will arise between nations, will
speed up the advances of those sciences whose progress depends on observations repeated in greater
number over a larger area; all that mineralogy, botany, zoology, meteorology can be expected to gain
thereby; and finally what an enormous disproportion exists, in these sciences, between the weakness
of the means that nevertheless have led us to so many useful and important truths, and the great scope
of the means men will in the future be able to deploy.
...
 40

If we now turn to the mechanical arts, we shall see that their progress can have no other limit than the
reach of the scientific theories on which they depend; that the methods of these arts are capable of the
same improvement, the same simplifications as methods in the sciences. Instruments, machines,
looms will increasingly supplement the strength and skill of men; will augment at the same time the
perfection and the precision of manufactures by lessening both the time and the labor needed to
produce them. Then the obstacles that still impede this progress will disappear, and along with them
accidents that will become preventable and unhealthy conditions in general, whether owing to work,
or habits, or climate. Then a smaller and smaller area of land will be able to produce commodities of
greater use or higher value; wider enjoyment will be obtained with less outlay; the same
manufacturing output will call for less expenditure of raw materials or will be more durable. For each
kind of soil people will know how to choose, from among crops that satisfy the same kind of need,
those crops that are most versatile, those that satisfy [the needs on a greater mass of users, requiring
less labor and less real consumption. Thus, without any sacrifice, the methods of conservation and of
economy in consumption will follow the progress of the art of producing the various commodities,
preparing them and turning them into manufactures. ` Thus not only will the same amount of land be
able to feed more people; but each of them, with less labor, will be employed more productively and
will be able to satisfy his needs better.
...
But in this progress of industry and prosperity . . . each generation . . . is destined to fuller enjoyment;
and hence, as a consequence of the physical constitution of the human species, to an increase of the
population. Will there not come a time when . . . the increase in population surpassing its means of
subsistence, the result would necessarily be-if not a continuous decline in wellbeing and number of
people, a truly retrograde movement-at least a kind of oscillation between good and bad? Would not
such oscillations in societies that have reached this point be an everpresent cause of more or less
periodic suffering? Would this not mark the limit beyond which all improvement would become
impossible. . . ? No one will fail to see how far removed from us this time is; but will we reach it one
day? It is impossible to speak for or against an event that will occur only at a time when the human
species will necessarily have acquired knowledge that we cannot even imagine. And who, in fact,
would dare to predict what the art of converting the elements to our use may one day become? But
supposing a limit were reached, nothing terrible would happen, regarding either the happiness or the
indefinite perfectibility of mankind. We must also suppose that before that time, the progress of
reason will have gone hand in hand with progress in the arts and sciences; that the ridiculous
prejudices of superstition will no longer cover morality with an austerity that corrupts and degrades it
instead of purifying and elevating it. Men will know then that if they have obligations to beings who
do not yet exist, these obligations do not consist in giving life, but in giving happiness. Their object is
the general welfare of the human species, of the society in which people live, of the family to which
they belong and not the puerile idea of filling the earth with useless and unhappy beings. The possible
quantity of the means of subsistence could therefore have a limit, and consequently so could the
attainable level of population, without resulting in the destruction . . . of part of the living. Among the
progress of the human mind that is most important for human happiness, we must count the entire
destruction of the prejudices that have established inequality between the sexes, fatal even to the sex it
favors. One would look in vain for reasons to justify it, by differences in physical constitution,
intelligence, moral sensibility. This inequality has no other source but the abuse of power, and men
have tried in vain to excuse it by sophisms. We shall show how much the destruction of customs
authorized by this prejudice, of the laws it has dictated, can contribute to the greater happiness of
families, and to the spread of the domestic virtues, the first foundation of all other virtues. It will
promote the progress of education, because [education] will be extended to both sexes more equally,
and because education cannot become general, even among men, without the cooperation of mothers.
...
All these causes of the improvement of the human species, all these means that assure it, will
by their nature act continuously and acquire a constantly growing momentum. We have
explained the proofs of this . . .; we could therefore already conclude that the perfectibility of
man is unlimited, even though, up to now, we have only supposed him endowed with the same
natural faculties and organization. What then would be the certainty and extent of our hopes if
 41

we could believe that these natural faculties themselves and this organization are also
susceptible of improvement? This is the last question remaining for us to examine. The
organic perfectibility or degeneration of races in plants and animals may be regarded as one of
the general laws of nature. This law extends to the human species; and certainly no one will
doubt that progress in medical conservation [of life], in the use of healthier food and housing,
a way of living that would develop strength through exercise without impairing it by excess,
and finally the destruction of the two most active causes of degradation-misery and too great
wealth-will prolong the extent of life and assure people more constant health as well as a more
robust constitution. We feel that the progress of preventive medicine as a preservative, made
more effective by the progress of reason and social order, will eventually banish
communicable or contagious illnesses and those diseases in general that originate in climate,
food, and the nature of work. It would not be difficult to prove that this hope should extend to
almost all other diseases, whose more remote causes will eventually be recognized. Would it
be absurd now to suppose that the improvement of the human race should be regarded as
capable of unlimited progress? That a time will come when death would result only from
extraordinary accidents or the more and more gradual wearing out of vitality, and that, finally,
the duration of the average interval between birth and wearing out has itself no specific limit
whatsoever? No doubt man will not become immortal, but cannot the span constantly increase
between the moment he begins to live and the time when naturally, without illness or accident,
he finds life a burden?
Study Questions:
(1) What relationship does Galileo see between faith and science?
(2) Does he see this relationship changing or not? Why?
(3) Who are his enemies? Why does he say they want to destroy him?
(4) Which character is Voltaire’s guide?
(5) What does he show Voltaire and why?
(6) Who are the different religious leaders Voltaire meets? What is common about the
messages they give him?
(7) What role does Voltaire think religion should play in society?
(8) Is Voltaire opposed to religion? If yes in what way? If not why not?
(9) What is the foundation for Concordet’s confidence that humans are progressing?
(10) What does he think the benefits will be of this progress?
(11) What are the threats to this progress? Does Concordet think it will ever end?
 42

The French Revolution

Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)
AT first men had no kings save the gods, and no government save theocracy. They reasoned like
Caligula, and, at that period, reasoned aright. It takes a long time for feeling so to change that men can
make up their minds to take their equals as masters, in the hope that they will profit by doings so.

From the mere fact that God was set over every political society, it followed that there were as many
gods as peoples. Two peoples that were strangers the one to the other, and almost always enemies,
could not long recognise the same master: two armies giving battle could not obey the same leader.
National divisions thus led to polytheism, and this in turn gave rise to theological and civil
intolerance, which, as we shall see hereafter, are by nature the same.

The fancy the Greeks had for rediscovering their gods among the barbarians arose from the way they
had of regarding themselves as the natural Sovereigns of such peoples. But there is nothing so absurd
as the erudition which in our days identifies and confuses gods of different nations. As if Moloch,
Saturn and Chronos could be the same god! As if the Phœnician Baal, the Greek Zeus, and the Latin
Jupiter could be the same! As if there could still be anything common to imaginary beings with
different names!If it is asked how in pagan times, where each State had its cult and its gods, there
were no wars of religion, I answer that it was precisely because each State, having its own cult as well
as its own government, made no distinction between its gods and its laws. Political war was also
theological; the provinces of the gods were, so to speak, fixed by the boundaries of nations. The god
of one people had no right over another.

The gods of the pagans were not jealous gods; they shared among themselves the empire of the world:
even Moses and the Hebrews sometimes lent themselves to this view by speaking of the God of Israel.
It is true, they regarded as powerless the gods of the Canaanites, a proscribed people condemned to
destruction, whose place they were to take; but remember how they spoke of the divisions of the
neighbouring peoples they were forbidden to attack! “Is not the possession of what belongs to your
god Chamos lawfully your due?” said Jephthah to the Ammonites. “We have the same title to the
lands our conquering God has made his own.” Here, I think, there is a recognition that the rights of
Chamos and those of the God of Israel are of the same nature.

But when the Jews, being subject to the kings of Babylon, and, subsequently, to those of Syria, still
obstinately refused to recognise any god save their own, their refusal was regarded as rebellion
against their conqueror, and drew down on them the persecutions we read of in their history, which
are without parallel till the coming of Christianity. Every religion, therefore, being attached solely to
the laws of the State which prescribed it, there was no way of converting a people except by enslaving
it, and there could be no missionaries save conquerors. The obligation to change cults being the law to
which the vanquished yielded, it was necessary to be victorious before suggesting such a change. So
far from men fighting for the gods, the gods, as in Homer, fought for men; each asked his god for
victory, and repayed him with new altars.

The Romans, before taking a city, summoned its gods to quit it; and, in leaving the Tarentines their
outraged gods, they regarded them as subject to their own and compelled to do them homage. They
left the vanquished their gods as they left them their laws. A wreath to the Jupiter of the Capitol was
often the only tribute they imposed. Finally, when, along with their empire, the Romans had spread
their cult and their gods, and had themselves often adopted those of the vanquished, by granting to
both alike the rights of the city, the peoples of that vast empire insensibly found themselves with
multitudes of gods and cults, everywhere almost the same; and thus paganism throughout the known
world finally came to be one and the same religion.

It was in these circumstances that Jesus came to set up on earth a spiritual kingdom, which, by
separating the theological from the political system, made the State no longer one, and brought about
the internal divisions which have never ceased to trouble Christian peoples. As the new idea of a
 43

kingdom of the other world could never have occurred to pagans, they always looked on the
Christians as really rebels, who, while feigning to submit, were only waiting for the chance to make
themselves independent and their masters, and to usurp by guile the authority they pretended in their
weakness to respect. This was the cause of the persecutions.

What the pagans had feared took place. Then everything changed its aspect: the humble Christians
changed their language, and soon this so-called kingdom of the other world turned, under a visible
leader, into the most violent of earthly despotisms. However, as there have always been a prince and
civil laws, this double power and conflict of jurisdiction have made all good polity impossible in
Christian States; and men have never succeeded in finding out whether they were bound to obey the
master or the priest.

Among us, the Kings of England have made themselves heads of the Church, and the Czars have done
the same: but this title has made them less its masters than its ministers; they have gained not so much
the right to change it, as the power to maintain it: they are not its legislators, but only its princes.
Wherever the clergy is a corporate body, it is master and legislator in its own country. There are thus
two powers, two Sovereigns, in England and in Russia, as well as elsewhere. Of all Christian writers,
the philosopher Hobbes alone has seen the evil and how to remedy it, and has dared to propose the
reunion of the two heads of the eagle, and the restoration throughout of political unity, without which
no State or government will ever be rightly constituted. But he should have seen that the masterful
spirit of Christianity is incompatible with his system, and that the priestly interest would always be
stronger than that of the State. It is not so much what is false and terrible in his political theory, as
what is just and true, that has drawn down hatred on it.

I believe that if the study of history were developed from this point of view, it would be easy to refute
the contrary opinions of Bayle and Warburton, one of whom holds that religion can be of no use to the
body politic, while the other, on the contrary, maintains that Christianity is its strongest support. We
should demonstrate to the former that no State has ever been founded without a religious basis, and to
the latter, that the law of Christianity at bottom does more harm by weakening than good by
strengthening the constitution of the State.

To make myself understood, I have only to make a little more exact the too vague ideas of religion as
relating to this subject. Religion, considered in relation to society, which is either general or
particular, may also be divided into two kinds: the religion of man, and that of the citizen. The first,
which has neither temples, nor altars, nor rites, and is confined to the purely internal cult of the
supreme God and the eternal obligations of morality, is the religion of the Gospel pure and simple, the
true theism, what may be called natural divine right or law. The other, which is codified in a single
country, gives it its gods, its own tutelary patrons; it has its dogmas, its rites, and its external cult
prescribed by law; outside the single nation that follows it, all the world is in its sight infidel, foreign
and barbarous; the duties and rights of man extend for it only as far as its own altars. Of this kind
were all the religions of early peoples, which we may define as civil or positive divine right or law.

There is a third sort of religion of a more singular kind, which gives men two codes of legislation, two
rulers, and two countries, renders them subject to contradictory duties, and makes it impossible for
them to be faithful both to religion and to citizenship. Such are the religions of the Lamas and of the
Japanese, and such is Roman Christianity, which may be called the religion of the priest. It leads to a
sort of mixed and anti-social code which has no name.

In their political aspect, all these three kinds of religion have their defects. The third is so clearly bad,
that it is waste of time to stop to prove it such. All that destroys social unity is worthless; all
institutions that set man in contradiction to himself are worthless. The second is good in that it unites
the divine cult with love of the laws, and, making country the object of the citizens’ adoration, teaches
them that service done to the State is service done to its tutelary god. It is a form of theocracy, in
which there can be no pontiff save the prince, and no priests save the magistrates. To die for one’s
 44

country then becomes martyrdom; violation of its laws, impiety; and to subject one who is guilty to
public execration is to condemn him to the anger of the gods: Sacer estod.

On the other hand, it is bad in that, being founded on lies and error, it deceives men, makes them
credulous and superstitious, and drowns the true cult of the Divinity in empty ceremonial. It is bad,
again, when it becomes tyrannous and exclusive, and makes a people bloodthirsty and intolerant, so
that it breathes fire and slaughter, and regards as a sacred act the killing of every one who does not
believe in its gods. The result is to place such a people in a natural state of war with all others, so that
its security is deeply endangered.

There remains therefore the religion of man or Christianity—not the Christianity of to-day, but that of
the Gospel, which is entirely different. By means of this holy, sublime, and real religion all men,
being children of one God, recognise one another as brothers, and the society that unites them is not
dissolved even at death. But this religion, having no particular relation to the body politic, leaves the
laws in possession of the force they have in themselves without making any addition to it; and thus
one of the great bonds that unite society considered in severalty fails to operate. Nay, more, so far
from binding the hearts of the citizens to the State, it has the effect of taking them away from all
earthly things.

I know of nothing more contrary to the social spirit. We are told that a people of true Christians would
form the most perfect society imaginable. I see in this supposition only one great difficulty: that a
society of true Christians would not be a society of men.

I say further that such a society, with all its perfection, would be neither the strongest nor the most
lasting: the very fact that it was perfect would rob it of its bond of union; the flaw that would destroy
it would lie in its very perfection.

Every one would do his duty; the people would be law-abiding, the rulers just and temperate; the
magistrates upright and incorruptible; the soldiers would scorn death; there would be neither vanity
nor luxury. So far, so good; but let us hear more. Christianity as a religion is entirely spiritual,
occupied solely with heavenly things; the country of the Christian is not of this world. He does his
duty, indeed, but does it with profound indifference to the good or ill success of his cares. Provided he
has nothing to reproach himself with, it matters little to him whether things go well or ill here on
earth. If the State is prosperous, he hardly dares to share in the public happiness, for fear he may grow
proud of his country’s glory; if the State is languishing, he blesses the hand of God that is hard upon
His people.

For the State to be peaceable and for harmony to be maintained, all the citizens without exception
would have to be good Christians; if by ill hap there should be a single self-seeker or hypocrite, a
Catiline or a Cromwell, for instance, he would certainly get the better of his pious compatriots.
Christian charity does not readily allow a man to think hardly of his neighbours. As soon as, by some
trick, he has discovered the art of imposing on them and getting hold of a share in the public authority,
you have a man established in dignity; it is the will of God that he be respected: very soon you have a
power; it is God’s will that it be obeyed: and if the power is abused by him who wields it, it is the
scourge wherewith God punishes His children. There would be scruples about driving out the usurper:
public tranquillity would have to be disturbed, violence would have to be employed, and blood spilt;
all this accords ill with Christian meekness; and after all, in this vale of sorrows, what does it matter
whether we are free men or serfs?

The essential thing is to get to heaven, and resignation is only an additional means of doing so. If war
breaks out with another State, the citizens march readily out to battle; not one of them thinks of flight;
they do their duty, but they have no passion for victory; they know better how to die than how to
conquer. What does it matter whether they win or lose? Does not Providence know better than they
what is meet for them? Only think to what account a proud, impetuous and passionate enemy could
turn their stoicism! Set over against them those generous peoples who were devoured by ardent love
 45

of glory and of their country, imagine your Christian republic face to face with Sparta or Rome: the
pious Christians will be beaten, crushed and destroyed, before they know where they are, or will owe
their safety only to the contempt their enemy will conceive for them. It was to my mind a fine oath
that was taken by the soldiers of Fabius, who swore, not to conquer or die, but to come back
victorious—and kept their oath. Christians would never have taken such an oath; they would have
looked on it as tempting God.

But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity
preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favourable to tyranny that it always profits by
such a régime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind: this
short life counts for too little in their eyes. I shall be told that Christian troops are excellent. I deny it.
Show me an instance. For my part, I know of no Christian troops. I shall be told of the Crusades.
Without disputing the valour of the Crusaders, I answer that, so far from being Christians, they were
the priests’ soldiery, citizens of the Church. They fought for their spiritual country, which the Church
had, somehow or other, made temporal. Well understood, this goes back to paganism: as the Gospel
sets up no national religion, a holy war is impossible among Christians.

Under the pagan emperors, the Christian soldiers were brave; every Christian writer affirms it, and I
believe it: it was a case of honourable emulation of the pagan troops. As soon as the emperors were
Christian, this emulation no longer existed, and, when the Cross had driven out the eagle, Roman
valour wholly disappeared. But, setting aside political considerations, let us come back to what is
right, and settle our principles on this important point.

The right which the social compact gives the Sovereign over the subjects does not, we have seen,
exceed the limits of public expediency. The subjects then owe the Sovereign an account of their
opinions only to such an extent as they matter to the community. Now, it matters very much to the
community that each citizen should have a religion. That will make him love his duty; but the dogmas
of that religion concern the State and its members only so far as they have reference to morality and to
the duties which he who professes them is bound to do to others.

Each man may have, over and above, what opinions he pleases, without it being the Sovereign’s
business to take cognisance of them; for, as the Sovereign has no authority in the other world,
whatever the lot of its subjects may be in the life to come, that is not its business, provided they are
good citizens in this life. There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign
should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man
cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject. While it can compel no one to believe them, it can
banish from the State whoever does not believe them—it can banish him, not for impiety, but as an
anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to
his duty.

If any one, after publicly recognising these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe them, let him be
punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the law. The dogmas
of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary.
The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence,
the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social
contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas.

Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected. Those
who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken. The two forms are
inseparable. It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be
to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them. Wherever
theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has
such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforth priests
are the real masters, and kings only their ministers. Now that there is and can be no longer an
exclusive national religion, tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as
 46

their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship. But whoever dares to say: Outside
the Church is no salvation, ought to be driven from the State, unless the State is the Church, and the
prince the pontiff. Such a dogma is good only in a theocratic government; in any other, it is fatal. The
reason for which Henry IV is said to have embraced the Roman religion ought to make every honest
man leave it, and still more any prince who knows how to reason.

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1791)

Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of the people: because their power has no other
rational end than that of the genera] advantage; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary sense,
(by our constitution at least), anything like servants; the essence of whose situation is to obey the
commands oi some other, and to be removable al pleasure. But the king of Great Britain obeys no
other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a
legal obedience. The law which knows neither to Ratter no to insult, calls this high magistrate not our
servant, as this humble divine calls him, but "our sovereign Lord the king"; and we, on our parts have
learned to speak only the primitive language of the law, and not the confused jargon of their
Babylonian pulpits.

As he is not to obey us, but as we are to obey the law in him, Our constitution has made no sort of
provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible Our constitution knows
nothing of a magistrate like the Justicia of Aragon; nor of any court legally appointed, nor of any
process legally settled, for submitting the king to the responsibility belonging to all servants. In this he
is not distinguished from the Commons and the Lords; who, in their several public capacities, can
never be called to an account of their conduct; although the Revolution Society chooses to assert in
direct opposition to one ol the wisest and most beautiful parts of our constitution, that "a king is no
more than the first servant of the public, created by it, and responsible to it."

Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution [of 1688-Ed.] have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they
had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and
precarious in its tenure; if they had been able to contrive no better remedy against arbitrary power
than civil confusion. Let these gentlemen state who that representative public is to whom they will
affirm the king, as a servant, to be responsible. It will be then time enough for me to produce to them
the positive statute law which affirms that he is not.

The ceremony of cashiering kings of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if
ever, be performed without force It then becomes a case of war, and not of constitution. Laws are
commanded to hold their tongues amongst arms; and tribunals fall to the ground with the peace they
are no longer able to uphold. The Revolution of 1688 was obtained by a just war, in the only case in
which any war, and much more a civil war, can be just. "Justa bella quibus necessaria. The question
of dethroning, or, if these gentlemen like the phrase better "cashiering kings," will always be, as it has
always been, an extraordinary question of state, and wholly out of the law; a question (like all other
questions of state) of dispositions, and of means, and of probable consequences, rather than of
positive rights. As it was not made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by common minds.
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end, and resistance must begin, is
faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single act, or a single event, which determines it.
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of
the future must be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in that lamentable condition,
the nature of the disease is to indicate the remedy to those whom nature has qualified to administer in
extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter | potion to a distempered state. Times, and occasions, and
provocations, will teach their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the
irritable, from sensibility to oppression; the highminded, from disdain and indignation at abusive
power in unworthy hands; the brave and bold, from the love of honourable danger in a generous
cause; but, with or without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the
good.
 47

The third head of right, asserted by the pulpit of the Old Jewry, namely, the "right to form a
government for ourselves," has, at least, as little countenance from anything done at the Revolution
[of 1688- Ed.], either in precedent or principle, as the two first of their claims. The Revolution was
made to preserve our ancient, indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of
government which is our only security for law and liberty. If you are desirous of knowing the spirit of
our constitution, and the policy which predominated in that great period which has secured it to this
hour, pray look for both in our histories, in our records, in our acts of parliament, and journals of
parliament, and not in the sermons of the Old Jewry, and the after dinner toasts of the Revolution
Society. In the former you will find other ideas and another language. Such a claim is as ill-suited to
our temper and wishes as it is unsupported by an appearance of authority. The very idea of the
fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror. We wished at the period
of the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers.
Upon that body and stock of inheritance we have taken care not to inoculate any scion alien to the
nature of the original plant. All the reformations we have hitherto made have proceeded upon the
principle of reverence to antiquity: and I hope, nay I am persuaded, that all those which possibly may
be made hereafter, will be carefully formed upon analogical precedent, authority, and example.
Our oldest reformation is that of Magna Charta. You will see that Sir Edward Coke, that great oracle
of our law, and indeed all the great men who follow him, to Blackstone, are industrious to prove the
pedigree of our liberties. They endeavour to prove, that the ancient charter, the Magna Charta of King
John, was connected with another positive charter from Henry 1, and that both the one and the other
were nothing more than a reaffirmance of the still more ancient standing law of the kingdom. In the
matter of fact, for the greater part, these authors appear to be in the right; perhaps not always; but if
the lawyers mistake in some particulars, it proves my position still the more strongly; because it
demonstrates the powerful prepossession towards antiquity, with which the minds of all our lawyers
and legislators, and of all the people whom they wish to influence, have been always filled; and the
stationary policy of this kingdom in considering their most sacred rights and franchises as an
inheritance.

In the famous law of the 3rd of Charles I, called the Petition of Right, the parliament says to the king,
"Your subjects have inherited this freedom," claiming their franchises not on abstract principles "as
the rights of men," but as the rights of Englishmen, and as a patrimony derived from their forefathers.
Selden, and the other profoundly learned men, who drew this Petition of Right, were as well
acquainted, at least, with all the general theories concerning the "rights of men," as any of the
discourses in our pulpits, or on your tribune, full as well as Dr. Price, or as the Abbé Siéyès. But, for
reasons worthy of that practical wisdom which superseded their theoretic science, they preferred this
positive, recorded, hereditary title to all which can be dear to the man and the citizen, to that vague
speculative right, which exposed their sure inheritance to be scrambled for and torn to pieces by every
wild, litigious spirit.

The same policy pervades all the laws which have since been made for the preservation of our
liberties. In the 1st of William and Mary, in the famous statute, called the Declaration of Right, the
two Houses utter not a syllable of "a right to frame a government for themselves." You will see, that
their whole care was to secure the religion, laws, and liberties that had been long possessed, and had
been lately endangered. "Taking into their most serious consideration the best means for making such
an establishment, that their religion, laws, and liberties might not be in danger of being again
subverted," they auspicate all their proceedings, by stating as some of those best means, "in the first
place" to do "as their ancestors in like cases have usually done for vindicating their ancient rights and
liberties, to declare";-and then they pray the king and queen, "that it may be declared and enacted,
that all and singular the rights and liberties asserted and declared, are the true ancient and
indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this kingdom.

You will observe that from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy
of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our
forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this
kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means our
 48

constitution preserves a unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inheritable crown; an
inheritable peerage; and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and
liberties, from a long line of ancestors.
This policy appears to me to be the result of profound reflection; or rather the happy effect of
following nature, which is wisdom without reflection, and above it. A spirit of innovation is generally
the result of a selfish temper, and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who
never look backward to their ancestors. Besides, the people of England well know, that the idea of
inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission; without at
all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires.
Whatever advantages are obtained by a state proceeding on these maxims, are locked fast as in a sort
of family settlement; grasped as in a kind of mortmain forever. By a constitutional policy, working
after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the
same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy,
the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course
and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the
world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts;
wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious
incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but,
in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall,
renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in
what we improve, we are never wholly new; in what we retain, we are never wholly obsolete. By
adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided not by the
superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy. In this choice of inheritance we
have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our
country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family
affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually
reflected charities, our state, our hearts, our sepulchres, and our altars.
Through the same plan of a conformity to nature in our artificial institutions, and by calling in the aid
of her unerring and powerful instincts to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason, we
have derived several others, and those no small benefits, from considering our liberties in the light of
an inheritance. Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom,
leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity. This idea of a liberal
descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence
almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction. By
this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom. It carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a
pedigree and illustrating ancestors. It has its bearings and its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery of
portraits; its monumental inscriptions; its records, evidences, and titles. We procure reverence to our
civil institutions on the principle upon which nature teaches us to revere individual men; on account
of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended. All your sophisters cannot
produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we
have pursued, who have chosen our nature, rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our
inventions, for the great conservatories and magazines of our rights and privileges.

You [in France-Ed.] might, if you pleased, have profited of our example, and have given to your
recovered freedom a correspondent dignity. Your privileges, though discontinued, were not lost to
memory. Your constitution, it is true, whilst you were out of possession, suffered waste and
dilapidation; but you possessed in some parts the walls, and, in all, the foundations, of a noble and
venerable castle. You might have repaired those walls;

you might have built on those old foundations. Your constitution was suspended before it was
perfected; but you had the elements of a constitution very nearly as good as could be wished. In your
old states you possessed that variety of parts corresponding with the various descriptions of which
your community was happily composed; you had all that combination, and all that opposition of
 49

interests, you had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from
the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe. These opposed
and conflicting interests, which you considered as so great a blemish in your old and in our present
constitution, interpose a salutary check to all precipitate resolutions. They render deliberation a matter
not of choice, but of necessity; they make all change a subject of compromise, which naturally begets
moderation; they produce temperaments preventing the sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified
reformations; and rendering all the headlong exertions of arbitrary power, in the few or in the many,
for ever impracticable. Through that diversity of members and interests, general liberty had as many
securities as there were separate views in the several orders; whilst by pressing down the whole by the
weight of a real monarchy, the separate parts would have been prevented from warping, and starting
from their allotted places.
You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been
moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew. You began ill, because you began by
despising everything that belonged to you. You set up your trade without a capital. If the last
generations of your country appeared without much lustre in your eyes, you might have passed them
by, and derived your claims from a more early race of ancestors. Under a pious predilection for those
ancestors your imaginations would have realized in them a standard of virtue and wisdom, beyond the
vulgar practice of the hour: and you would have risen with the example to whose imitation you
aspired. Respecting your forefathers, you would have been taught to respect yourselves You would
not have chosen to consider the French as a people of yesterday, as a nation of lowborn servile
wretches until the emancipating year of 1789. In order to furnish, at the expense of your honour, an
excuse to your apologists here for several enormities of yours, you would not have been content to be
represented as a gang of Maroon slaves, suddenly broke loose from the house of bondage, and
therefore to be pardoned for your abuse of the liberty to which you were not accustomed, and ill
fitted. Would it not, my worthy friend, have been wiser to have you thought, what I, for one, always
thought you, a generous and gallant nation, long misled to your disadvantage by your high and
romantic sentiments of fidelity, honour, and loyalty; that events had been unfavourable to you, but
that you were not enslaved through any illiberal or servile disposition; in your most devoted
submission, you were actuated by a principle of public spirit, and that it was your Country you
worshipped, in the person of your king? Had you made it to be understood, that in the delusion of this
amiable error you had gone further than your wise ancestors; that you were resolved to resume your
ancient privileges, whilst you preserved the spirit of your ancient and your recent loyalty and honour;
or if, diffident of yourselves, and not clearly discerning the almost obliterated constitution of your
ancestors, you had looked to your neighbours in this land, who had kept alive the ancient principles
and models of the old common law of Europe meliorated and adapted to its present state-by following
wise examples you would have given new examples of wisdom to the world. You would have
rendered the cause of liberty venerable in the eyes of every worthy mind in every nation. You would
have shamed despotism from the earth, by showing that freedom was not only reconcilable, but, as
when well-disciplined it is, auxiliary to law. You would have an unoppressive but a productive
revenue. You would have had a flourishing commerce to feed it. You would have had a free
constitution; a potent monarchy; a disciplined army; a reformed and venerated clergy; a mitigated but
spirited nobility, to lead your virtue, not to overlay it; you would have had a liberal order of commons,
to emulate and to recruit that nobility; you would have had a protected, satisfied, laborious, and
obedient people, taught to seek and to recognise the happiness that is to be found by virtue in all
conditions; in which consists the true moral equality of mankind, and not in that monstrous fiction,
which, by inspiring false ideas and vain expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk
of laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real inequality, which it never can remove;
and which the order of civil life establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it must leave in an
humble state, as those whom it is able to exalt to a condition more splendid, but not more happy. You
had a smooth and easy career of felicity and glory laid open to you beyond anything recorded in the
history of the world; but you have shown that difficulty is good for men.
Compute your gains: see what is got by those extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have
taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors, and all their contemporaries, and even to despise
 50

themselves, until the moment in which they became truly despicable. By following those false lights,
France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most
unequivocal blessings! France has bought poverty by crime! France has not sacrificed her virtue to her
interest, but she has abandoned her interest, that she might prostitute her virtue. All other nations have
begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally, or by
enforcing with greater exactness some rites or other of religion. All other people have laid the
foundations of civil freedom in severer manners, and a system of a more austere and masculine
morality. France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the license of a ferocious
dissoluteness in manners, and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and practices; and has extended
through all ranks of life, as if she were communicating some privilege, or laying open some secluded
benefit, all the unhappy corruptions that usually were the disease of wealth and power. This is one of
the new principles of equality in France.
France, by the perfidy of her leaders has utterly disgraced the tone of lenient council in the cabinets of
princes, and disarmed it of its most potent topics. She has sanctified the dark, suspicious maxims of
tyrannous distrust; and taught kings to tremble at (what will hereafter be called) the delusive
plausibilities of moral politicians. Sovereigns will consider those, who advise them to place an
unlimited confidence in their people, as subverters of their throne; as traitors who aim at their
destruction, by leading their easy good nature, under specious pretences, to admit combinations of
bold and faithless men into a participation of their power. This alone (if there were nothing else) is an
irreparable calamity to you and to mankind. Remember that your parliament of Paris told your king,
that, in calling the states together, he had nothing to fear but the prodigal excess of their zeal in
providing for the support of the throne. It is right that these men should hide their heads. It is right that
they should bear their part in the ruin which their counsel has brought on their sovereign and their
country. Such sanguine declarations tend to lull authority asleep; to encourage it rashly to engage in
perilous adventures of untried policy; to neglect those provisions, preparations, and precautions,
which distinguish benevolence from imbecility; and without which no man can answer for the
salutary effect of any abstract plan of government or of freedom. For want of these, they have seen the
medicine of the state corrupted into its poison. They have seen the French rebel against a mild and
lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than ever any people has been known to rise
against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary tyrant. Their I resistance was made to
concession; | their revolt was from protection; their blow was aimed at a hand holding out graces,
favours, and immunities.
This was unnatural. The rest is in order. They have found their punishment in their success. Laws
overturned; tribunals subverted; industry without vigor; commerce expiring, the revenue unpaid, yet
the people impoverished; a church pillaged, and a state not relieved; civil and military anarchy made
the constitution of the kingdom; everything human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit,
and national bankruptcy the consequence; and, to crown all, the paper securities or new, precarious,
tottering power, the discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud and beggared rapine, held out
as a currency for the support of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognised species that represent
the lasting, conventional credit of mankind, which disappeared and hid themselves in the earth from
whence they came, when the principle of property, whose creatures j and representatives they are, was
systematically subverted.
Were all those dreadful things necessary? Were they the inevitable results of the desperate struggle of
determined patriots, compelled to wade through blood and tumult, to the quiet shore of a tranquil and
prosperous liberty? No! nothing like it. The fresh ruins of France, which shock our feelings wherever
we can turn our eyes, are not the devastation of civil war; they are the sad but instructive monuments
of rash and ignorant counsel in time of profound peace. They are the display of inconsiderate and
presumptuous, because unresisted and irresistible, authority. The persons who have thus squandered
away the precious treasure of their crimes, the persons who have made this prodigal and wild waste of
public evils, (the last stage reserved for the ultimate ransom of the state), have met in their progress
with little, or rather with no opposition at all. Their whole march was more like a triumphal
procession, than the progress of a war. Their pioneers have gone before them, and demolished and
laid everything level at their feet. Not one drop of their blood have they shed in the cause of the
 51

country they have ruined. They have made no sacrifices to their projects of greater consequence than
their shoebuckles, whilst they were imprisoning their king, murdering their fellow citizens, and
bathing in tears, and plunging in poverty and distress, thousands of worthy men and worthy families.
Their cruelty has not even been the base result of fear. It has been the effect of their sense of perfect
safety, in authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and burnings, throughout
their harassed land. But the cause of all was plain from the beginning.
In the calling of the Estates-General of France, the first thing that struck me, was a great departure
from the ancient course. I found the representation for the third estate composed of six hundred
persons. They were equal in number to the representatives of both the other orders. If the orders were
to act separately, the number would not, beyond the consideration of the expense, be of much
moment. But when it became apparent that the three orders were to be melted down into one, the
policy and necessary effect of this numerous representation became obvious. A very small desertion
from either of the other two orders must throw the power of both into the hands of the third. In fact,
the whole power of the state was soon resolved into that body. Its due composition became therefore
of infinitely the greater importance.
Study Questions:

(1) Why does Rousseau give a history of religion?

(2) How does he suggest Christianity is different from other religions?
(3) What role does he think religion should play in society?
(4) In what ways does he see religion as a threat to society?
(5) Is Burke in favor of the French Revolution?
(6) Which aspects does he approve of?
(7) What actions of the French Revolutionaries does he condemn?
(8) Do you think Burke agrees with Locke’s theory of government? Why or Why not?
 52

The Industrial Revolution

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of
labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this
business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of
the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably
given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly
could not make twenty.
But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade,
but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One
man draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the
top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a
peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper;
and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct
operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the
same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind
where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three
distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated
with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about
twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling
size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a
day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as
making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day.
But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been
educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps
not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand
eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper
division and combination of their different operations.
This great increase of the quantity of work, which, in consequence of the division of labor, the same
number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the
increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is
commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great
number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.
This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any
human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the
necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which
has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for
another. Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature, of which no
further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of
the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to enquire.
It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this
nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes
the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or
endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her toward himself. This, however, is not the
effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that
particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another
with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this
is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either
of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those
whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours by a thousand
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attractions to engage the attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man
sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to
act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their
good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilized society he stands at
all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce
sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of animals each
individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has
occasion for the assistance of no other living creature.
But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it
from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his
favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them.
Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this: Give me that which I want, and
you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that
we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. The
produce of labour constitutes the natural recompence or wages of labour. In that original state of
things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole
produce of labour belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him. Had
this state continued, the wages of labour would have augmented with all those improvements in its
productive flowers, to which the division of labour gives occasion. All things would gradually have
become cheaper. They would have been produced by a smaller quantity of labour; and as the
commodities produced by equal quantities of labour would naturally in this state of things be
exchanged for one mother, they would have been purchased likewise with the produce of a smaller
quantity.
But though all things would have become cheaper in reality, in appearance many things might have
become dearer than before, or have been exchanged for a greater quantity of other goods. Let us
suppose, for example, that in the greater art of employments the productive powers of labour had been
improved to tenfold, or that a day's labour could produce ten times the quantity of work which it had
done originally; but that in a particular employment they had been improved only to double, or that a
day's labour could produce only twice the quantity of work which it had done before. In exchanging
the produce of a day's labour in the greater part of employments, for that of a day's labour in this
particular one, ten times the original quantity of work in them would purchase only twice the original
quantity in it. Any particular quantity in it, therefore, a pound weight for example, would appear to be
five times dearer than before. In reality, however, it would be twice as cheap. Though it required five
times the quantity of other goods to purchase it, it would require only half the quantity of labour either
to purchase or to produce it. The acquisition, therefore, would be twice as easy as before.
But this original state of things, in which the laborer enjoyed the whole produce of his own labour,
could not last beyond the first introduction of the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock.
It was at an end, therefore, long before the most considerable improvements were made in the
productive powers of labour, and it would be to no purpose to trace further what might have been its
effects upon the recompence or wages of labour.
As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce
which the labourer can either raise, or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the
produce of the labour which is employed upon land. It seldom happens that the person who tills the
ground has wherewithal to maintain himself till he reaps the harvest. His maintenance is generally
advanced to him from the stock of a master, the farmer who employs him, and who would have no
interest to employ him, unless he was to share in the produce of his labour, or unless his stock was to
be replaced to him with a profit. This profit makes a second deduction from the produce of the labour
which is employed upon land. The produce of almost all other labour is liable to the like deduction of
profit. In all arts and manufactures the greater part of the workmen stand in need of a master to
advance them the materials of their work, and their wages and maintenance till it be completed. He
shares in the produce of their labour, or in the value which it adds to the materials upon which it is
bestowed; and in this share consists his profit.
 54

It sometimes happens, indeed, that a single independent workman has stock sufficient both to
purchase the materials of his work, and to maintain himself till it be completed. He is both master and
workman, and enjoys the whole produce of his own labour, or the whole value which it adds to the
materials upon which it is bestowed. It includes what are usually two distinct revenues, belonging to
two distinct persons, the profits of stock, and the wages of labour. Such cases, however, are not very
frequent, and in every part of Europe, twenty workmen serve under a master for one that is
independent; and the wages of labour are every where understood to be, what they usually are, when
the labourer is one person, and the owner of the stock which employs him another. What are the
common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two
parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to
give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to
lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon
all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with
their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides,
authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen.
We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against
combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer,
a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally
live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired.
Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without
employment. In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him;
but the necessity is not so immediate. We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters;
though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely
combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and every where in a sort of
tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate.
To violate this combination is every where a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master
among his neighbours and equals.
We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural
state of things which nobody ever hears of. Masters too sometimes enter into particular combinations
to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence
and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do,
without resistance, though severely felt them, they are never heard of by other people. Such
combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen;
who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the
price of their labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions; sometimes the
great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their combinations be offensive or
defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they
have always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and
outrage. They are desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must
either starve, or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters
upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the
assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted
with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen. The
workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of those tumultuous
combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civil magistrate, partly from the superior
steadiness of the masters partly from the necessity which the greater part of the workmen are under of
submitting for the sake of present subsistence, generally end in nothing, but the punishment or ruin of
the ringleaders. But though in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have the
advantage, there is however a certain rate below which it seems impossible to reduce, for any
considerable time, the ordinary wages even of the lowest species of labour.

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

 55

Coketown, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact; it had no
greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before
pursuing our tune.
It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it;
but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was
a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed
themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran
purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and
a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and
down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets
all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people
equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the
same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-
morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.
These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from the work by which it was sustained;
against them were to be set off comforts of life which found their way all over the world, and
elegancies of life which made, we will not ask how much of the fine lady, who could scarcely bear to
hear the place mentioned. The rest of its features were voluntary, and they were these.
You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the members of a religious
persuasion built a chapel there — as the members of eighteen religious persuasions had done — they
made it a pious warehouse of red brick, with sometimes (but this is only in highly ornamental
examples) a bell in a birdcage on the top of it. The solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed
edifice with a square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs.
All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe characters of black and white. The
jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail, the town-hall might have
been either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the contrary in the graces of their
construction. Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact,
everywhere in the immaterial. The M'Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was
all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the
lying-in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn't state in figures, or show to be purchaseable
in the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end,
Amen.
A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion, of course got on well? Why no, not quite
well. No? Dear me!
No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, in all respects like gold that had stood the fire.
First, the perplexing mystery of the place was, Who belonged to the eighteen denominations?
Because, whoever did, the labouring people did not. It was very strange to walk through the streets on
a Sunday morning, and note how few of them the barbarous jangling of bells that was driving the sick
and nervous mad, called away from their own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the corners
of their own streets, where they lounged listlessly, gazing at all the church and chapel going, as at a
thing with which they had no manner of concern. Nor was it merely the stranger who noticed this,
because there was a native organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be heard of in the
House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning for acts of parliament that should make
these people religious by main force. Then came the Teetotal Society, who complained that these
same people would get drunk, and showed in tabular statements that they did get drunk, and proved at
tea parties that no inducement, human or Divine (except a medal), would induce them to forego their
custom of getting drunk. Then came the chemist and druggist, with other tabular statements, showing
that when they didn't get drunk, they took opium. Then came the experienced chaplain of the jail, with
more tabular statements, outdoing all the previous tabular statements, and showing that the same
people would resort to low haunts, hidden from the public eye, where they heard low singing and saw
low dancing, and mayhap joined in it; and where A. B., aged twenty-four next birthday, and
committed for eighteen months' solitary, had himself said (not that he had ever shown himself
 56

particularly worthy of belief) his ruin began, as he was perfectly sure and confident that otherwise he
would have been a tip-top moral specimen.
Then came Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, the two gentlemen at this present moment walking
through Coketown, and both eminently practical, who could, on occasion, furnish more tabular
statements derived from their own personal experience, and illustrated by cases they had known and
seen, from which it clearly appeared — in short, it was the only clear thing in the case — that these
same people were a bad lot altogether, gentlemen; that do what you would for them they were never
thankful for it, gentlemen; that they were restless, gentlemen; that they never knew what they wanted;
that they lived upon the best, and bought fresh butter; and insisted on Mocha coffee, and rejected all
but prime parts of meat, and yet were eternally dissatisfied and unmanageable. In short, it was the
moral of the old nursery fable:
There was an old woman, and what do you think?
She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink;
Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet,
And yet this old woman would NEVER be quiet.
Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy between the case of the Coketown population and
the case of the little Gradgrinds? Surely, none of us in our sober senses and acquainted with figures,
are to be told at this time of day, that one of the foremost elements in the existence of the Coketown
working-people had been for scores of years, deliberately set at nought? That there was any Fancy in
them demanding to be brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in convulsions? That
exactly in the ratio as they worked long and monotonously, the craving grew within them for some
physical relief — some relaxation, encouraging good humour and good spirits, and giving them a vent
— some recognized holiday, though it were but for an honest dance to a stirring band of music —
some occasional light pie in which even M'Choakumchild had no finger — which craving must and
would be satisfied aright, or must and would inevitably go wrong, until the laws of the Creation were
repealed?
Adelheid Popp, Finding Work (1909)
It was a cold, severe winter, and the wind and snow could come unhindered into our room. In the
morning when we opened the door we first had to hack away the ice on it in order to get out, because
the entrance to our room was directly on the courtyard, and we had only a single glass door. My
mother left the house at five-thirty because she had to start work at six. An hour later I went out to
look for work. "Please, I need a job" - it had to be repeated countless times. I used to be on the street
for almost the whole day. We couldn't heat our room - that would have been extravagant - so I
wandered around the streets, into churches, and to the cemetery. I took along a piece of bread and a
few kreuzers to buy myself something at noon. I always had to hold back the tears forcibly when my
request for work was denied and I had to leave the warm room. How gladly I would have done any
work, just so I wouldn't have to freeze. My clothes got wet in the snow, and my limbs were stiff from
the hours of walking around. What's more, my mother was getting more and more resentful. My
brother had found work; snow had fallen, so he was busy* - of course the pay was so low that he
could hardly support himself. I was the only one still without work. I couldn't even get work in the
candy factories, where I had assumed they would need more help at Christmastime.
Today I know that almost all of the Christmas work is done several weeks before the holidays; the
factory women have to work day and night for weeks, and then right before the holidays they are
dismissed without consideration. At that time I still had no idea how the production process was
carried out. How piously and faithfully I used to pray for work in church. I sought out the most
celebrated saints. I went from altar to altar, kneeled down on the cold stones, and prayed to the Virgin
Mary, the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, and many other saints who were said to have special
power and compassion.
My new workplace was on the third floor of a building that was used exclusively for industrial
purposes. Not having known the bustle of a factory, I had never felt so uncomfortable. Everything
 57

displeased me - the dirty, sticky work; the unpleasant glass dust; the crowd of people; the crude tone;
and the whole way that the girls and even married women behaved. The owner's wife - the "gracious
lady," as she was called - was the actual manager of the factory, and she talked just like the girls. She
was a nice-looking woman, but she drank brandy, took snuff, and made unseemly rude jokes with the
workmen.
When the owner came there was always a violent scene. I pitied him. He seemed to me to be so good
and nobler and I gathered from the behavior and whole manner of his wife that he must be unhappy.
At his instructions I received a different, much more pleasant job. Up to then my job had been to hang
the papers, which were smeared with glue and sprinkled with glass, onto lines strung rather high
across the workroom. This work exhausted me greatly, and the owner must have noticed that it wasn't
suitable for me, because he instructed that from then on I was to keep count of the papers that were
ready for processing. This work was clean and I liked it a lot better. Of course when there wasn't
anything to count, I had to do other kinds of work.
They often spoke of a Herr Berger, who was the company's traveling representative and was expected
back about then. The women raved about him, so I was curious to see the man. I had been there for
two weeks when he came. Everything was in a dither, and the only talk was of the looks of the
traveler they so admired. Accompanied by the owner’s wife, he came into the room where I worked. I
didn't like him at all. That afternoon I was called into his office; Herr Berger sent me on an errand and
made a silly remark about my 'I beautiful hands." It was already dark when I returned; I had to pass
through an empty anteroom that wasn't lighted; it was half-dark since it got light only through the
glass door leading into the workroom. Herr Berger was in the anteroom when I came. He took me by
the hand and inquired sympathetically about my circumstances. I answered him truthfully and told of
our poverty. He spoke a few words, taking pity on me and promising to use his influence to get me
higher wages. Of course I was delighted with the prospect opening up to me, for I was getting only
two and a half guilders a week, for which I had to work twelve hours a day. I stammered a few words
of thanks and assured him that I would prove myself worthy of his solicitude. Before I even knew
what was happening, Herr Berger had kissed me. He tried to calm my fright with the words, "It was
just a fatherly kiss." He was twenty-six years old, and I was almost fifteen, so fatherliness was out of
the question.
Beside myself, I hurried back to my work. I didn't know how I should interpret the incident; I thought
the kiss was disgraceful, but Herr Berger had spoken so sympathetically and had held out the prospect
of higher wages! At home I did tell of the promise, but I said nothing about the kiss because I was
ashamed to talk about it in front of my brother. But my mother and brother were happy that I had
found such an influential protector.
The next day I was overwhelmed with reproaches from one of my coworkers, a young blond girl
whom I liked most of all. She reproached me for having taken her place with the traveler; up to now,
if he had something to do or an errand to run, she had done it; he loved her, she protested through
tears and sobs, and now I'd put an end to everything. The other girls joined in too; they called me a
hypocrite, and the gracious lady herself asked me how I'd liked the kisses of the "handsome traveler."
The incident of the previous evening had been observed through the glass door, and they interpreted it
in a way very insulting to me. I was defenseless against their taunts and sneers and longed for the hour
when I could go home. It was Saturday, and when I received my wages, I went home with the
intention of not returning on Monday.
When I spoke of the matter at home, I was severely scolded. It was strange. My mother, who was
always so intent on raising me to be a respectable girl, who always gave me instructions and warnings
not to talk to men ("You should only allow yourself to be kissed by the man you’re going to marry,"
she used to impress upon me) - in this instance my mother was against me. She said I was going too
far. A kiss was nothing bad, and if I was getting more wages as a result, then it would be silly to give
up my job. In the end she held my books responsible for my "overexcitement." My mother got so mad
about my "pigheadedness" that all the splendid things I'd been lent - The Book for Everyone [Das
Buch für Allel Over Landand Sea [Ätber Land und Meer], and Chronicle of the Times [Chronik der
Zeit] (that's how far advanced I was in literature) - were thrown out the door. I collected them all
 58

again, but I didn’t dare read in the evening, although I'd usually been allowed to read longer on
Saturdays.
That was a sad Sunday! I was depressed, and what's more I was scolded the whole day. On Monday
my mother awakened me as usual and impressed upon me as she left for work not to do anything
stupid, but rather to remember that in a few days it would be Christmas.
I went out intending to control myself and go to the factory; I got as far as the door and then I turned
around. I had such a dreadful fear of unknown dangers that I preferred to go hungry than to suffer
disgrace. Everything that had happened the kiss and the reproaches of my coworkers - seemed a
disgrace to me. Besides, I had been told that one of the girls always enjoyed the traveler's special
favor. But he was changeable; if a new girt came who pleased him more, then she would take the
place of the previous one, All indications were that I had been chosen as the new favorite. That scared
me a lot. I'd read so much in books about seduction and fallen virtue that I imagined the most hideous
things happening. So I didn't go in.
[She eventually found a factory job paying 4 guilders a week. After six months, pay was raised to 5
guilders.]
It seemed to me that I was almost rich. I figured out how much I’d be able to save over a few years
and built castles in the air. Since I was used to extraordinary deprivations, I would have considered it
extravagant to spend more now on food. As long as I didn’t feel hungry I didn’t take into account
what I was eating. All I wanted was to dress nicely. When I went to church on Sunday no one should
recognize me as a factory girl; I was ashamed of my work. Working in a factory always seemed to me
to be degrading. When I was still an apprentice I’d often heard it said that factory girls were bad,
loose, and spoiled. They were spoken of in the most insulting words and I too had picked up this false
notion. Now I myself was employed in a factory where there were so many girls
The girls were friendly; they instructed me in my work in the most amiable manner, and they
introduced me to the customs of the business. The girls in the sorting room were considered the elite
of the personnel. The owner himself chose them, whereas the hiring for the machine room was left to
the foremen. Men and women were together in the other rooms; but in my room there were only
female employees. Men were used as extra help only when the heavy packages of sorted, counted, and
labeled goods were moved to the courtyard.
In general, the only girls who ate well were those supported by their families. But there were only a
few of them. More often the working girls had to support their parents or pay for baby-sitting for their
children. How self-sacrificing these mothers were! They saved kreuzer after kreuzer to better the lot
of their children and to enable them to make gifts to the baby-sitter so that she would take good care
of the children. Many women often had to provide for their unemployed husbands; they underwent
double deprivation because they had to meet the household expenses alone. I also got to know the
much-maligned frivolousness of factory girls. To be sure, the girls went dancing and they had love
affairs; others stood in line at a theater at three o'clock in the afternoon so that they could see an
evening performance for thirty kreuzers. In the summer they went on outings and walked for hours in
order to save a couple of kreuzers of tram fare. For a few breaths of country air they had to pay with
days of tired feet. If you want you can call all that frivolity, or even pleasure-seeking or debauchery,
but who would dare to?
I saw among my coworkers - the despised factory women-examples of the most extraordinary
sacrifices for others. If there was a special emergency in one fan-lily, then they chipped in their
kreuzers to help. Even though they had worked twelve hours in the factory and many still had an
hours walk home, they mended their own clothes, without ever having been taught how. They took
apart their old dresses to fashion new ones from the separate pieces, which they sewed at night and on
Sundays.
"A good boss - that was the general opinion of our employer. But in the case of this very factory
owner, one can see how profitable is the exploitation of human labor. He, who really did grant his
workers more than most other entrepreneurs; her who would continue for weeks to pay the wages of
 59

men and women who were sick; he, who in case of a death made a considerable contribution to the
survivors; and he, who almost never rejected a request if someone turned to him in need I despite all
this, he had gotten rich through the productive labor of the men and women working in his factory.
Study Questions
(1) What is Adam Smith’s Division of Labor?
(2) What are some of the benefits of the Division of Labor?
(3) What does Smith think are some of the drawbacks of the Division of Labor if any?
(4) Why does Smith think unions are formed? Does he consider them effective?
(5) How does Dickens view the Industrial Revolution?
(6) How does he characterize the town of Coketown? What is the most important aspect of life there?
(7) What is his main critique of this society?
(8) What does Popp’s account tell us about life in a factory?
(9) What are some of the pressures the Industrial Revolution is putting on traditional family structures?
(10) What are her relations with her bosses and her fellow workers? Do they change?
(11) What makes a good boss for Popp?
(12) How does here status as a working woman shape here interactions with peers and
supervisors?
 60

Colonialism and Modern Science

Charles Darwin, Descent of Man (1871)
The evidence that all civilized nations are the descendants of barbarians, consists, on the one side, of
clear traces of their former low condition in still-existing customs, beliefs, languages, etc.; and, on the
other side, of proofs that savages are independently able to raise themselves a few steps in the scale of
civilization, and have actually thus rise. The evidence on the first head is extremely curious, but
cannot be here given; I refer to such cases as that of the art of enumeration, which, as Mr. Taylor
clearly shows by reference to the words still used in some places, originated in counting the fingers,
first of one hand and then of the other, and lastly of the toes. We have traces of this in our own
decimal system, and in the Roman numerals, where, after the V., which is supposed to be an
abbreviated picture of a human hand, we pass on the VI, etc., when the other hand no doubt was
used....
According to a large and increasing school of philologists every language bears the marks of its slow
and gradual evolution. So it is with the art of writing, for letters are rudiments of pictorial
representations. It is hardly possible to read Mr. McLennan’s work and not admit that all civilized
nations still retain traces of such rude habits as the forcible capture of wives. What ancient nation, as
the same author asks, can be named that was originally monogamous? The primitive idea of justice,
as shown by the law of battle and other customs of which vestiges still remain, was likewise more
rude.
Many existing superstitions are the remnants of former false religious beliefs. The highest form of
religion – the grand idea of God hating sin and loving righteousness – was unknown during primeval
times. Turning to the other kind of evidence: Sir J. Lubbock has shown that some savages have
recently improved a little of their simpler arts. From the extremely curious account which he gives of
the weapons, tools, and arts in use among savages in various parts of the world, it cannot be doubted
that these have nearly all been independent discoveries, excepting perhaps the art of making fire. The
Australian boomerang is a good instance of one such independent discovery.
The Tahitians when first visited had advanced in many respects beyond the inhabitants of most of the
other Polynesian islands. There are no just grounds for the belief that the high culture of the native
Peruvians and Mexicans was derived from abroad; many native plants were there cultivated, and a
few native animals domesticated. We should bear in mind that, judging from the small influence of
most missionaries, a wandering crew from some semicivilized land, if washed to the shores of
America, would not have produced any marked effect on the natives, unless they had already become
somewhat advanced.
Looking to a very remote period in the history of the world, we find, to use Sir J. Lubbock’s well-
known terms, a paleolithic and neolithic period; and no one will pretend that the art of grinding rough
flint tools was a borrowed one. In all parts of Europe, as far east as Greece, in Palestine, India, Japan,
New Zealand, and Africa, including Egypt, flint tools have been discovered in abundance; and of their
use the existing inhabitants retain no tradition. There is also indirect evidence of their former use by
the Chinese and ancient Jews. Hence there can hardly be a doubt that the inhabitants of these
countries, which include nearly the whole civilized world, were once in a barbarous condition. To
believe that man was aboriginally civilized and then suffered utter degradation in so many regions, is
to take a pitiably low view of human nature. It is apparently a truer and more cheerful view that
progress has been much more general than retrogression; that man has risen, though by slow and
interrupted steps, from a lowly condition to the highest standard as yet attained by him in knowledge,
morals, and religion.
We are naturally led to inquire, where was the birthplace of man at that stage of descent when our
progenitors diverged from the Catarrhine stock? The fact that they belonged to this stock clearly
shows that they inhabited the Old World; but not Australia nor any oceanic island, as we may infer
from the laws of geographical distribution. In each great region of the world the living mammals are
closely related to the extinct species of the same region. It is therefore probable that Africa was
 61

formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two
species are now man’s nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on
the African continent than elsewhere. But it is useless to speculate on this subject; for two or three
anthropomorphous apes, one the Dryopithecus of Lartet, nearly as large as a man, and closely allied to
Hylobates, existed in Europe during the Miocene age; and since so remote a period the earth has
certainly undergone many great revolutions, and there has been ample time for migration on the
largest scale. At the period and place, whenever and wherever it was, when man first lost his hairy
covering, he probably inhabited a hot country – a circumstance favorable for the frugiferous [that is,
bearing fruit] diet on which, judging from analogy, he subsisted. We are far from knowing how long
ago it was when man first diverged from the Catarrhine stock; but it may have occurred at an epoch as
remote as the Eocene period; for that the higher apes had diverged from the lower apes as early as the
Upper Miocene period is shown by the existence of the Dryopithecus. We are also quite ignorant at
how rapid a rate organisms, whether high or low in the scale, may be modified under favorable
circumstances; we know, however, that some have retained the same form during an enormous lapse
of time. From what we see going on under domestication, we learn that some of the co-descendants
of the same species may be not at all, some a little, and some greatly changed, all within the same
period.
Thus it may have been with man, who has undergone a great amount of modification in certain
characters in comparison with the higher apes. The great break in the organic chain between man and
his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been
advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this
objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general
principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp, and
defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies – between the
Tarsius and the other Lemuridae – between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the
Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number
of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by
centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races
throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has
remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be
wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the
Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of, as now, between the negro or Australian and
the gorilla.
Although the existing races of man differ in many respects as in color, hair, shape of the skull,
proportions of the body, etc., yet, if their whole structure be taken into consideration, they are found
to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these are of so unimportant or of so
singular a nature that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by
aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds good with equal or greater force with
respect to the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The
American aborigines, Negroes, and Europeans are as different from each other in mind as any three
races that can be names; yet I was incessantly struck, while living with the Fuegians on board the
‘Beagle,’ with the many little traits of character showing how similar their minds were to ours; and so
it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate.... Now when naturalists
observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes, and dispositions between two or
more domestic races, or between nearly allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that
they are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all
should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the
races of man. As it is improbably that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between
the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar
customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from
progenitors who had these same characters. We thus gain some insight into the early state of man,
before he had spread step by step over the face of the earth.
 62

Cecil Rhodes, Confession of Faith (1877)

It often strikes a man to inquire what is the chief good in life; to one the thought comes that it is a
happy marriage, to another great wealth, and as each seizes on his idea, for that he more or less works
for the rest of his existence. To myself thinking over the same question the wish came to render
myself useful to my country. I then asked myself how could I and after reviewing the various methods
I have felt that at the present day we are actually limiting our children and perhaps bringing into the
world half the human beings we might owing to the lack of country for them to inhabit that if we had
retained America there would at this moment be millions more of English living.
I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it
is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable
specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-
Saxon influence, look again at the extra employment a new country added to our dominions gives. I
contend that every acre added to our territory means in the future birth to some more of the English
race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to this the absorption of the greater
portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars, at this moment had we not lost
America I believe we could have stopped the Russian-Turkish war by merely refusing money and
supplies. Having these ideas what scheme could we think of to forward this object.
I look into history and I read the story of the Jesuits I see what they were able to do in a bad cause and
I might say under bad leaders. At the present day I become a member of the Masonic order I see the
wealth and power they possess the influence they hold and I think over their ceremonies and I wonder
that a large body of men can devote themselves to what at times appear the most ridiculous and
absurd rites without an object and without an end.
The idea gleaming and dancing before ones eyes like a will-of-the-wisp at last frames itself into a
plan. Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British
Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule for the recovery of the
United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. What a dream, but yet it is
probable, it is possible.
I once heard it argued by a fellow in my own college, I am sorry to own it by an Englishman, that it
was good thing for us that we have lost the United States. There are some subjects on which there can
be no arguments, and to an Englishman this is one of them, but even from an American’s point of
view just picture what they have lost, look at their government, are not the frauds that yearly come
before the public view a disgrace to any country and especially their’s which is the finest in the world.
Would they have occurred had they remained under English rule great as they have become how
infinitely greater they would have been with the softening and elevating influences of English rule,
think of those countless thousands of Englishmen that during the last 100 years would have crossed
the Atlantic and settled and populated the United States. Would they have not made without any
prejudice a finer country of it than the low class Irish and German emigrants? All this we have lost
and that country loses owing to whom? Owing to two or three ignorant pig-headed statesmen of the
last century, at their door lies the blame. Do you ever feel mad? do you ever feel murderous. I think I
do with those men. I bring facts to prove my assertion. Does an English father when his sons wish to
emigrate ever think of suggesting emigration to a country under another flag, never—it would seem a
disgrace to suggest such a thing I think that we all think that poverty is better under our own flag than
wealth under a foreign one.
Put your mind into another train of thought. Fancy Australia discovered and colonised under the
French flag, what would it mean merely several millions of English unborn that at present exist we
learn from the past and to form our future. We learn from having lost to cling to what we possess. We
know the size of the world we know the total extent. Africa is still lying ready for us it is our duty to
take it. It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this
one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race
more of the best the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.
 63

To forward such a scheme what a splendid help a secret society would be a society not openly
acknowledged but who would work in secret for such an object.
I contend that there are at the present moment numbers of the ablest men in the world who would
devote their whole lives to it. I often think what a loss to the English nation in some respects the
abolition of the Rotten Borough System has been. What thought strikes a man entering the house of
commons, the assembly that rule the whole world? I think it is the mediocrity of the men but what is
the cause. It is simply—an assembly of wealth of men whose lives have been spent in the
accumulation of money and whose time has been too much engaged to be able to spare any for the
study of past history. And yet in hands of such men rest our destinies. Do men like the great Pitt, and
Burke and Sheridan not now to exist. I contend they do. There are men now living with I know no
other term the [Greek term] of Aristotle but there are not ways for enabling them to serve their
Country. They live and die unused unemployed. What has the main cause of the success of the
Romish Church? The fact that every enthusiast, call it if you like every madman finds employment in
it. Let us form the same kind of society a Church for the extension of the British Empire. A society
which should have members in every part of the British Empire working with one object and one idea
we should have its members placed at our universities and our schools and should watch the English
youth passing through their hands just one perhaps in every thousand would have the mind and
feelings for such an object, he should be tried in every way, he should be tested whether he is
endurant, possessed of eloquence, disregardful of the petty details of life, and if found to be such, then
elected and bound by oath to serve for the rest of his life in his County. He should then be supported if
without means by the Society and sent to that part of the Empire where it was felt he was needed.
Take another case, let us fancy a man who finds himself his own master with ample means of
attaining his majority whether he puts the question directly to himself or not, still like the old story of
virtue and vice in the Memorabilia a fight goes on in him as to what he should do. Take if he plunges
into dissipation there is nothing too reckless he does not attempt but after a time his life palls on him,
he mentally says this is not good enough, he changes his life, he reforms, he travels, he thinks now I
have found the chief good in life, the novelty wears off, and he tires, to change again, he goes into the
far interior after the wild game he thinks at last I’ve found that in life of which I cannot tire, again he
is disappointed. He returns he thinks is there nothing I can do in life? Here I am with means, with a
good house, with everything that is to be envied and yet I am not happy I am tired of life he possesses
within him a portion of the [Greek term] of Aristotle but he knows it not, to such a man the Society
should go, should test, and should finally show him the greatness of the scheme and list him as a
member.
Take one more case of the younger son with high thoughts, high aspirations, endowed by nature with
all the faculties to make a great man, and with the sole wish in life to serve his Country but he lacks
two things the means and the opportunity, ever troubled by a sort of inward deity urging him on to
high and noble deeds, he is compelled to pass his time in some occupation which furnishes him with
mere existence, he lives unhappily and dies miserably. Such men as these the Society should search
out and use for the furtherance of their object.
(In every Colonial legislature the Society should attempt to have its members prepared at all times to
vote or speak and advocate the closer union of England and the colonies, to crush all disloyalty and
every movement for the severance of our Empire. The Society should inspire and even own portions
of the press for the press rules the mind of the people. The Society should always be searching for
members who might by their position in the world by their energies or character forward the object
but the ballot and test for admittance should be severe)
Once make it common and it fails. Take a man of great wealth who is bereft of his children perhaps
having his mind soured by some bitter disappointment who shuts himself up separate from his
neighbours and makes up his mind to a miserable existence. To such men as these the society should
go gradually disclose the greatness of their scheme and entreat him to throw in his life and property
with them for this object. I think that there are thousands now existing who would eagerly grasp at the
opportunity. Such are the heads of my scheme.
 64

For fear that death might cut me off before the time for attempting its development I leave all my
worldly goods in trust to S. G. Shippard and the Secretary for the Colonies at the time of my death to
try to form such a Society with such an object.
Carl Peters, A Manifesto for German Colonization (1884)
The German nation has been left empty-handed in the partitioning of the world as it has taken place
from the beginning of the fifteenth century up to today. All the other civilized nations of Europe have
outposts beyond our continent where their language and customs can take firm root and flourish. As
soon as the German emigrant has left the borders of the Reich behind him, he is a stranger on foreign
territory. The German Empire, mighty and strong through a unity won by blood, has become the
leading power on the European continent; but everywhere her sons abroad have to adapt to nations
that are either indifferent or even hostile to ours. For centuries, the great stream of German emigration
has become assimilated into foreign races and disappeared within them. Germandom outside Europe
is constantly in national decline.
In this fact – so incredibly distressing to national pride – lies an enormous economic disadvantage for
our people! Year after year, the strength of about 200,000 Germans is lost to our Fatherland! This
massive concentration of power usually flows directly into the camp of our economic competitors and
increases the strength of our opponents. Foreign branches carry out the German import of products
from tropical zones, which causes many millions in German capital to be lost to foreign nations each
year! German exports are dependent on the arbitrariness of foreign tariff policies. Our industry lacks a
market that is secure under all circumstances, because our nation lacks colonies of its own.
In order to remedy this deplorable national state of affairs, practical and vigorous action is necessary.
With this as a starting point, a society has convened in Berlin whose objective is the practical
initiation of such action. The Society for German Colonization intends to take up the realization of
carefully planned colonizing projects in a resolute and sweeping manner, thus supporting and
supplementing the efforts of other organizations with similar aims.
The society has set the following tasks for itself as priorities:
1. Acquisition of appropriate colonial capital
2. Finding and purchasing suitable territories for colonization
3. Direction German emigration to these areas
Filled with the conviction that the energetic launch of this great national mission must not be
postponed any longer, we venture to turn to the German people with the request that they actively
support the efforts of our society! The German nation has proven repeatedly that it is prepared to
make sacrifices for general patriotic endeavors – may it also participate resourcefully in the solution
of this great historical question.
Every German whose heart beats for the greatness and honor of our nation is asked to join our society.
It is necessary to make up for centuries of oversight and to prove to the world that the German people
have inherited not only ancient imperial glory from our forefathers but also their old German-national
spirit!
Karl Pearson, Social Darwinism and Imperialism
What I have said about bad stock seems to me to hold for the lower races of man. How many
centuries, how many thousands of years, have the Kaffir [a tribe in southern Africa] or the negro held
large districts in Africa undisturbed by the white man? Yet their intertribal struggles have not yet
produced a civilization in the least comparable with the Aryan' [western European]. Educate and
nurture them as you will, I do not believe that you will succeed in modifying the stock. History shows
me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the
struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race….
…. Let us suppose we could prevent the white man, if we liked, from going to lands of which the
agricultural and mineral resources are not worked to the full; then I should say a thousand times better
 65

for him that he should not go Than that he should settle down and live alongside the inferior race. The
only healthy alternative is that he should go and completely drive out the inferior race. That is
practically what the white man has done in North America. . . . But I venture to say that no man
calmly judging will wish either that the whites had never gone to America, or would desire that whites
and Red Indians were to-day living alongside each other as negro and white in the Southern States, as
Kaffir and European in South Africa, still less that they had mixed their blood as Spaniard and Indian
in South America. .. . I venture to assert, then, that the struggle for existence between white and red
man, painful and even terrible as it was in its details, has given us a good far outbalancing its
immediate evil. In place of the red man, contributing practically nothing to the work and thought of
the world, we have a great nation, mistress of many arts, and able, with its youthful imagination and
fresh, untrammeled impulses, to contribute much to the common stock of civilized man....
But America is but one case in which we have to mark a masterful human progress following an inter-
racial struggle. The Australian nation is another case of great civilization supplanting a lower race
unable to work to the full the land and its resources.. . . The struggle means suffering, intense
suffering, while it is in progress; but that struggle and that suffering have been the stages by which the
white man has reached his present stage of development, and they account for the fact that he no
longer lives in caves and feeds on roots and nuts. This dependence of progress on the survival of the
fitter race, terribly black as it may seem to some of you, gives the struggle for existence its redeeming
features; it is the fiery crucible out of which comes the finer metal. You may hope for a time when the
sword shall be turned into the ploughshare, when American and German and English traders shall no
longer compete in the markets of the world for their raw material and for their food supply, when the
white man and the dark shall share the soil between them, and each till it as he lists [pleases). But,
believe me, when that day comes mankind will no longer progress; there will be nothing to check the
fertility of inferior stock; the relentless law of heredity will not be controlled and guided by natural
selection. Man will stagnate….
The. . . great function of science in national life . . . is to show us what national life means, and how
the nation is a vast organism subject . . . to the great forces of evolution….
There is a struggle of race against race and of nation against nation. In the early days of that struggle it
was a blind, unconscious struggle of barbaric tribes. At the present day, in the case of the civilized
white man, it has become more and more the conscious, carefully directed attempt of the nation to fit
itself to a continuously changing environment. The nation has to foresee how and where the struggle
will be carried on; the maintenance of national position is becoming more and more a conscious
preparation for changing conditions, an insight into the needs of coming environments….
If a nation is to maintain its position in this struggle, it must be fully provided with trained brains in
every department of national activity, from the government to the factory, and have, if possible, a
reserve of brain and physique to fall back upon in times of national crisis….
You will see that my view-and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation- is that of an
organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that its numbers are
substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by
contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races, and with equal races by the struggle for trade-routes
and for the sources of raw material and of food supply. This is the natural history view of mankind,
and I do not think you can in its main features subvert it….
Is it not a fact that the daily bread of our millions of workers depends on their having somebody to
work for? that if we give up the contest for trade-routes and for free markets and for waste lands, we
indirectly give up our food-supply? Is it not a fact that our strength depends on these and upon our
colonies, and that our colonies have been won by the ejection of inferior races, and are maintained
against equal races only by respect for the present power of our empire? …
…. We find that the law of the survival of the fitter is true of mankind, but that the struggle is that of
the gregarious animal. A community not knit together by strong social instincts, by sympathy between
man and man, and class and class, cannot face the external contest, the competition with other nations,
 66

by peace or by war, for the raw material of production and for its food supply. This struggle of tribe
with tribe, and nation with nation, may have its mournful side; but we see as a result of it the gradual
progress of mankind to higher intellectual and physical efficiency. It is idle to condemn it; we can
only see that it exists and recognise what we have gained by it-civilization and social sympathy. But
while the statesman has to watch this external struggle, . . . he must be very cautious that the nation is
not silently rotting at its core. He must insure that the fertility of the inferior stocks is checked, and
that of the superior stocks encouraged; he must regard with suspicion anything that tempts the
physically and mentally fitter men and women to remain childless....
…. The path of progress is strewn with the wrecks of nations; traces are everywhere to be seen of the
hecatombs [slaughtered remains] of inferior races, and of victims who found not the narrow way to
perfection. Yet these dead people are, in very truth, the stepping stones on which mankind has arisen
to the higher intellectual and deeper emotional life of today
Study Questions:
(1) What are the origins of the human race according to Darwin?
(2) What evidence does he use to support his arguments?
(3) How do humans become civilized according to Darwin?
(4) What is Cecil Rhodes’ grand plan? How will he carry it out?
(5) Why does Rhodes think so highly of the English?
(6) Do you think Rhodes was influenced by Darwin? If so why? If not why not?
(7) Is there one human race or many?
(8) What arguments does Carl Peters make about Germany’s quest for colonies? Why did he think it
was important?
(9) How did he propose creating a German colonial empire?
(10) What was the relationship between nationalism and the quest for colonial empires?
(11) How does Karl Pearson connect Darwinian ideas to the concept of human progress?
(12) What are the main challenges, if any, he sees human progress?
(13) How does he justify some of the questionable acts of colonization?
 67

World War I
British Soldiers on the Battle of the Somme
DIARY OF PRIVATE TOM EASTON:
A beautiful summer morning, though we’d had a bit of rain earlier. The skylarks were just singing
away. Then the grand mine went up, it shook the earth for nearly a minute, and we had to wait for the
fallout. The whistles blew and we stepped off one yard apart going straight forward. We were under
orders not to stop or look or help the wounded. Carry on if you’re fit, it was.... Men began to fall one
by one.... One officer said we were OK, all the machine-guns were firing over our heads. This was so
until we passed our own front line and started to cross No Man’s Land. Then trench machine-guns
began the slaughter from the La Boiselle salient [German positions]. Men fell on every side
screaming. Those who were unwounded dare not attend to them, we must press on regardless.
Hundreds lay on the German barbed wire which was not all destroyed and their bodies formed a
bridge for others to pass over and into the German front line. There were few Germans, mainly in
machine-gun posts. These were bombed out, and there were fewer still of us, but we consolidated the
lines we had taken by preparing firing positions on the rear of the trenches gained, and fighting went
on all morning and gradually died down as men and munitions on both sides became exhausted. When
we got to the German trenches we’d lost all our officers. They were all dead, there was no question of
wounded. About 25 of us made it there.... Yes, as we made our way over the latter stages of the
charge, men dropped all around like ninepins. Apart from machine-guns, the German artillery was
also very active, great sheets of earth rose up before one. Every man had to fend for himself as we still
had to face the Germans in their trenches when we got there. I kept shouting for my mother to guide
me, strange as it may seem. Mother help me. Not the Virgin Mother but my own maternal Mother, for
I was then only 20 years of age.
DIARY OF CAPTAIN REGINALD LEETHAM
I got to my position and looked over the top. The first thing I saw in the space of a tennis court in
front of me was the bodies of 100 dead or severely wounded men lying there in our own wire.... I sent
my runner 200 yards on my right to get into touch with our right company, who should have been
close beside me. He came back and reported he could find nothing of them. It subsequently transpired
that they never reached the front line as their communication trenches had caught it so much worse
than mine, and the communication trench was so full of dead and dying, that they could not get over
them.... Those three battalions [2500 men] who went over were practically annihilated. Every man
went to his death or got wounded without flinching. Yet in this war, nothing will be heard about it, the
papers have glowing accounts of great British success.... 60 officers went out, lots of whom I knew. I
believe 2 got back without being wounded.... The dead were stretched out on one side [of the trench],
one on top of the other, six high.... To do one’s duty was continually climbing over corpses in every
position. . . . Of the hundreds of corpses I saw I only saw one pretty one—a handsome boy called
Schnyder of the Berkshires who lay on our firestep shot through the heart. There he lay with a
sandbag over his face: I uncovered it as I knew he was an officer. I wish his Mother could have seen
him—one of the few whose faces had not been mutilated. The 2nd Middlesex came back with 22 men
out of 600....
DIARY OF SUBALTERN EDWARD G. D. LIVING
There was the freshness and splendor of a summer morning over everything.... Just in front the ground
was pitted by innumerable shellholes.... More holes opened suddenly every now and then. Here and
there a few bodies lay about. Farther away, before our front line and in No Man’s Land, lay more. In
the smoke one could distinguish the second line advancing. One man after another fell down in a
seemingly natural manner, and the wave melted away. In the background, where ran the remains of
the German lines and wire, there was a mask of smoke, the red of the shrapnel bursting amid it. As I
advanced I felt as if I was in a dream, but I had all my wits about me. We had been told to walk. Our
boys, however, rushed forward with splendid impetuosity.... A hare jumped up and rushed towards me
through the dry yellowish grass, its eyes bulging with fear.... At one time we seemed to be advancing
 68

in little groups. I was at the head of one for a moment or two only to realize shortly afterwards that I
was alone. I came up to the German wire. Here one could hear men shouting to one another and the
wounded groaning above the explosion of shells and bombs and the rattle of machine-guns....
Suddenly I cursed. I had been scalded in the left hip. A shell, I thought, had blown up in a
waterlogged crump hole and sprayed me with boiling water. Letting go of my rifle, I dropped forward
full length on the ground. My hip began to smart unpleasantly, and I felt a curious warmth stealing
down my left leg. I thought it was the boiling water that had scalded me. Certainly my breeches
looked as if they were saturated with water. I did not know they were saturated with blood.
Carlotti, World War I, A Frenchman’s Recollections
The first leaves fell at the end of October. After the defeat at the frontiers, the retreat, the miracle of
the Marne, the stabilization of the line in the trenches was necessary to give France time to recover
her balance. And then the High Command and government, appalled by the losses that surpassed
imagining, probably found themselves little disposed to reveal the truth. Up to this point we had only
bad news of those wounded who, evacuated to the interior, had succeeded in getting a letter or a
message through, and they were not many. One had lost a leg and another had been hit in the stomach.
We had showed them much sympathy, them and their families. We should soon envy them. When the
two gendarmes who had stayed at headquarters started to go on their rounds with the official notices,
“Died on the field of Honor,” a terrified silence fell on the town, the villages, and the hamlets.
Gustave was killed, the little clerk who had once worked for my father and who had looked so
handsome in his cavalryman’s uniform. Arsène, Alcide, Jules, Léon, Kléber, Maurice, Rémi, Raoul—
all killed. Georges, the son of the fat ironmonger in the marketplace, who had studied in Paris and
come back with advanced ideas—talking English, putting up little hurdles in the field to jump over as
he ran, teaching the boys to play with a queer sort of ball that wasn’t even round—killed. Alphonse,
Clothaire, Emile, Etienne, Firmin, Marceau, Raymond, Victor—killed, killed.... The grief was often
the more terrible because in most cases it was an only son.
And then there were the three Cochon brothers. The Cochons were one of those families of small
market-gardeners who grew their crops by the banks of the river. Every morning, the wife threaded on
her shoulder straps, took up the shafts of the enormous wheelbarrow, and set out through the town to
sell her mountain of fresh vegetables while her husband stayed home working in the garden. Tall,
spare, bony, mother Cochon was always the first to set out and the last to return. She had four men in
the house. The eldest daughter, married to an employee of the railway from far away, had made her
home with him there in the Capdenac region where he had a good job. The father remained at home
with his three sons, who had been born one after the other within the space of five years. The three
boys had all done very well at school, while also giving a helping hand at home when required. They
had passed their leaving certificates before rejoining their father to toil with him from dawn to dusk.
Yet, despite all their work, their plot of land did not suffice to provide a livelihood for the whole
family, and, in turn, one or two of the boys went to work for wages. They were not living as lodgers,
like Belgians or Bretons who, at St. Jean, poured from the trains in serried ranks with their round hats
and their clogs, their working boots slung round their necks—no, they worked as neighbors who were
well favored, eating at their master’s table. These Cochons were good boys who would never have
worked less than their father. Happy lads, not bothered by jokes on their name, always the first to
sound the trumpet and bang the drum of the town band, first over the parallel bars or the vaulting
horse, or leaders at the dance in the mairie on holidays.
The father died while the eldest boy was away doing his training. The other two boys slaved away in
the garden, working all the harder because the first born did not return home when the youngest son
left. And after his three years’service, this youngest son faced mobilization and war. When the
gendarmes arrived that morning, Mme. Cochon received them standing, with the one word: “Which?”
“Auguste,” replied one of them and laid the little notice on the table. “Ah, Auguste, my first born, my
strongest and my bravest.” Aslow shudder passed across her face, but she didn’t flinch. And then, as
the gendarmes stood their ground, shifting from one foot to the other, she looked them full in the face,
till one of them, gathering all his courage, managed to say, “And Désiré,” putting the official
notification on the table as he left. “Désiré, my most handsome, my most gentle, the golden-haired
 69

one.” Now she trembled from head to foot, murmuring. “Auguste ... Désiré ... Auguste ... Désiré ... ,”
ever more softly, as though she was clasping them. When the gendarmes returned, a month later, she
turned towards them from her seat in the corner of the fireplace without looking at them and asked:
“Is it Marcel?” They bowed their heads, unable to speak. “Ah, Marcel, my baby, my last, my dearest,
O Marcel.” And then suddenly a terrible cry rent the air and carried down to the river. “Marcel,
Marcel. Now there are no more Cochons.” Without hearing, the gendarme forced himself to read the
paper. “Cochon, Marcel, sergeant, infantry ... heroic conduct . . . citation . . . croix de guerre.” 2 She
repeated her crazy, despairing threnody, “No more Cochons, no more Cochons.” From that day she
hardly ever went out except to walk to her husband’s grave. Those who met her would often hear her
muttering. “No more Cochons ... there are no more.”
But no one ever saw her cry. She died at the onset of winter. And there were still four years of war to
come. The long hopeless agonies in the military hospitals, the boys of classe 16, called up at eighteen,
who would never see their twentieth year, men who were wounded three times, bandaged up, nursed
and healed, who returned yet again to the line never to return, the atrocious deaths in the gas attacks.
There was the terrible winter of 1916–17 when even wild animals were frozen to death; and the insane
spring offensives of 1917 when for a moment one thought oneself back in the bloodiest days of the
summer of 1914, when training regiments were rushed into the line to plug the yawning gaps that held
fast, never bending under the shells and the hail of the machine guns. The Americans arrived, the
diabolical long-range guns shelled Paris, the last great German offensive began, which again reached
the Marne, and the final victorious counter-offensive was launched. There was the great Roger who
fell on November 8. When it was all ended and there was no family left to ask for the return of their
corpses, they remained on their battlefields—the three brothers, with the vast army of shadows in the
great military cemeteries, neat and orderly where they rest, hidden forever, the bravery, the gaiety, the
youth of this people of France, who were—like the men of Athens before them—the adornment of the
world
Study Questions
(1) What do the diary entries reveal about the soldiers’ sense of duty?
(2) What sort of metaphors do they use to describe warfare in the trenches? Why are these important?
(3) What do they reveal about the soldiers’ views on authority, the enemy, and the press?
(4) What do Carlotti’s recollections suggest about civilian morale in France during the War?
(5) What do you think gave families the strength to keep sacrificing themselves for the war?
(6) What role had the soldiers of the deceased family been expected to play in the life of the village?
(7) How do you think the life of the village was changed by the war?
 70

Socialism and Fascism

Karl Marx and Friderich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered
into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals
and German police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic
by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of
communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary
adversaries? Two things result from this fact: I. Communism is already acknowledged by all
European powers to be itself a power. II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face
of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the
Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself. To this end, Communists of various
nationalities have assembled in London and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the
English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.
IN what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not
form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and
apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own,
by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only:
1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and
bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all
nationality.
2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the
bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the
movement as a whole
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section
of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the
other hand theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly
understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian
movement.
The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties:
formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political
power by the proletariat.
The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have
been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer.
They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from
a historical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property relations is not
at alt a distinctive feature of Communism.
All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon
the change in historical conditions.
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition
of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete
expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms,
on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of
private property.
 71

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat
to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest* by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie,
to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e. f of the proletariat organized
as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights
of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which
appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip
themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social or err and are unavoidable as a means of
entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.
These measures will of course be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in the most advanced
countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization fo credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an
exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of the factories in the hands of the State and the instruments of production owned by the
State; the bringing into cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of the soil generally in
accordance with a common plan
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction
between town and country by a more equable distribution of population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present
form. Combination of education with industrial production.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production
has been concentrated in the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character.
Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing
another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of
circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the
ruling class and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will,
along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class
antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a
class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an
association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of
all.
In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the
existing social and political order of things.
In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property
question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.
Finally, they labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all
countries. The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that
their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let
 72

the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose
but their chains. They have a world to win.

Mao Zedong, Report on the Peasant Movement in Hunan, (1927)

During my recent visit to Hunan I made a first-hand investigation of conditions in the five
counties of Hsiangtan, Hsianghsiang, Hengshan, Liling and Changsha. In the thirty-two days
from January 4 to February 5, I called together fact-finding conferences in villages and
country towns, which were attended by experienced peasants and by comrades working in the
peasant movement, and I listened attentively to their reports and collected a great deal of
material. Many of the hows and whys of the peasant movement were the exact opposite of
what the gentry in Hankow and Changsha are saying. I saw and heard of many strange things
of which I had hitherto been unaware. I believe the same is true of many other places, too.
All talk directed against the peasant movement must be speedily set right. All the wrong
measures taken by the revolutionary authorities concerning the peasant movement must be
speedily changed. Only thus can the future of the revolution be benefited. For the present
upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China's central,
southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty
storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able
to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels' that bind them and rush forward along the
road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local
tyrants and evil gentry into their graves.
Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be
accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and
lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and
oppose them?
Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly. Down
With the Local Tyrants and Evil Gentry! All Power to the Peasant Associations! The main
targets of attack by the peasants are the local tyrants, the evil gentry and the lawless landlords,
but in passing they also hit out against patriarchal ideas and institutions, against the corrupt
officials in the cities and against bad practices and customs in the rural areas. In force and
momentum the attack is tempestuous; those who bow before it survive and those who resist
perish. As a result, the privileges which the feudal landlords enjoyed for thousands of years
are being shattered to pieces. Every bit of the dignity and prestige built up by the landlords is
being swept into the dust.
With the collapse of the power of the landlords, the peasant associations have now become the
sole organs of authority and the popular slogan "all power to the peasant associations" has
become a reality. Even trifles such as a quarrel between husband and wife are brought to the
peasant association. Nothing can be settled unless someone from the peasant association is
present. The association actually dictates all rural affairs, and, quite literally, "whatever it
says, goes." Those who are outside the associations can only speak well of them and cannot
say anything against them. The local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords have been
deprived of all right to speak, and none of them dares even mutter dissent.
In the face of the peasant associations' power and pressure, the top local tyrants and evil
gentry have fled to Shanghai, those of the second rank to Hankow, those of the third to
Changsha and those of the fourth to the county towns, while the fifth rank and the still lesser
fry surrender to the peasant associations in the villages. "Here's ten yuan. [note: a currency
 73

unit] Please let me join the peasant association," one of the smaller of the evil gentry will say.
"Ugh! Who wants your filthy money?" the peasants reply. Many middle and small landlords
and rich peasants and even some middle peasants, who were all formerly opposed to the
peasant associations, are now vainly seeking admission. Visiting various places, I often came
across such people who pleaded with me, "Mr. Committeeman from the provincial capital,
please be my sponsor!"
In the Ching Dynasty, the household census compiled by the local authorities consisted of a
regular register and "the other" register, the former for honest people and the latter for
burglars, bandits and similar undesirables. In some places the peasants now use this method to
scare those who formerly opposed the associations. They say, "Put their names down in the
other register!" Afraid of being entered in the other register, such people try various devices to
gain admission into the peasant associations, on which their minds are so set that they do not
feel safe until their names are entered. But more often than not they are turned down flat, and
so they are always on tenterhooks; with the doors of the association barred to them, they are
like tramps without a home or, in rural parlance,---mere trash."
In short, what was looked down upon four months ago as a "gang of peasants" has now
become a most honourable institution. Those who formerly prostrated themselves before the
power of the gentry now bow before the power of the peasants. No matter what their identity,
all admit that the world since last October is a different one."It's Terrible! '' or ''It's Fine! "The
peasants' revolt disturbed the gentry's sweet dreams. When the news from the countryside
reached the cities, it caused immediate uproar among the gentry.
Soon after my arrival in Changsha, I met all sorts of people and picked up a good deal of
gossip. From the middle social strata upwards to the Kuomintang [note: the Chinese
Nationalist Party] right-wingers, there was not a single person who did not sum up the whole
business in the phrase, "It's terrible!" Under the impact of the views of the "It's terrible!"
school then flooding the city, even quite revolutionary-minded people became down-hearted
as they pictured the events in the countryside in their mind's eye; and they were unable to
deny the word "terrible." Even quite progressive people said, "Though terrible, it is inevitable
in a revolution." In short, nobody could altogether deny the word "terrible." But, as already
mentioned, the fact is that the great peasant masses have risen to fulfil their historic mission
and that the forces of rural democracy have risen to overthrow the forces of rural feudalism.
The patriarchal-feudal class of local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords has formed the
basis of autocratic government for thousands of years and is the cornerstone of imperialism,
warlordism and corrupt officialdom.
To overthrow these feudal forces is the real objective of the national revolution. In a few
months the peasants have accomplished what Dr. Sun Yat sen wanted, but failed, to
accomplish in the forty years he devoted to the national revolution. This is a marvellous feat
never before achieved, not just in forty, but in thousands of years. It's fine. It is not "terrible"
at all. It is anything but "terrible." "It's terrible!" is obviously a theory for combating the rise
of the peasants in the interests of the landlords; it is obviously a theory of the landlord class
for preserving the old order of feudalism and obstructing the establishment of the new order of
democracy, it is obviously a counter-revolutionary theory.
No revolutionary comrade should echo this nonsense. If your revolutionary viewpoint is
firmly established and if you have been to the villages and looked around, you will
undoubtedly feel thrilled as never before. Countless thousands of the enslaved-the peasants-
are striking down the enemies who battened on their flesh. What the peasants are doing is
absolutely right; what they are doing is fine! "It's fine!" is the theory of the peasants and of all
 74

other revolutionaries. Every revolutionary comrade should know that the national revolution
requires a great change in the countryside. The Revolution of 1911 did not bring about this
change, hence its failure. This change is now taking place, and it is an important factor for the
completion of the revolution. Every revolutionary comrade must support it, or he will be
taking the stand of counter-revolution.
The Question of "Going Too Far" Then there is another section of people who say, "Yes,
peasant associations are necessary, but they are going rather too far. " This is the opinion of
the middleof-the-roaders. But what is the actual situation? True, the peasants are in a sense
"unruly" in the countryside. Supreme in authority, the peasant association allows the landlord
no say and sweeps away his prestige. This amounts to striking the landlord down to the dust
and keeping him there. The peasants threaten, "We will put you in the other register! " They
fine the local tyrants and. evil gentry, they demand contributions from them, and they smash
their sedan-chairs.' People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are
against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs and consume their grain. They even loll
for a minute or two on the ivory-inlaid beds belonging to the young ladies in the households
of the local tyrants and evil gentry. At the slightest provocation they make arrests, crown the
arrested with tall paper hats, and parade them through the villages, saying "You dirty
landlords, now you know who we are! " Doing whatever they like and turning everything
upside down, they have created a kind of terror in the countryside.
This is what some people call "going too far," or "exceeding the proper limits in righting a
wrong," or "really too much." Such talk may seem plausible, but in fact it is wrong. First, the
local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords have themselves driven the peasants to this.
For ages they have used their power to tyrannize over the peasants and trample them
underfoot; that is why the peasants have reacted so strongly. The most violent revolts and the
most serious disorders have invariably occurred in places where the local tyrants, evil gentry
and lawless landlords perpetrated the worst outrages. The peasants are clear-sighted. Who is
bad and who is not, who is the worst and who is not quite so vicious, who deserves severe
punishment and who deserves to be let off lightly-the peasants keep clear accounts, and very
seldom has the punishment exceeded the crime.
Secondly, a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing
embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous,
restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one
class overthrows another. A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows
the power of the feudal landlord class. Without using the greatest force, the peasants cannot
possibly overthrow the deep-rooted authority of the landlords which has lasted for thousands
of years. The rural areas need a mighty revolutionary upsurge, for it alone can rouse the
people in their millions to become a powerful force. All the actions mentioned here which
have been labelled as "going too far" flow from the power of the peasants, which has been
called forth by the mighty revolutionary upsurge in the countryside. It was highly necessary
for such things to be done in the second period of the peasant movement, the period of
revolutionary action.
In this period it was necessary to establish the absolute authority of the peasants. It was
necessary to forbid malicious criticism of the peasant associations. It was necessary to
overthrow the whole authority of the gentry, to strike them to the ground and keep them there.
There is revolutionary significance in all the actions which were labelled as "going too far" in
this period. To put it bluntly, it is necessary to create terror for a while in every rural area, or
otherwise it would be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter-revolutionaries in
the countryside or overthrow the authority of the gentry. Proper limits have to be exceeded in
 75

order to right a wrong, or else the wrong cannot be righted. Those who talk about the peasants
"going too far" seem at first sight to be different from those who say "It's terrible!" as
mentioned earlier, but in essence they proceed from the same standpoint and likewise voice a
landlord theory that upholds the interests of the privileged classes. Since this theory impedes
the rise of the peasant movement and so disrupts the revolution, we must firmly oppose it.

Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Ukranian Famine (1931-1933)

The year 1932 witnessed the last battle of collectivization: the battle for bread, or to be more
specific, for the crop of 1932. On the one side was the Communist government; on the other,
the starving farmers. The government forces resorted to any means in getting as many
agricultural products from the countryside as possible, without regard to the consequences.
The farmers, already on the verge of starvation, desperately tried to keep what food they had
left, and, in spite of government efforts to the contrary, tried to stay alive .... The long and
cold winter of 1931-1932 was slowly giving way to spring .... Around this time the plight of
the villagers became desperate. This was the memorable spring of 1932 when the famine
broke out, and the first deaths from hunger began to occur.
I remember the endless procession of beggars on roads and paths~ going from house to house.
They were in different stages of starvation, dirty and ragged. With outstretched hands, they
begged for food, any food: a potato, a beet, or at least a kernel of corn. Those were the first
victims of starvation: destitute men and women; poor widows and orphaned children who had
no chance of surviving the terrible ordeal. Some starving farmers still tried to earn their food
by doing chores in or outside the village. One could see these sullen, emaciated men Walking
from house to house with an ax, or a shovel, in search of work. Perhaps someone might hire
them to dig up the garden, or chop some firewood. They would do it for a couple of potatoes.
But not many of us had a couple of potatoes to spare.
Crowds of starving wretches could be seen scattered all over the potato fields. They were
looking for potatoes left over from last year’s harvest. No matter what shape the potatoes were
in, whether frozen or rotten, they were still edible. Others were roaming the forest in search of
food; the riverbanks were crowded too; there was much new greenery around: young shoots of
reed or other river plants. One might catch something, anything, in the water to eat. But the
majority of those who looked for help would go to the cities as they used to do before. It was
always easier to find some work there, either gardening, cleaning backyards, or sweeping
streets. But now, times had changed. It was illegal to hire farmers for any work. The purpose
of the prohibition was twofold: it was done not only to stop the flow of labor from the
collective farms, but also, and primarily, to prevent the farmers from receiving food rations in
the cities .... By this time our village was in economic ruin. Poverty was universal. We had
never been rich, it is true, but economically, we had always been completely self-sufficient
and had never gone hungry for so long. Now starving, we were facing the spring of 1932 with
great anxiety for there was n6 hope of relief from the outside. Deaths from starvation became
daily occurrences. There was always some burial in the village cemetery. One could see
strange funeral processions: children pulling homemade hand-wagons with the bodies of their
dead parents in them or the parents carting the bodies of their children. There were no coffins;
no burial ceremonies performed by priests. The bodies of the starved were just deposited in a
large common grave, one upon the other; that was all there was to it ....
Looking back to these events now it seems to me that I lived in some kind of a wicked fantasy
world. All the events which I witnessed and experienced then and which I am now describing,
seem unreal to me because of their cruelty and unspeakable horror. It is simply too difficult to
 76

associate all those happenings with real life in a normal human society.... The battle for the
Ukrainian wheat crop of 1932 started almost two months before the harvest. At the end of
May, some strangers appeared in our village, and little by little, we began finding out who
they were. The Party had mobilized 112,000 of its most active and reliable members in order
to organize a speedy harvest of the new crop, and to secure its swift and smooth requisitioning
and final delivery to the State. Soon these members became known to us as the Hundred
Thousanders, or just Thousanders. There were nine of them in our village .... In no time at all,
these new Thousanders took over our entire village like tyrants, imposing their wills and their
demands upon us .... Comrade Thousander’s announcement that in 1932 we had to deliver the
same quota of grain as in 1931 was a hard blow to us. We simply could not fulfill his
demands. The 1932 grain quota was not based on the actual amount of grain sown, cultivated,
and harvested; it was based upon an unrealistic government plan .... Faced with starvation, the
villagers tried everything possible to save themselves and their families. Some of them started
eating dogs and cats. Others went hunting for birds: crows, magpies, swallows, sparrows,
storks, and even nightingales. One could see starving villagers searching in the bushes along
the river for birds’ nests or looking for crabs and other small crustaceans in the water. Even
their hard shells, though not edible, were cooked and the broth consumed as nourishment. One
could see crowds of famished villagers combing the woods in search of roots or mushrooms
and berries. Some tried to catch small forest animals.
Driven by hunger, people ate everything and anything: even food that had already rotted-
potatoes, beets, and other root vegetables that pigs normally refused to eat. They even ate
weeds, the leaves and bark of trees, insects, frogs, and snails. Nor did they shy away from
eating the meat of diseased horses and cattle. Often that meat was already decaying and those
who ate it died of food poisoning ....
One morning in late January 1933, while it was still dark, Mother and I set out along the main
street through the center of the village for the county town. We followed the street to the main
road which led straight into the town Soon, however, as we slowly made our way through the
snow toward the village center, graphic evidence of starvation became visible. We noticed a
black object which, from afar, looked like a snow-covered tree stump. As we came near,
however, we saw that it was the body of a dead man. Frozen limbs protruding from under the
snow gave the body the appearance of some grotesque creature. I bent down and cleared the
snow off the face. It was Ulas, our elderly neighbor whom we had last seen about a month
ago. A few steps further, we saw another frozen body. It was the corpse of a woman. As I
brushed away the snow, horror made my blood turn cold: under her ragged coat, clutched
tightly to her bosom with her stiff hands, was the frozen little body of her baby.
We finally left our village behind and stepped onto the open road which led to the county seat.
However, another ghostly panorama now opened in front of us. Everywhere we looked dead
and frozen bodies lay by the sides of the road. To our right were bodies of those villagers who
apparently had tried to reach the town in search of work and food. Weakened by starvation,
they were unable to make it and ended up lying or falling down by the roadside, never to rise
again. The gentle snow mercifully covered their bodies with its white blanket. One could
easily imagine the fate of those people whose bodies were lying to our left. They most
probably were returning from the county town, without having accomplished anything. They
had tramped many kilometers in vain, only to be refused a job and a chance to stay alive. They
were returning home emptyhanded. Death caught up with them as they trudged homeward,
resigned to dying in their village.
The wide open kolhospt fields, stretching for kilometers on both sides of the main road,
looked like a battlefield after a great war. Littering the fields were the bodies of the starving
 77

farmers who had been combing the potato fields over and over again in the hope of finding at
least a fragment of a potato that might have been overlooked or left over from the last harvest.
They died where they collapsed in their endless search for food. Some of those frozen corpses
must have been lying out there for months. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry to cart them away
and bury them .... ¯ . .
Dmytro had never returned home after he had been taken to the county center. His young wife
Solomia was left alone with their daughter. She had gone to work in the collective farm,
taking her little child with her. As the wife of a banished man, she too was considered an
"enemy of the people," and her child was refused admission to the nursery. Later, Solomia
was expelled from the collective farm, and thus forced to seek a job in the city. That was
impossible, however, because she could not show a certificate of release from the collective
farm. She found herself trapped in the circle of the Communist death ring. She had to return to
her village.
When winter came, Solomia went from house to house, willing to work for just a piece of
bread. She was too proud to beg. People were sympathetic and helped her as much as they
could. However, as the famine worsened, and the villagers were no longer able to help her,
she was not seen on her rounds any more. We found the front door of Solomia’s house open,
bur the entrance was blocked with snowdrifts, and it was hard to get inside. When we finally
reached the living room, we saw a pitiful sight: Solomia was hanging from the ceiling in the
middle of the room. She was dressed in her Ukrainian national costume, and at her breast
hung a large cross. It was obvious that she had made preparations before committing suicide.
Her hair was combed neatly in two braids hanging over her shoulders.
Frightened, we ran to fetch Mother. We helped her take down Solomia’s frozen body, and laid
it on a bench, and covered it with a handmade blanket. It was only after we finished doing this
that we noticed the dead body of her little daughter. The child was lying in a wooden tub in
the corner under the icons, clean and dressed in her best clothes. Her littie hands were folded
across her chest. On the table was a note:
Dear Neighbors: Please bury our bodies properly. I have to leave you, dear neighbors. I can
bear this life no longer. There is no food in the house, and there is no sense in living without
my little daughter who starved to death, or my husband. If you ever see Dmytro, tell him
about us. He will understand our plight, and he will forgive me. Please tell him that I died
peacefully, thinking about him and our dear daughter. I love you, my dear neighbors, and I
wish with all my heart that you somehow recover from this disaster. Forgive me for troubling
you. Thank you for everything you have done for me. Solomia
After reading the note, we stood there for a while, motionless and forlorn. Our mother tried to
suppress the sound of her weeping, pressing the corner of her head scarf to her lips. Mykola
gazed at the corpses in disbelief. In my imagination I was recreating the agony of their dying:
the child’s hunger cries, and then the death convulsions of its exhausted little body.
How great must have been the sufferings of the mother. She had to listen helplessly to the
pleas of her child for food, while she herself was near starvation. She must have felt great
relief, I thought, when she saw her little daughter breathing for the last time. Then, in my
imagination, I saw the mother attending to her lifeless child: dressing her in the best and
cleanest clothing she had, praying on her knees near the body, and finally kissing her for the
last time before her own suicide ....
Toward the end of March, the famine struck us with full force. Life in the village had sunk to
its lowest level, an almost animal-like struggle for survival of the fittest. The village ceased to
 78

exist as a coherent community. The inhabitants who still managed to stay alive shut
themselves within the wails of their houses. People became too weak even to step outside their
doors. Each house became an entity in itself. Visits became a rarity. All doors were bolted and
barred against any possible intruders. Even between immediate neighbors, there was little, if
any, communication, and people ceased caring about one another. In fact, they avoided each
other. Friends and even relatives became strangers. Mothers abandoned their children, and
brother turned away from brother ....
One must consider the inexorable pressure of hunger under which a person can completely
become bereft of his or her senses and sink to an absolute animal-like level. That happened to
many of our villagers. The more resistant ones who kept on living with minimal or no food at
al! for some time, felt no more of the initial hunger pangs. They either lapsed into comas, or
existed in a semicomatose, lethargic stupor. But some reacted differently. They became like
madmen. They lost all traces of compassion, honor, and morality. They suffered from
hallucinations of food, of something to bite into and chew, to satisfy the gnawing pains of
their empty stomachs. Intolerable cravings assailed them; they were ready to sink their teeth
into anything, even into their own hands and arms, or into the flesh of others.
The first rumors of actual cannibalism were related to the mysterious and sudden
disappearances of people in the village .... As the cases of missing persons grew in number, an
arrest was made which shook us to our souls. A woman was taken into custody, charged with
killing her two children. Another woman was found dead, her neck contorted in a crudely
made noose. The neighbors who discovered the tragedy also found the reason for it. The flesh
of the woman’s three year-old daughter was found in the oven.

Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism (1930)

Like all sound political conceptions, Fascism is action and it is thought; action in which
doctrine is immanent, and doctrine arising from a given system of historical forces in which it
is inserted, and working on them from within. It has therefore a form correlated to
contingencies of time and space; but it has also an ideal content which makes it an expression
of truth in the higher region of the history of thought. There is no way of exercising a spiritual
influence in the world as a human will dominating the will of others, unless one has a
conception both of the transient and the specific reality on which that action is to be exercised,
and of the permanent and universal reality in which the transient dwells and has its being. To
know men one must know man; and to know man one must be acquainted with reality and its
laws. There can be no conception of the State which is not fundamentally a conception of life:
philosophy or intuition, system of ideas evolving within the framework of logic or
concentrated in a vision or a faith, but always, at least potentially, an organic conception of
the world.
SPIRITUAL VIEW OF LIFE
Thus many of the practical expressions of Fascism such as party organization, system of
education, and discipline can only be understood when considered in relation to its general
attitude toward life. A spiritual attitude. Fascism sees in the world not only those superficial,
material aspects in which man appears as an individual, standing by himself, self-centered,
subject to natural law, which instinctively urges him toward a life of selfish momentary
pleasure; it sees not only the individual but the nation and the country; individuals and
generations bound together by a moral law, with common traditions and a mission which
suppressing the instinct for life closed in a brief circle of pleasure, builds up a higher life,
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founded on duty, a life free from the limitations of time and space, in which the individual, by
self-sacrifice, the renunciation of self-interest, by death itself, can achieve that purely spiritual
existence in which his value as a man consists.
The conception is therefore a spiritual one, arising from the general reaction of the century
against the materialistic positivism of the XIXth century. Anti-positivistic but positive; neither
skeptical nor agnostic; neither pessimistic nor supinely optimistic as are, generally speaking,
the doctrines (all negative) which place the center of life outside man; whereas, by the
exercise of his free will, man can and must create his own world
Fascism wants man to be active and to engage in action with all his energies; it wants him to
be manfully aware of the difficulties besetting him and ready to face them. It conceives of life
as a struggle in which it behooves a man to win for himself a really worthy place, first of all
by fitting himself (physically, morally, intellectually) to become the implement required for
winning it. As for the individual, so for the nation, and so for mankind. Hence the high value
of culture in all its forms (artistic, religious, scientific) and the outstanding importance of
education. Hence also the essential value of work, by which man subjugates nature and creates
the human world (economic, political, ethical, and intellectual).
REJECTION OF INDIVIDUALISM AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STATE
Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and
accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which
stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity. It is opposed to
classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical
function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people.
Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the
State as expressing the real essence of the individual. And if liberty is to be the attribute of
living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism
stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the
individual within the State. The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it
no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. No individuals or groups
(political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State.
Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the
majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy
if the nation be considered as it should be from the point of view of quality rather than
quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest,
expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and
ending to express itself in the conscience and the will of the mass, of the whole group
ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing, as one
conscience and one will, along the self same line of development and spiritual formation.
REJECTION OF PACIFISM
First of all, as regards the future development of mankind, and quite apart from all present
political considerations. Fascism does not, generally speaking, believe in the possibility or
utility of perpetual peace. It therefore discards pacifism as a cloak for cowardly supine
renunciation in contradistinction to self-sacrifice. War alone keys up all human energies to
their maximum tension and sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have the courage to
face it. All other tests are substitutes which never place a man face to face with himself before
the alternative of life or death. Therefore all doctrines which postulate peace at all costs are
incompatible with Fascism. Equally foreign to the spirit of Fascism, even if accepted as useful
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in meeting special political situations -- are all internationalistic or League superstructures

which, as history shows, crumble to the ground whenever the heart of nations is deeply stirred
by sentimental, idealistic or practical considerations. Fascism carries this anti-pacifistic
attitude into the life of the individual. " I don't care a damn „ (me ne frego) - the proud motto
of the fighting squads scrawled by a wounded man on his bandages, is not only an act of
philosophic stoicism, it sums up a doctrine which is not merely political: it is evidence of a
fighting spirit which accepts all risks. It signifies new style of Italian life. The Fascist accepts
and loves life; he rejects and despises suicide as cowardly. Life as he understands it means
duty, elevation, conquest; life must be lofty and full, it must be lived for oneself but above all
for others, both near bye and far off, present and future.
REJECTION OF MARXISM
Such a conception of life makes Fascism the resolute negation of the doctrine underlying so-
called scientific and Marxian socialism, the doctrine of historic materialism which would
explain the history of mankind in terms of the class struggle and by changes in the processes
and instruments of production, to the exclusion of all else.
REJECTION OF PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY AS A SHAM AND A FRAUD
After socialism, Fascism trains its guns on the whole block of democratic ideologies, and
rejects both their premises and their practical applications and implements. Fascism denies
that numbers, as such, can be the determining factor in human society; it denies the right of
numbers to govern by means of periodical consultations; it asserts the irremediable and fertile
and beneficent inequality of men who cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic
device as universal suffrage. Democratic regimes may be described as those under which the
people are, from time to time, deluded into the belief that they exercise sovereignty, while all
the time real sovereignty resides in and is exercised by other and sometimes irresponsible and
secret forces. Democracy is a kingless regime infested by many kings who are sometimes
more exclusive, tyrannical, and destructive than one, even if he be a tyrant. This explains why
Fascism - although, for contingent reasons, it was republican in tendency prior to 1922 -
abandoned that stand before the March on Rome, convinced that the form of government is no
longer a matter of preeminent importance, and because the study of past and present
monarchies and past and present republics shows that neither monarchy nor republic can be
judged sub specie aeternitatis, but that each stands for a form of government expressing the
political evolution, the history, the traditions, and the psychology of a given country.
Study Questions:
(1) Marx and Engels believed communism was reducible to one principle, what was it?
(2) What systems do Marx and Engels see themselves challenging?
(3) What are the steps to achieving the revolution Marx and Engels describe?
(4) Why do they believe the specter of communism is haunting Europe?
(5) What are the bases of class division for Marx and Engels?
(6) What do they mean by the bourgeoise and what role do they assign them in history?
(7) Do they agree or disagree with Adam Smith’s theory of the division of labor?
(8) Why is the document called a manifesto? Is it prophetic?
(9) How is the revolution Mao proposes different from that of Marx and Engels? How is it
similar?
(10) What restrictions does he set on carrying out this revolution?
(11) Miron Dolot depicts scenes of what is known as man-made famine in which the
casualties ran into millions. What possible policy aims required suffering on such a scale?
 81

(12) What factors in the twentieth century could generate such extreme devaluation of
human life?
(13) Was the suffering she experienced a direct consequence of the policies of Marx and
Mau?
(14) How is Fascism as presented by Mussolini different from communism? How is it
similar?
(15) How do these authors view the relation of the individual to the state?
 82

World War II
Harold Baumgarten Remembers D-Day
Having my college education and a good background in American history and wartime
battles, I realized that it was not going to be easy, and I did not expect to come back alive. I
wrote such to my sister in New York City—to get the mail before my parents and break the
news gently to them when she received the telegram that I was no longer alive. .
At about 6:30 a.m., I saw the beach with its huge seawall at the foot of a massive bluff. An 88-
mm shell landed right in the middle of the Landing Craft Assault [to] the side of us, and
splinters of the boat, equipment and bodies were thrown into the air. Bullets were passing
through the thin wooden sides of our vessel. The ramp was lowered, and the inner door was
opened. A German machine gun trained on the opening took a heavy toll of lives. Many of my
30 buddies went down as they left the LCA.
I got a bullet through the top of my helmet first} and then as I waded through the deep water,
a bullet aimed at my heart hit the receiver of my M-1 rifle. The water was being shot up all
around me. Clarius Riggs, who left the assault boat in front of me, went under, shot to death.
About 8 or 10 feet to my right, as we reached the dry sand, I heard a hollow thud, and I saw
Private Robert Dittmar hold his chest and heard him yell, "I'm hit! I'm hit!" I hit the ground
and watched him as he continued to go forward about 10 more yards. He tripped over a tank
obstacle, and as he fell, his body made a complete turn, and he lay sprawled on the damp sand
with his head facing the Germans, his face looking skyward. He seemed to be suffering from
shock and was yelling, "Mother, Mom," as he kept rolling around on the sand. There were
three or four others wounded and dying right near him. Sergeant Clarence Roberson, from my
boat team, had a gaping wound on the left side of his forehead. He was walking crazily in the
water, without his helmet. Then I saw him get down on his knees and start praying with his
rosary beads. At this moment, the Germans cut him in half with their deadly cross fire. I saw
the reflection from the helmet of one of the snipers and took aim, and later on, I found out, I
got a bull's-eye on him. It was-my only time that rifle fired—due to the bullet that hit my rifle.
It must have shattered the wood, and the rifle broke in half, and I had to throw it away.
Shells were continually landing all about me in a definite pattern, and when I raised my head
up to curse the Germans in the pillbox on our right flank who were continually shooting up
the sand in front of me, one of the fragments from an 88-mm shell hit me in my left cheek. It
felt like being hit with a baseball bat, only the results were much worse. My upper jaw was
shattered; the left cheek was blown open. My upper lip was cut in half. I washed my face out
in the cold, dirty Channel water and managed somehow not to pass out. I got rid of most of
my equipment. Here I was happy that I did not wear the invasion jacket. I wore a regular
Army zippered field jacket, with a Star of David drawn on the back and THE BRONX, NEW
YORK written on it. Had I worn the invasion jacket, I probably would have drowned.
The water was rising about an inch a minute as the tide was coming in, so I had to get moving
or drown. I had to reach a 15-foot seawall, which appeared to be 200 yards in front of me.
Finally, I came to dry sand, and there was only another 100 yards or maybe less to go, and I
started across the sand, crawling very fast. The Germans in the pillbox on the right flank were
shooting up the sand all about me. I expected a bullet to rip through me at any moment. I
reached the stone wall without further injury. I was now safe from the flat-trajectory weapons
of the enemy. All I had to fear now were enemy mines and artillery shells.
Things looked pretty black and one-sided until Brigadier General Norman D. Cota rallied us
by capturing some men himself and running around the beach with a hand grenade and a
 83

pistol in his hand. [He] ran down the beach under fire and sent a call for reinforcements.
Every man who could walk and fire a weapon charged up the hill later on in the day toward
the enemy. I got hit in the left foot while crawling by a mine.
At the end of June 6, we were only in about half a mile. As the evening progressed, I felt like I
was getting very weak, and along the way, I got another bullet through the face again. I was
starting to feel very weak from all that bleeding. As it got dark, I became very trigger happy,
and anything that moved in front of me, I started to fire at it
About 3 a.m., I found myself lying near a road above the bluffs in the vicinity south of
Vierville. I got an ambulance to stop by firing [in its direction], and it stopped, and two men
came out and asked if I could sit up in the ambulance. [Later] they took me out and put me in
a stretcher, and I saw a huge statue. I think later on, in retrospect, it was a church near the
beach, silhouetted in the darkness. The next morning I saw the German prisoners marching by
me. The 175th Infantry Regiment apparently landed around that time, and German snipers
opened up on the beach, including the wounded. I got shot in my right knee in the stretcher. I
had received five individual wounds that day in Normandy. The 1st Battalion of the 116th
Infantry was more or less sacrificed to achieve the landing and was completely wiped out. It
was a total sacrifice.
Yamaoka Michiko, Memories of Hiroshima
That year on August 6, I was in the third year of girls’ high school, fifteen years old. I was an
operator at the telephone exchange. We had been mobilized from school for various work
assignments for more than a year. My assigned place of duty was civilian but we, too, were
expected to protect the nation. We were tied by strong bonds to the country. We'd heard the
news about the Tokyo and Osaka bombings, but nothing had dropped on Hiroshima. Japan
was winning. So we still believed. We only had to endure. I wasn't particularly afraid when B-
29s flew overhead.
That morning I left the house at about 7:45. I heard that the B-29s had already gone home.
Mom told me, "Watch out, the B29s might come again." My house was 1.3 kilometers from
the hypocenter. My place of work was 500 meters from the hypocenter. I walked toward the
hypocenter in an area where all the houses and buildings had been deliberately demolished for
fire breaks. There was no shade. I had on a white shirt and monpe [trousers]. As I walked
there, I noticed middleschool students pulling down houses at a point about 800 meters away
from the hypocenter. I heard the faint sound of planes as I approached the river. The planes
were tricky. Sometimes they only pretended to leave. I could still hear the very faint sound of
planes. Today, I have no hearing in my left ear because of damage from the blast. I thought,
how strange, so 1 put my right hand above my eyes and looked up to see if I could spot them.
The sun was dazzling. That was the moment.
There was no sound. I felt something strong. It was terribly intense. I felt colors. It wasn't
heat. You can't really say it was yellow, and it wasn't blue. At that moment I thought I would
be the only one who would die. I said to myself, "Goodbye, Mom. " They say temperatures of
seven thousand degrees centigrade hit me. You can't really say it washed over me. It's hard to
describe. I simply fainted. I remember my body floating in the air. That was probably the
blast, but I don't know how far I was blown. When I came to my senses, my surroundings
were silent. There was no wind. I saw a slight threadlike light, so I felt I must be alive. I was
under stones. I couldn't move my body. I heard voices crying, "Help! Water!" It was then I
realized I wasn't the only one. I couldn't really see around me. I tried to say something, but my
voice wouldn't come out.
 84

"Fire! Run away! Help! Hurry Up!" They weren't voices but moans of agony and despair. "1
have to get help and shout," I thought. The person who rescued me was Mom, although she
herself had been buried under our collapsed house. Mom knew the route I'd been taking. She
came, calling out to me. I heard her voice and cried for help. Our surroundings were already
starting to burn. Fires burst out from just the light itself. It didn't really drop. It just flashed.
It was beyond my mother's ability. She pleaded, "My daughter's buried here, she been helping
you, working for the military." She convinced soldiers nearby to help her and they started to
dig me out. The fire was now blazing. 'Woman, hurry up, run away from here," soldiers
called. From underneath the stones I heard the crackling of flames. I called to her, "It's all
right. Don't worry about me. Run away." I really didn't mind dying for the sake of the nation.
Then they pulled me out by my legs.
Nobody there looked like human beings. Until that moment I thought incendiary bombs had
fallen. Everyone was stupefied. Humans had lost the ability to speak. People couldn't scream,
"It hurts!" even when they were on fire. People didn't say, "It's hot!" They just sat catching
fire. My clothes were burnt and so was my skin. I was in rags. I had braided my hair, but now
it was like a lion's mane. There were people, barely breathing, trying to push their intestines
back in. People with their legs wrenched off. Without heads. Or with faces burned and
swollen out of shape. The scene I saw was a living hell.
Mom didn't say anything when she saw my face and I didn't feel any pain. She just squeezed
my hand and told me to run. She was going to go rescue my aunt. Large numbers of people
were moving away from the flames. My eyes were still able to see, so I made my way towards
the mountain, where there was no fire, toward Hijiyama. On this flight I saw a friend of mine
from the phone exchange. She'd been inside her house and wasn't burned. I called her name,
but she didn 't respond. My face was so swollen she couldn't tell who I was. Finally, she
recognized my voice. She said, '"Miss Yamaoka, you look like a monster!" That's the first
time I heard that word. I looked at my hands and saw my own skin hanging down and the red
flesh exposed. I didn't realize my face was swollen up because I was unable to see it.
The only medicine was tempura oil. I put it on my body myself. I lay on the concrete for
hours. My skin was now flat, not puffed up anymore. One or two layers had peeled off. Only
now did it become painful. A scorching sky was overhead. The flies swarmed over me and
covered my wounds, which were already festering. People were simply left lying around.
When their faint breathing became silent, they'd say, "This one's dead," and put the body in a
pile of corpses. Some called for water, and if they got it, they died immediately.
Mom came looking for me again. That's why I'm alive today. I couldn't walk anymore. I
couldn't see anymore. I was carried on a stretcher as far as Ujina, and then from there to an
island where evacuees were taken. On the boat there I heard voices saying, "Let them drink
water if they want. They'll die either way." I drank a lot of water. I spent the next year
bedridden. All my hair fell out. When we went to relatives' houses later they wouldn't even let
me in because they feared they'd catch the disease. There was neither treatment nor assistance
for me. Those people who had money, people who had both parents, people who had houses,
they could go to the Red Cross Hospital or the Hiroshima City Hospital. They could get
operations. But we didn't have any money. It was just my Mom and I. Keloids covered my
face, my neck. I couldn't even move my neck. One eye was hanging down. I was unable to
control my drooling because my lip had been burned off. I couldn't get any treatments at a
hospital, so my mother gave me massages. Because she did that for me, my keloids aren't as
bad as they would have been. My fingers were all stuck together. I couldn't move them. The
 85

only thing I could do was sew shorts, since I only needed to sew a straight line. I had to do
something to earn money.
The Japanese government just told us we weren't the only victims of the war. There was no
support or treatment. It was probably harder for my Mom. Once she told me she tried to choke
me to death. If a girl has terrible scars, a face you couldn't be born with, I understand that even
a mother could want to kill her child. People threw stones at me and called me Monster. That
was before I had my many operations. I only showed this side of my face, the right hand side,
when I had to face someone. Like I'm sitting now.
A decade after the bomb, we went to America. I was one of the twenty-five selected by
Norman Cousins [a magazine editor] to be brought to America for treatment and plastic
surgery. We were called the Hiroshima Maidens. The American government opposed us,
arguing that it would be acknowledging a mistake if they admitted us to America, but we were
supported by many civilian groups. We went to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and spent
about a year and a half undergoing treatment. I improved tremendously. I've now had thirty-
seven operations, including efforts at skin grafts.
When I went to America I had a deep hatred toward America. I asked myself why they ended
the war by a means which destroyed human beings. When I talked about how I suffered, I was
often told, "Well, you attacked Pearl Harbor!" I didn't understand much English then, and it's
probably just as well. From the American point of view, they dropped that bomb in order to
end the war faster, in order to create more damage faster. But it's inexcusable to harm human
beings in this way. I wonder what kind of education there is now in America about atomic
bombs. They're still making them, aren't they?
Herman Friderich Graebe, Account of a Holocaust Mass Shooting
I, the undersigned, Hermann Friedrich Graebe, make the following declaration under oath:
From September 1941 to January 1944 I was director and chief engineer of the Sdolbunow
branch of the Josef Jung Construction Company of Solingen. In this capacity I had, among my
other duties, to visit the firm's projects. Under the terms of a contract with the army
construction services, the company was to build grain warehouses on the old Dubno airfield in
the Ukraine.
On October 5, 1942, at the time of my visit to the construction offices in Dubno, my foreman,
Hubert Moennikes, living at 21 Aussenmühlenweg, HamburgHaarburg, told me that some
Dubno Jews had been shot near the building in three huge ditches about 30 metres long and 3
metres deep. The number of people killed daily was about 1,500. The 5,000 Jews who had
lived in Dubno before the Pogrom were all marked for liquidation. Since the executions took
place in the presence of my employee, he was painfully impressed by them.
Accompanied by Moennikes, I then went to the work area. I saw great mounds of earth about
30 metres long and 2 high. Several trucks were parked nearby. Armed Ukrainian militia were
making people get out, under the surveillance of SS soldiers. The same militia men were
responsible for guard duty and driving the trucks. The people in the trucks wore the regulation
yellow pieces of cloth that identified them as Jews on the front and back of their clothing.
Moennikes and I went straight toward the ditches without being stopped When we neared the
mound, I heard a series of rifle shots close by. The people from the trucks-men, women and
children-were forced to undress under the supervision of an SS soldier with a whip in his
hand. They were obliged to put their effects in certain spots: shoes, clothing, and under wear
separately. I saw a pile of shoes, about 8001,000 pairs, great heaps of underwear and clothing.
 86

Without weeping or crying out, these people undressed and stood together in family groups,
embracing each other and saying goodbye while waiting for a sign from the SS soldier, who
stood on the edge of the ditch, a whip in his hand, too.
During the fifteen minutes I stayed there, I did not hear a single complaint, or plea for mercy.
I watched a family of about eight: a man and woman about fifty years old, surrounded by their
children of about one, eight, and ten, and two big girls about twenty and twenty-four. An old
lady, her hair completely white, held the baby in her arms, rocking it, and singing it a song.
The infant was crying aloud with delight. The parents watched the groups with tears in their
eyes. The father held the ten year-old boy by the hand, speaking softly to him: the child
struggled to hold back his tears. Then the father pointed a finger to the sky, and, stroking the
child's head, seemed to be explaining something.
At this moment, the SS near the ditch called something to his comrade. The latter counted off
some twenty people and ordered them behind the mound. The family of which I have just
spoken was in the group. I still remember the young girl, slender and dark, who, passing near
me, pointed at herself, saying, "Twenty-three." I walked around the mound and faced a
frightful common grave. Tightly packed corpses were heaped so close together that only the
heads showed. Most were wounded in the head and the blood flowed over their shoulders.
Some still moved. Others raised their hands and turned their heads to show that they were still
alive. The ditch was two thirds full. I estimate that it held a thousand bodies. I turned my eyes
toward the man who had carried out the execution. He was an SS man; he was seated, legs
swinging, on the narrow edge of the ditch; an automatic rifle rested on his knees and he was
smoking a cigarette. The people, completely naked, climbed down a few steps cut in the clay
wall and stopped at the spot indicated by the SS man. Facing the dead and wounded, they
spoke softly to them. Then I heard a series of rifle shots. I looked in the ditch and saw their
bodies contorting, their heads, already inert, sinking on the corpses beneath. The blood flowed
from the nape of their necks.
I was astonished not to be ordered away, but I noticed two or three uniformed postmen
nearby. A new batch of victims approached the place. They climbed down into the ditch, lined
up in front of the previous victims, and were shot. On the way back, while rounding the
mound, I saw another full truck which had just arrived. This truck contained only the sick and
crippled. Women already naked were undressing an old woman with an emaciated body; her
legs frightfully thin. She was held up by two people and seemed paralyzed. The naked people
led her behind the mound. I left the place with Moennikes and went back to Dubno in a car.
The next morning, returning to the construction, I saw some thirty naked bodies lying thirty to
fifty yards from the ditch. Some were still alive; they stared into space with a set look,
seeming not to feel the coolness of the morning air; nor to see the workers standing around. A
young girl of about twenty spoke to me, asking me to bring her clothes and to help her escape.
At that moment we heard the sound of a car approaching at top speed; I saw that it was an SS
detachment. I went back to my work. Ten minutes later rifle shots sounded from the ditch The
Jews who were still alive had been ordered to throw the bodies in the ditch; then they had to
lie down themselves to receive a bullet in the back of the neck.
Memories of the Holocaust
[Sam Bankhalter's father was a manufacturer of Prefabricated wooden houses, a Hebrew
scholar; and an ardent Zionist who helped young Poles who wanted to go Palestine. Sam. was
running an errand for his father when. the Nazis caught him and sent him to Auschwitz].
 87

There was always anti-Semitism in Poland. The slogan even before Hitler was "Jew, get out of
here and go to Palestine." As Hitler came to power, there was not a day at school I was not
spit on or beaten up. I was at camp when the Germans invaded Poland. The camp directors
told us to find our own way home. We walked many miles with airplanes over our heads, dead
people on the streets. At home there were blackouts. I was just a kid, tickled to death when I
was issued a flashlight and gas mask. The Polish army was equipped with buggies and horses,
the Germans were all on tucks and tanks. The war was over in ten days.
THE GHETTO The German occupation was humiliation from day one. If Jewish people were
wearing the beard and sidecurls, the Germans were cutting the beard, cutting the sidecurls,
laughing at you, beating you up a little bit. Then the Germans took part of Lodz and put on
barbed and all the Jews had to assemble in this ghetto area. You had to leave in five or ten
minutes or half an hour, so you couldn't take much stuff with you. The Jewish community
chose my father to organize burials and clean up the streets, because dead people started
smelling on the streets. They brought in frozen Jewish soldiers, hundreds and hundreds. I
helped buy them.
AUSCHWITZ We were the first ones in Auschwitz. We built it. What you got for clothing
was striped pants and the striped jacket, no underwear, no socks. In Wintertime you put paper
in your shoes, and we used to take empty cement sacks and put a string in the top, put two
together, one in back and one in front, to keep warm. If they told you to do something, you
went to do it. There was no yes or no, no choices. I worked in the crematorium for about
eleven months. I saw Dr. Mengele's experiments on children, I knew the kids that became
vegetables.
I knew everybody, knew every trick to survive. I was one of the youngest in Auschwitz, and I
was like "adopted" by a lot of the older people, especially the fathers. Whole families came
into Auschwitz together, and you got to Dr. Mengele, who was saying "right, left, left, right,"
and you knew, right there, who is going to the gas chamber and who is not. Most of the men
broke down when they knew their wives and their kids— three-, five-, nine-year-olds—went
into the gas chambers. In fact, one of my brothers committed suicide in Auschwitz because he
couldn't live with knowing his wife and children are dead*
I was able to see my family when they came into Auschwitz in 1944. I had a sister, she had a
little boy a year old. Everybody that carried a child went automatically to the gas chamber, so
my mother took the child. My sister survived, but she still suffers, feels she was a part of
killing my mother.
I waved to my mother and I went over to my father and said, "Dad, where's God? They kill
rabbis, priests, ministers, the more religious, the faster they go! What has happened?" His only
answer to me was “This is the way God wants it.”
[Fred Baron was fifteen when the Germans marched into Vienna in 1938. His parents were
well-to-do assimilated Jews; both died in the Holocaust]
In March 1938 the Germans marched into Austria. What had evolved in Germany over five
years happened in Austria within a matter of weeks.
THE OCCUPATION One of my best friends became overnight an outspoken Austrian
Nationalist and an anti-Semite. I kicked out of high school. My father’s store was closed
down. Bank accounts where closed, people lost their jobs, Jews were not allowed to practice
as professionals. We were penniless, forced to share our apartment with other Jews, could not
go to any public building or any parks. We could not go to a library or movie. We were not
allowed to ride on public transportation except under certain conditions, and then only on the
 88

rear platform. We could not go into a store, except one hour a day. Even if we had money we
were not allowed to buy many things, including some foods, because they were just not sold
to Jews. I went to a soup kitchen every day to bring home our only meal.
September 1, 1939, war broke out with Poland, and after a few weeks they took Jewish people
on trains and dumped them in ghettoes in Polish cities. Many of our friends were taken this
way. My father saw his family, everything, going down the drain. He became very sick, and
there was no medical treatment for Jews, so he didn't get any treatment and soon died.
My mother and I were hiding one night here and one night there, with non-Jewish friends.
Anybody hiding a Jew was subject 10 terrible penalties, so to ask even a close friend to hide
you was not an easy thing to do. We also tried to hide in Jewish apartments where the people
were already deported. Then I found work at the railroad station and was given security for
myself and my mother. I worked carrying pig-iron on my shoulders.
In fall of 1941 the German extermination policy really got running. Transports to the east
were increasing, so my mother and I went over the border at night to Hungary.
In Hungary I was. trying to get legal documentation so we could get food stamps. I traveled to
a little town where somebody with connections was supposedly able to give us the necessary
papers. But a crime was committed in the town, and as soon as they saw me, a stranger, they
put me in jail. The judge said I was innocent but wanted to send me back to Austria! I tried to
explain that being sent back there was like a death sentence, and finally the judge dismissed
me because I had some papers from my father who was a volunteer and an officer in the
Austro-Hungarian army in the first World War. I was then given papers that I was a legal
resident of Hungary and could get food tickets.
Then the Hungarian authorities got hold of my mother and put her in jail in Budapest. Because
we entered the country without papers, they told her they would deport her unless I would join
her. This was December 1941. We were sent to an internment camp in northeastern Hungary.
There were separate buildings for men and women, but I saw my mother from time to time.
Later all the male Jews were sent to a prison camp near the Slovakian border, and my mother
was freed to live with relatives in Hungary. She sent me letters, a package containing some
clothing, even a cake. Then the Germans completed the occupation of Hungary in the spring
of 1944, my mother again was put into a camp, and that was the last I heard from her.
DEPORTATION I was marched with the local Jewish population—men, women, and
children— eight or ten hours, to a small railroad station. Nobody told us where we were
going. We were forced into railroad cars, 100 to 120 in one car, like sardines, without food,
without water, without any sanitary facility. The cars were sealed and we stood there for
maybe half a day before even moving. Finally, began the slow trip to nowhere. There were
children in our car, and old people. People got sick, died, and some went insane. It was an
absolute, indescribable hell. I really don 't know how many days and nights we were in that
living hell on wheels. When we finally stopped, they tore open the railroad cars and we were
blinded by light, because our eyes were just not used to light any more. We saw funny-looking
characters wearing striped pajama-like uniforms with matching caps, with great big sticks in
their hands. They were screaming and yelling in all languages to jump out of the cars. I didn’t
know where I was. All around us were barracks and barbed and wire and machine gun towers
and in the distance I .saw what looked like a huge factory with smoke coming out of the
chimneys. I noticed a peculiar smell in the air and also a fine dust, subduing the light. The
sunshine was not bright but there were birds singing. It was a beautiful day.
 89

We were marched through a meadow filled with yellow flowers and one of the fellows next to
me just turned and walked straight into the meadow. The guards cried out to him to stop, but
he didn't hear or he didn't want to. He just kept slowly marching into the meadow, and then
they opened up with machine guns and the man fell down dead. And that was my reception to
Auschwitz.
AUSCHWITZ We were separated, men and women, and formed rows of fives. I found myself
in front of a very elegantly dressed German officer. He was wearing boots and white gloves
and he carried a riding whip, and with the whip he was pointing left or right, left or right.
Whichever direction he pointed, guards pushed the person in front of him either left or right. I
was twenty-one years old and in pretty good shape, but older people were sent to the other
side and marched away.
We had to undress and throw away all belongings except our shoes. We were chased through
a cold shower, and we stood shivering in the night air until we were told to march to a
barracks. We were handed prisoner uniforms—a jacket, pants, and a sort of beanie—and a
metal dish. We didn't really know what happened yet. We were absolutely numb.
A non-Jewish kapo, an Austrian with a hard, weather-beaten face, told us, "You have arrived
at hell on earth." He had been in prison since 1938, and he gave us basic concepts on how to
stay alive.
"Don't trust anybody," he said, "don't trust your best friend. Look out for yourself. Be selfish
to the point of obscenity. Try and stay alive from one minute to the other one. Don't let down
for one second. Always try and find out where the nearest guards are and what they are doing.
Don’t volunteer for anything. And don’t get sick, or you will be a goner in no time.
Auschwitz was gigantic-rows and rows of barracks as far as the eye could see, subdivided by
double strings of electric barbed wire. There were Hungarians and Polish Jews and a great
number of Greeks, many Dutch Jews, some French, Germans. Food was our main interest in
life. In the morning we received what they called coffee, black water. We worked until noon,
then we got a bowl of soup. In the evening we received another bowl of either vegetable or
soup, a little piece of bread and sometimes a tiny piece of margarine or sugar or some kind of
sausage and that was the food for the day. Suicides happened all the time, usually by hanging
at night. One fellow threw himself in front of a truck. It just broke his arm, but the S.S. guards
beat him to pulp and in the morning he was dead. A tremendous number of transports were
coming in. The gas chambers could not keep up, so they were burning people in huge pits.
Some of the smaller children were thrown in alive. We could hear the screams day and night,
but sometimes the human mind can take just so much and then it just closes up and refuses to
accept what is happening just 100, 200 feet away.
Study Questions:
(1) How would the authors of these sources have defined heroism?
(2) How does Harold Baumgarten view D-Day? Does he see it as a success?
(3) What is Yamaoka Michiko’s view of the war? How does Hiroshima change it?
(4) What is her view of America and Americans? Does it change?
(5) What is Graebe’s attitude to the Jews? The SS? How do you think the experience of the
executions changed him?
(6) How di Fred Baron manage to escape Nazi captivity for so long?
(7) How did the prisoners survive in concentration camps?
(8) How are the accounts of Graebe and the prisoners different?
 90

Postscript
Arnold Toynbee, For the First Time in 30,000 Years (1972)

Till now, mankind has either taken it as a matter of course that it is going to survive, or, alternatively,
assumed that its destiny will be decided by forces beyond human control: the gods or God or Nature.
We have now woken up to the truth that, today, we are in greater danger of extinction than we have
been at any time since the date -perhaps 30,000 years ago-at which our ancestors gained the upper
hand over all other forms of life on this planet except microbes and viruses. In the present, age we
have discovered and conquered the microbes, and we have hopes of getting the better of the viruses.
But our recent victories over non-human menaces to human life ace far outweighed by new threats to
us from ourselves. These threats have no precedents; for man, armed with the power of science
applied to technology, is a vastly more formidable enemy for man than any non-human enemy that
man has yet encountered.

The present human threats to mankind’s survival are notorious, The three principal current man-made
menaces are nuclear weapons, the pollution of man- kind’s habitat on this planet, together with the
using up of the planet’s irreplaceable natural resources, and the population explosion produced by a
reduction in the death-rate without a simultaneous corresponding reduction in the birth-rate. Taken
together, these man-made menaces threaten mankind with extinction, because they threaten to make
the surface of our planet uninhabitable, and this limited area is the only habitat we have or are likely
ever to have. At least this seems to be the lesson of the progressive increase in the range of
astronomical observation and of the recent feat of breaking out into the nearest reaches of outer space
and the Moon- landing. The expenditure for this feat has been prodigious in terms of skill, manpower
and wealth, not to speak of the heroic daring of the handful of astronauts who have been catapulted
this distance at such fantastic cost per head.

The Moon is by far the nearest of the other stars to our planet. Like all those more distant stars of
which we have any knowledge, the Moon is uninhabitable by man; and, though the astronomers
guess, reasonably, that in the vast physical Universe there may be numbers of invisible planets in
other solar systems in our own galaxy or in other galaxies that would be habitable for us if we could
reach them, the same astronomers also warn that the nearest of these hypothetical habitable new
worlds may be thousands or millions of light-years from the Earth. The outlay that has been required
for excursions to Earth‘s nearest satellite tells us that, even if it became practicable technologically to
identify and reach another habitable planet, the cost would exceed the utmost resources mankind
could ever mobilize for expenditure on this enterprise.

This means that we have-to reckon with the probability-indeed, the virtual certainty-that man’s habitat
will be limited forever to its present and past confines, that is to say, to the habitable portion of the
surface of the Earth. This is, of course, an infinitesimally small area by comparison with the probable
aggregate area of the surfaces of other habitable but unreachable planets, which may or may not exist.
A more practical, and also more urgently relevant, measure of the smallness of man’s habitat on Earth
is that it is so small as to be now in danger of being made uninhabitable for man by man’s own action,
particularly by the cumulative effect of the three threats mentioned above. Measured in human terms,
the size of the Earth‘s surface is proportionate to the degree of man’s technological ability to exploit it
and to pollute it.

On this criterion, the surface of the Earth has been unlimited, and its material resources inexhaustible,
for its human inhabitants throughout all but the most recent age of human history. It is only within
living memory (my own memory, for instance) that any Westerner penetrated some parts of the
interior of Africa and of South America, and that any human being has reached the North and South
Poles. It is also within living memory that certain potential natural resources, e.g., plutonium, have
been made actual by science’s discovery of a practical human use for them and by technology’s
discovery of the means of harnessing them for human purposes. Yet, within the same short span of
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time, man’s ability to affect the Earth’s crust and its air-envelope has increased so enormously that it
has suddenly come within our power to make life on Earth impossible for our children and
grandchildren, and perhaps even already for ourselves in our own generation. In this unprecedented
situation with which we have been confronted abruptly by our own scientific and technological
prowess it is surely clear that the first business on mankind’s agenda ought now to be securing its own
survival by making sure that its habitat on Earth, which is mankind’s sole patrimony, should continue
to be habitable by human beings. It is also surely clear that, since the whole habitable and traversable
and exploitable and pollutable part of the Earth’s crust and air-envelope has been knit together, for
technological purposes, into a global unity, the necessary effort to conserve it for human use must be a
united and concerted effort by the whole human race. The menaces of nuclear armaments, pollution,
prodigality, and overcrowding threaten us on a global scale. They cannot be dealt with effectively by
a cooperative human effort of less than global comprehensiveness.

The technological unification of our habitat is now an accomplished fact. Its economic unification is
hardly less complete, and even its social and cultural unification has been accomplished at some
levels. This is the result of the global radiation during the last five centuries of West European
technology, trade, investment, government, population, institutions, ideas, and ideals. For the non-
Western majority of mankind, these West-Euro- pean exports were originally alien imports,
intrusions, and impositions, but gradually they have begun to become common possessions of all
mankind. From being something specifically Western, they are turning into something generically
modern, to which the living non-Western civilizations are making increasingly important
contributions. On the cultural and professional planes, there are now people who are already citizens
of the world-for instance, the members of the medical profession, and of university faculties and
student bodies. The global bond of feeling that unites people in these walks of life is stronger than
their juridical segregation from each other as citizens, in the political sense, of the planet’s present
140 local sovereign states. The present situation and, still more, the current tendency 01: the political
plane presents a disturbing contrast to the situation and tendency on other planes of human activity.
On these other planes, the history of human affairs during the last five hundred years has resulted in at
least a beginning of the process of unification which is the outcome that we should expect. On the
political plane, on the other hand, there has so far been little discernible progress toward unification.
Indeed, there has been a quite marked accentuation of political disunity, both in fact and in feeling.
This increasing disharmony between politics and other human activities has now reached a degree at
which it is manifestly threatening mankind with catastrophe. Why are we exposing ourselves to this
fearful risk? Why, in our political life, are we so allergic to the unifying tendency which has prevailed
in other fields? It is important to try to identify and understand the causes of this political misfit. To
lay bare the causes is the most promising first step toward finding a cure. The most obvious cause is
the persistent disunity of the Western civilization, since it is the Western peoples who, within the last
five hundred years, have initiated the global unification of mankind on a number of non-political
planes. Since the collapse of the Roman Empire in its western provinces in the fifth century, the new
Western civilization that has sprung up out of the Roman Empire’s ruins has been dis- united
politically, though united culturally, techno- logically and to some extent also economically.

This initial combination of political disunity with unity on other planes is not peculiar to the West.
Other civilizations-for instance, the Sumerian, the “classical” Greek, the Chinese-have started life
with the same cultural and political configuration. ,The peculiarity of the Western civilization’s
political dis- unity has been its persistence. Its predecessor, the “classical” Greek civilization, was
eventually unified politically in the Roman Empire, and similarly the Sumerian civilization in the
Akkadian Empire and the, Chinese civilization in the Chinese Empire a political union that survives
today, in the form of the People’s Republic, nearly 2,200 years after its original establishment in 221
B.C. Moreover, when the Roman Empire disintegrated in its western provinces, it survived in its
Levantine heartland; and when, in the seventh century, it broke down here too, it was quickly re-
established, first as the Byzantine Greek Empire and then as the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The Otto-
man Empire maintained itself till within living memory; it was not till after the First World War that it
was extinguished by the youngest of its national successor-states, the present Turkish Republic.
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These examples indicate that normally a cultural unity becomes a political unity as well-in course of
time. But, if this is the normal rule, the political history of the Western civilization has been a
conspicuous exception to it so far. In the West, the Roman Empire was replaced first by a number of
local successor-states carved out by invading barbarian war-bands; and here, in contrast to the Levant,
the attempt to re-establish the Roman Empire was a failure. The so-called “Holy Roman Empire”. of
Charlemagne and his successors never embraced the whole of the contemporary domain of the
Western civilization, and its authority became more and more ineffective. The “Holy Roman Empire”
was defeated by the medieval Papacy, but the Papacy’s apparently promising attempt to unify the
West under ecclesiastical auspices failed in its turn. In the Western Middle Ages, the most effective
forms of political organization were the local city-states in Italy, Flanders, and Germany. In the
modern age of Western history, the nation-state has supplanted the city-state as the standard form of
Western polity. The global unification of mankind on the non-political planes within the last five
hundred years has been accomplished through a competition between half-a- dozen rival West
European nation-states-each of them expanding its trade, planting its settlers, and annexing territory
all around the globe in chronic warfare with each of the others.

This political division of the modern Westerners into a. number of mutually hostile nation-states has
now been imitated by the non-Western majority of mankind. During the two centuries and a half that
ended in the two world wars, the West was manifestly dominant in the world. Consequently, Western
institutions acquired prestige. Non-Western peoples who revolted against Western domination
adopted the Western political ideology of nationalism be- cause they believed this had been the source
of the West’s strength. The dissolution of the West European national states’ colonial empires during
and since the Second World War has resulted in a doubling of the number of the world’s local
sovereign independent states. Each formerly subject territory that has recovered its political
independence has set itself up as a national state in imitation of the Western national state whose rule
it has shaken off. The tendency to increase the number and to reduce the average size of local
sovereign states has been stimulated, both in the West and elsewhere, by the nineteenth-century
Western political doctrine of self-determination. . .

Nationalism is the most potent of the causes of the political disunity of the pres- ent-day world.
Another cause is a revulsion from the impersonalness of modem life. Today, human beings feel that
they are being dehumanized; they are being reduced to ciphers, to serial numbers, or to clusters of
holes punched in cards made for “processing” through a computer. People recognize that this de-
humanization is a consequence of the increase in the number of persons and things, e.g., in the size of
the populations of states. They know by experience that personal relations between human beings are
more satisfactory than impersonal relations. They infer that life would become more human in a state
in which it was possible for all the citizens to be acquainted with each other personally, and they
argue from this premise that the breakup of states into smaller and smaller pieces is to be welcomed.
The premise is correct, but the conclusion drawn from it is fallacious because the objective is
unattainable. A sovereign independent state small enough to become a family affair would not be
viable. No state-not even a non-sovereign component of a federation-has ever been as small as that. In
the smallest of the historical city-states, the political relations between the citizens have always been
impersonal. They are inevitably impersonal in a population of, say, as many as 10,OOO men, women,
and children all told; when once this figure is reached, it makes no difference if it is increased to one
million or to ten million or to five hundred million. Present-day Scottish and Welsh nationalists dream
that they would find life more cosy in a separate Scottish or Welsh sovereign national state, In truth,
they would find themselves no less depersonalized in a state of this smaller scale than they find
themselves today as citizens of the United Kingdom.

On the whole, it looks as if the tendency to preserve and enlarge existing local states is prevailing over
the tendency to split them up. However, even if this impression were to be borne out by the future
course of events, this would not give us the answer to the question with which the present article is
concerned. Our question is whether or not mankind is going to achieve, in time to avert a catastrophe,
the minimum necessary degree of political unification on a global scale. We have to ask ourselves
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whether the global political unification which is the alternative to a catastrophe is likely to be helped
or to be hindered by partial political unifications on a less than global scale. Even the domains and the
populations of the present three superpowers and of an expanded E.E.C. are small compared to the
size of mankind and of mankind’s total habitat on the surface of the Earth, large though the
superpowers’ domains and populations are by comparison with those of France, Britain, Italy, and
each of the two Germanys, not to speak of Scotland or Wales or Iboland or Wallonia or the French-
speaking part of Canada. Moreover, the three superpowers have been much more concerned so far to
compete perversely with each other than to co- operate for the constructive purpose of putting the
world in order and securing the survival of mankind. The present superpowers have been repeating, in
a larger arena, the narrowhearted and shortsighted behavior through which the competition between
earlier sets of rival powers brought previous civilizations to grief. In most previous cases, political
unity has been im- posed eventually by military conquest. The cost, psychological as well as physical,
of this barbarous method of unification has proved, again and again, to .be prohibitively high.
Unification by conquest has sometimes postponed the dissolution of a civilization, but it has seldom
averted it and, insofar as the dissolution of a forcibly unified civilization has been postponed, the
civilization has been preserved in most cases only in a state of petrification. However, in the age of
atomic weapons by which mankind has now been overtaken, the traditional violent method of
unification is no longer practicable anyway. A world war fought with atomic weapons could not unify
mankind; it would only annihilate it. In the atomic age, the only possible method of unification is
some form of voluntary association.

It has been noted already that since 1945-the year in which the Second World War culminated and
ended in the invention and use of atomic weaponry- some of the sovereign national states of Western
Europe have taken the radically new departure of entering into a voluntary association in the E.E.C.
This is a good augury, considering how deeply ingrained is ,nationalism in the tradition of Western
European peoples and how often one or other of them has tried to subjugate the rest by force. If the
Western European peoples can unite with each other voluntarily, as they are now demonstrating they
can,’ a voluntary union of all mankind, on a global scale is not a utopian objective.

The objective is not utopian, but will it be achieved? That is to say, will it be achieved in time to avert
the catastrophe which is the alternative to it? This question will be answered by the three present
superpowers; their answer is still unknown-probably even to themselves. Will the superpowers’
governments and peoples recognize in time that the winning of successes in their competition with
each other is not the paramount interest of any one of them? Will they recognize that their paramount
interest is the preservation of the human race; that this interest is common to them all and also to the
rest of mankind; and that the pursuit of this objective is not only their interest but their duty, both to
themselves and to their fellow men? If and when the views and intentions of the superpowers become
clear, we shall be better able than we are today to forecast the future of mankind. Today we know
only that mankind’s future is once again in doubt for the first time perhaps within the last 30,000
years.

Bernard Lewis, Eurocentrism Revisited (1994)

Europe, Asia, and Africa are the three continents into which, by ancient tradition, the world was
divided. . .

. . . the inhabitants of Asia and Africa did not share this perception, and as far as the evidence goes,
they were as unaware of being Asians and Africans as the inhabitants of pre-Columbian America were
unaware of being Americans. They first became aware of this classification when it was brought to
them—and at some times and in some places imposed on them—by Europeans. . .

Europe became Europe. Europe discovered and in a sense created America, since every polity in the
western hemisphere, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, was founded on a European model and
expresses itself in a European language. But Europe neither created nor discovered Asia and Africa. It
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invented them, and it is a supreme irony of our own time that in a wave of revolt against
Eurocentrism, so many non-Europeans have adopted this ultimately Eurocentric view of the world,
and defined themselves by the identity which Europeans imposed on them. . .

The oceanic voyages of the European explorers around Africa to Asia, across the Atlantic to the
Americas, created, for the first time in history, a new unity among all the continents, bringing all of
them into contact with one another and preparing the way for a global interchange of foodstuffs and
commodities, plants and domestic animals, knowledge and ideas.

There was also a negative side. These new intercontinental lines of communication made possible an
interchange of diseases between the eastern and western hemispheres, sometimes leading to the
emergence of virulent new strains, calling for new diagnoses and remedies. These could be social as
well as medical, such as, for example, the new strain of slavery added to the numerous and
widespread slave institutions of both the Old and the New Worlds.

Although it was known in medieval Europe, slavery was of minor importance there, far less
significant in the social and economic life of Europe than it was in pre-Columbian America or in
Muslim and non-Muslim Africa. The meeting of all these different cultures gave rise to a new
variant—that known as colonial slavery. The inventiveness and cupidity of Europe, learning from and
drawing on the plantation systems and the slave trade of Africa and the Islamic world, developed this
variant. Colonial slavery and the seaborne slave trade became major factors in the crisscrossing
interchanges among the four shores of the Atlantic—Western Europe, Western Africa, North
America, South America.

But it was Europe and its daughters, too, that first decided to set the slaves free—at home, then in the
colonies, finally in all the world. Western technology made slavery unnecessary; Western ideas made
it intolerable. There have been many slaveries; there was only one abolition, which eventually
shattered even the rooted and ramified slave systems of the Old World.

In all this, as in much else, the discovery of America, for better or for worse, was a turning point in
human history, and an essential part of the transition to a modernity that began in Europe and was
carried all over the world by European discoverers, conquerors, missionaries, colonists, and, let us not
forget, refugees. Far more than the final Christian reconquest of Muslim Spain under Ferdinand and
Isabella, the contemporary discovery of America ensured, in the long run, the triumph of Europe over
its enemies.

The mines of the New World gave European Christendom gold and silver to finance its trade, its wars,
and its inventions. The fields and plantations of the Americas gave it new resources and commodities,
and enabled Europeans, for the first time, to trade with the Muslims and others as equals, and,
ultimately, as superiors. And the very encounter with strange lands and peoples, unknown to history
and scripture alike, contributed mightily to the breaking of intellectual molds, and the freeing of the
human mind and spirit.

_____________

Why then did the peoples of Europe embark on this vast expansion and, by conquest, conversion, and
colonization, attempt to create a Eurocentric world? Was it, as some believe, because of some deep-
seated, perhaps hereditary vice—some profound moral flaw?

The question is unanswerable because it is wrongly posed. In setting out to conquer, subjugate, and
despoil other peoples, the Europeans were merely following the example set them by their neighbors
and predecessors, and indeed conforming to the common practice of mankind. In particular, their
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attack on the neighboring lands of Islam in Africa and Asia was a clear case of be-done-by-as-you-
did. The interesting questions are not why they tried, but why they succeeded—and then why, having
succeeded, they repented of their success as of a sin. The success was unique in modern times; the
repentance, in all of recorded history.

The attempt was due to their common humanity; their success to some special qualities inherent in the
civilization of Europe and its daughters and deficient or lacking in others. No doubt the Europeans
had the mixture of appetite, ferocity, smugness, and sense of mission which are essential to the
imperial mood, and which they shared with their various imperial predecessors. But they also had
something else, which today both the former conquerors, and those whom they conquered and then
relinquished, might find it useful to examine.

It has now become customary to designate the larger civilization of which Europe is the source and
America the leader as “the West.” In addition to its obvious geographical denotation, this word
originally had two overlapping but somewhat different meanings. In its first meaning, the word
denoted a military alliance against the Soviet Union, an alliance that included some countries sharing
few or none of the basic values of the West and linked to it only by strategic necessity; in its second,
the word denoted a comity of like-minded nations sharing certain basic values concerning freedom
and decency and human rights, and including neutrals who wished no part of the anti-Soviet alliance.

Today, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, a new, larger, and perhaps
even greater Europe may emerge. The West, no longer hemmed in by military needs and constraints,
may also aspire to yet greater achievements. But for the moment, among the Europeans and among
their children and disciples, especially in North America, the mood of greed and self-confidence has
given way to one of satiety, guilt, and doubt.

Doubt is good and, indeed, is one of the mainsprings of Western civilization. It undermines the
certitudes that in other civilizations and in earlier stages of our own have fettered thought, weakened
or ended tolerance, and prevented the emergence of that cooperation of opponents that we call
democracy. It leads to questioning and thus to discoveries, and to new achievements and new
knowledge, including the knowledge of other civilizations.

On the other hand, guilt in the modern sense—not a legal decision, but a mental condition—is
corrosive and destructive, and is an extreme form of that arrogant self-indulgence that is the deepest
and most characteristic flaw of our Western civilization. To claim responsibility for all the ills of the
world is a new version of the “white man’s burden,” no less flattering to ourselves, no less
condescending to others, than that of our imperial predecessors, who with equal vanity and absurdity
claimed to be the source of all that was good.

_____________

A word that is much heard nowadays is “multiculturalism.” Indeed, all cultures have their
achievements—their art and music, philosophy and science, literature and styles of life, and other
contributions to the advancement of humankind—and there can be no doubt that knowledge of these
would benefit us and enrich our lives. The recognition of this infinite human variety, and of the need
to study and learn from it, is indeed one of the West’s most creative innovations. For it is only the
West that has developed this curiosity about other cultures, this willingness to learn their languages
and study their ways, to appreciate and to respect their achievements.

The other great civilizations known to history have all, without exception, seen themselves as self-
sufficient, and regarded the outsider, and even the subculture or low-status insider, with contempt, as
barbarians, Gentiles, untouchables, unbelievers, foreign devils, and other more intimate, less formal
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terms of opprobrium. Only under the pressure of conquest and domination did they make the effort to
learn the languages of other civilizations and, in self-defense, try to understand the ideas and the ways
of the current rulers of their world. They would learn, in other words, from those whom they were
constrained to recognize as their masters, in either sense or both, as rulers or as teachers. By contrast,
the special combination of unconstrained curiosity concerning the Other, and unforced respect for his
otherness, remains a distinctive feature of Western and Westernized cultures, and is still regarded with
bafflement and anger by those who neither share nor understand it.

We of the West have often failed catastrophically in respect for those who differ from us, as our
dismal record of wars and persecutions may attest. But such respect is something for which we have
striven as an ideal, and in which we have achieved some success, both in practicing it ourselves and in
imparting it to others. It is surely significant that in the late 1970’s and 1980’s refugees fleeing from
Vietnam made for the crowded island of Hong Kong—the one spot in all East Asia where a Western
government still ruled, and where they could therefore count on the certainty of public scrutiny and
concern, and the consequent hope, however slight, of help.

Imperialism, sexism, and racism are words of Western coinage—not because the West invented these
evils, which are, alas, universal, but because the West recognized and named and condemned them as
evils and struggled mightily, and not entirely in vain, to weaken their hold and to help their victims.
If, to borrow a phrase, Western culture does indeed “go,” imperialism, sexism, and racism will not go
with it. More likely casualties will be the freedom to denounce them and the effort to end them.

It may be that Western culture will indeed go: the lack of conviction of many of those who should be
its defenders, the passionate intensity of its accusers, may well join to complete its destruction. But if
it does go, the men and women of all the continents will thereby be impoverished and endangered.

Study Questions

(1) What does Arnold Toynbee see as the most serious man-made menaces to mankind’s
survival?
(2) According to him, how do recent political trends around the world differ from technological,
cultural, and economic trends? What disturbs him about that state of affairs?
(3) For him, what is the most important cause of political disunity? What is his view of modern
nationalism?
(4) Does Toynbee end his essay on an optimistic or pessimistic note? Discuss the significance of
recent events for his argument?
(5) What does Bernard Lewis see as the negative and positive effects of the West on the world?
(6) Explain and discuss his interpretation of the meaning of “multiculturalism.”